AUBURN — Androscoggin County District Attorney Andrew S. Robinson laid out a proposal to county commissioners Wednesday night to consolidate his two offices on both sides of the river into a single office on Lisbon Street in Lewiston next to the District Court Building.

The space Robinson believes best supports the needs of his office and is economically feasible is the second floor of 55 Lisbon St. — the granite Depositors Trust Building.

Currently, the district attorney has offices in the Androscoggin County Courthouse in Auburn and at the District Court building in Lewiston. But the district attorney is facing a dilemma on how best to manage the court files when Androscoggin County converts to a Unified Criminal Docket on July 6.

“The UCD throws a monkey wrench into it that is so large that we have to figure out what we’re going to do,” Robinson said.

The UCD will streamline the criminal cases for the two-tiered court system — Superior Court and District Court — into a single docket for both felony and misdemeanor charges. All cases will initially begin in Lewiston. Felony cases heading to trial will later move to Superior Court in Auburn.

But with the misdemeanor and felony files in two different offices, the ability to move files back and forth becomes a logistical nightmare, Robinson said.

The trial assistants are now required to shuttle files back and forth between the offices. That process takes roughly 30 minutes, Robinson said.

“The No. 1 complaint they had was, ‘I’m spending all of my time between the offices,'” Robinson said.

The other major issue is the lack of space in each office.The office in Auburn has 1,826 square feet while the office in the District Courthouse in Lewiston has 2,076 square feet. The Auburn office space will soon get even smaller when the court takes back one of the rooms the DA was using for a trial assistant.

They are also running out of space for the paperwork.

With nine attorneys, 12 staff members and a couple of volunteer interns, Robinson figured he would need more than 5,000 square feet of space.

“The UCD and the space issues are really what is pulling the cart here. That’s the issue,” Robinson said.

To look for space, Robinson had three priorities — one office, a location near the District Courthouse and everyone on the same floor. Several Lisbon Street buildings he looked at required major indoor renovations. With the help of realtor Kevin Fletcher of Malone Commercial Brokers, the second floor of 55 Lisbon St. met all of the criteria, Robinson said.

The floor was already converted into office space and the building owner agreed to perform up to $25,000 in work to complete needed improvements. 

At $8 per square foot, the 10-year lease would begin at $50,000 plus a portion of the real estate taxes and electricity. The lease would also include renewal options.

“It fixes a lot of the issues that exist for the District Attorney’s Office,” Robinson said.

With the county already paying rent for the office space in District Court, which is being paid at $14 per square foot, that money could be applied to the new office, Robinson said. The county would need to pay, by his estimate, roughly $38,000 a year.

He suggested two other possible sources of income to help pay for the new office. The UCD would allow deferred supervision payments from District Court cases, which isn’t available now. Currently, deferred supervision payments from Superior Court bring the county approximately $30,000 a year.

Also, Robinson said a new statute allows money in the extradition account, which largely comes from defaulted bail, to also be used to pay for witness fees before being turned over to the state’s general fund. That would free up funds already set aside for witness fees in the district attorney’s budget.

The county commissioners will take up the matter at their meeting July 1.

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