The historic Howard County Courthouse stands high above Old Ellicott City on the valley’s steep north slope.

Completed in 1843, the original Greek Revival structure, built from granite quarried nearby, features pilasters, cornices and a cupola. It was expanded nearly a century later and was used until 2021 when the courts moved to a modern building a couple of miles south.

The old courthouse has sat vacant since but soon will become a community gathering place once more. The structure is being transformed into an 80,000-square-foot center for arts, culture and history that will open sometime next year.

The county has secured more than $15 million for the project through a mix of federal, state and county funds, according to a county spokesperson. That includes $400,000 that the county received last month through the Maryland Department of Housing and Community Development’s State Revitalization Programs, which support redevelopment and revitalization projects.

“This partnership at the county, state and federal level will ensure that the building is transformed into a vibrant and active arts and cultural hub in Historic Ellicott City,” said Safa Hira, director of communications for County Executive Calvin Ball’s office.

Ball said in a statement last month that the funds “will allow us to continue forward in transforming our historic Circuit Courthouse in Old Ellicott City into a vibrant hub for arts and culture.”

Ball announced the plans for the courthouse project in the fall of 2023.

The county received some 600 comments about how the courthouse could be reimagined, with responses overwhelmingly falling into the buckets of civic and community uses, arts and cultural programming, food-related uses and a gathering space.

Plans were made to transform the courthouse into a shared space for the county’s first-ever Asian American and Pacific Island Cultural Center, the Howard County Center for the Arts, Roving Radish — a county program focused on promoting healthy farm-to-table eating habits — and a shared commercial kitchen space.

“A centerpiece of our treasured Old Ellicott City, our historic Circuit Courthouse stands as a pillar of history in Howard County that we must preserve and breathe new life into,” Ball said in a May statement.

County Council Chair Liz Walsh, whose district includes Old Ellicott City, called the revitalization of the courthouse “fantastic.”

“I think it will be great for the town,” Walsh said. “It keeps foot traffic there and brings new people in Old Ellicott City who haven’t spent time here before.”

Walsh is excited about the juxtaposition of the arts center and AAPI center as well as the melding of old and new.

The old courthouse dates to 1840, about 68 years after the mill town’s founding. Howard County purchased the land from a local tavern owner, according to the Library of Congress. The courthouse was completed three years later.

Nearly a century later, in 1938, as the courthouse continued to outgrow itself, an addition was built.

Historic buildings are often converted into museums, but not all of them are suitable.

“That’s what’s so exciting about what they are doing with the courthouse. They are not just breathing new life into the courthouse but into a whole section of Old Ellicott City,” said Nick Redding, president and CEO of Preservation Maryland, in an interview.

“Ellicott City is no stranger to revitalization of older buildings,” Redding said. “General stores and artisans shops have transitioned to become restaurants, antique stores and salons. It’s exciting to see the county make that investment and be forward thinking.”

Preservation Maryland, a nonprofit that works to protect historic buildings, stories and communities across the state, is working on its own Ellicott City project in partnership with the county next to the courthouse: the historic jail complex.

Built in the 1850s, the historic jail was used until the early 1980s. From November 1852 to November 1864, enslaved people attempting to escape or anyone charged with aiding such an escape were held in the jail, according to the Library of Congress.

The nonprofit is working to transform the jail into its new headquarters and an education center. There also will be an outdoor commemorative landscape where visitors can learn about the jail’s history of incarceration and documented racial lynchings, Redding said.

“The project at the jail is really serious about all of the history that transpired on the site,” said Redding, adding that this history is currently unmarked.

County officials held a “wall-breaking” ceremony in the old courthouse in May, kicking off the remodel by starting to tear down one of its interior walls.

“Although no longer serving Maryland’s judiciary system, this new visionary community center will allow this historic building to gain new meaning as a mecca of the arts, a cultural hub for Howard County’s Asian American and Pacific Islander community, headquarters to our award-winning Roving Radish program and a community space that supports our budding culinary entrepreneurs,” Ball said at the time.

The Howard County Art Council currently manages the Howard County Center for the Arts in a former elementary school a couple of miles away across the Baltimore National Pike. About 40,000 people visit the center each year.

The new space will transform former courtrooms into galleries, a “black box theater” — a simple square room with black walls — and a dance studio. Judges’ chambers and offices will become additional studios for resident art organizations, according to the Arts Council.

The future Asian American and Pacific Island Cultural Center will serve an Asian population that Census figures show now comprises more than 20% of the county’s population.

The center will offer a dance and martial arts studio, offices, a lounge and social area as well as exhibit space. It also will serve as a one-stop referral center for Asian residents, a place where they can access social programs and get assistance with registering to vote and becoming citizens.

The third piece of the renovated courthouse will be the new headquarters for Roving Radish, a county program that makes meal kits filled with locally and regionally grown foods. The meal kits are available for purchase to anyone who lives, works or plays in Howard County.

Staffers will prepare, package and sell meal kits but also provide space for the new Roving Radish Mobile Market. This initiative will bring fresh produce and proteins to county residents at various stops weekly.

Roving Radish also will manage the center’s shared commercial kitchen, providing opportunities for small businesses to rent kitchen space by the hour. The shared kitchen space will include refrigerator and freezer storage and dry storage, among other things.

Cooking classes can take place in a new demonstration kitchen.

County officials expect to finish work on the new arts, cultural and history center and have it fully occupied sometime in 2026.