Two buildings joined together make up the Maricopa County Courthouse and Old Phoenix City Hall, also known as the County-City Administration Building. This is not a single tower but two buildings joined together, sharing the same architecture, the product of a joint effort by Maricopa County and the City of Phoenix. It was conceived as a “monumentally scaled” presence, taking up a full city block downtown to hold the growing machinery of government.
Before this effort, county business happened in an imposing two-story brick building on Block 76 completed in 1884, and city business in the 1889 Phoenix City Hall designed by James M. Creighton, which even doubled as the territorial capital until 1901. Growth made change inevitable: on April 28, 1927 the county board of supervisors passed a resolution declaring the courthouse and jail no longer adequate and that additional space was needed. Stand here and imagine the conversations that led to that 1927 decision, the practical urgency behind replacing the cramped 1884 and 1889 facilities.
Across this full city block, the two conjoined buildings share one architecture, and that shared face is the story of growth and partnership between city and county.