The County Has an Architect and a Deadline. It Still Doesn't Have a Price.
By Sam Holloway · July 28, 2026
Magnolia pays county taxes like everybody else in Montgomery County. If a courthouse bond lands on the November ballot, the number on it will have existed for a matter of weeks.
On July 9, Montgomery County commissioners voted unanimously to hire Brinkley, Sargent, Wiginton Architects, a Dallas firm, for a proposed new justice center and courthouse. That vote followed a 4-1 decision on March 26 to go looking for an architect in the first place. What the county does not have, as of this week, is a public cost estimate.
Charlie Goodman, an architect with the firm, told commissioners the work of producing one would start immediately. His words: "We would start immediately on giving you cost estimates, imagery and so on, to get you a number."
Getting to a number is now a race against the calendar. A county cannot call a bond election whenever it likes. Texas sets a window before an election date, and for the November 3 general election that window closes around the middle of August. County officials have said the project estimate needs to be in hand before roughly August 15 for a bond to make the ballot. Ballot wording and the proposed project cost both have to be settled by then.
Do the subtraction. The architect started July 9. The deadline is mid-August. That is about five weeks to turn a facility study into a dollar figure that voters in Magnolia, Dobbin and Montgomery would be asked to approve borrowing against.
Why the county says it needs one. The current courthouse at 301 N. Thompson Street in Conroe went up in 1938. The last serious attempt at a rebuild was 1997. County officials point to growing caseloads and overcrowding, and the county has kept adding courts: the newer 523rd Criminal District Court alone runs about $1.5 million a year to operate. At the March meeting, 457th District Judge Vince Santini and 284th District Judge Kristin Bays told commissioners the next step was settling on a site.
County Judge Mark Keough said in March that a decision on financing would come later. Later is now roughly two weeks out.
What to watch. Commissioners Court meets at 501 N. Thompson St. in Conroe. The agenda item to watch for between now and mid-August is a cost estimate paired with ballot language. If both appear and the court votes to call the election, Montgomery County voters get about eleven weeks with the number before early voting. If they don't appear, the courthouse question waits for a later election date, and the county keeps operating a building that predates the Second World War.
Editor's note on format: We chose straight reporting here because the record is a calendar. The votes, the dates and the statutory deadline are all public and none of them have a second side. The underlying question, whether the county should build a new courthouse and how much residents should borrow to do it, is a contested community decision. If commissioners call a bond with a dollar figure attached, we will run that proposition in our two-column format, strongest case on each side, and let you decide.
Sources: KSAM 101.7's July 13, 2026 report on the July 9 Commissioners Court vote selecting Brinkley, Sargent, Wiginton Architects, including the quotation from architect Charlie Goodman and the pre-August-15 estimate deadline; Community Impact's March 24 and March 27, 2026 reporting on the 4-1 vote to advertise for architect services, the 1938 courthouse, the 1997 rebuild attempt, the $1.5 million annual operating cost of the 523rd Criminal District Court, and the statements by County Judge Mark Keough, 457th District Judge Vince Santini and 284th District Judge Kristin Bays. No official cost estimate for the proposed justice center had been made public as of this edition. If a figure has been released since, write us and we will publish it. Corrections to newsroom@themagnoliastandard.news.