City, County Hope to Get G. Ross Anderson Federal Courthouse
Greg Wilson/Anderson Observer
On Thursday, the U.S. General Services Administration added the G. Ross Anderson Jr. Federal Building and United States Courthouse, on McDuffie Street in downtown Anderson to its list of federal real estate available for disposition, initiating a process that could result in the property’s transfer, exchange or sale to another government entity or to the public.
The listing comes as federal court operations in Anderson are being consolidated into Greenville, where the Carroll A. Campbell Jr. U.S. Courthouse is expected to absorb more of the regional workload.,
Anderson County and the City of Anderson are each pursuing the opportunity to take ownership of the building. Their parallel interest in the courthouse suggests that, even as the federal government reduces its presence there, the building’s civic afterlife may be determined locally.
Anderson County Administrator Rusty Burns said the county is working to secure the building.
“We are doing what we can in requesting the county be allowed to get the building,” Burns said. “It’s an important building and we would like to take ownership of it.”
Burns said the county’s central concern is preserving the historic character of the structure. County officials are reviewing the restrictions that come with the building’s historic designation and considering what uses may be permitted. One possibility, he said, is that the building could continue to serve a judicial purpose as a courthouse.
The county also hopes the transfer could occur without a purchase price. Burns pointed to the May 2024 transfer of Aiken’s Charles E. Simons Jr. Federal Courthouse to Aiken County, which received that property at no cost.
The City of Anderson is also applying to assume control of the building, according to City Administrator David McCuen. His argument is partly practical and partly philosophical: a public building, long central to downtown Anderson, should remain in local hands.
“The main point is it’s a federal building, historic in nature and a building of the people that should be returned to the citizens of Anderson,” McCuen said.
The city is exploring allowable uses, including courtroom space for municipal court and law-enforcement functions.
Burns said the city and county could also share space — an arrangement that would preserve the building’s public character while allowing two local governments to make use of it.
At this stage, no plan is assured. GSA’s announcement is the first step in a disposition process that includes engagement with stakeholders and could lead to a federal, state or local transfer, an exchange, a sale or eventual public disposition.
The federal government expects that disposing of the property will eliminate $2.2 million in delinquent and annual maintenance costs. The move is part of a broader federal strategy to assess underused buildings and reduce the government’s real-estate holdings, so that taxpayers are no longer carrying the cost of vacant or underutilized office space.
“GSA supports the Administration’s priorities to right size the federal footprint and continues to pursue a disciplined, data-driven approach to divestment decisions,” Paige Warren, assistant commissioner for GSA’s Office of Portfolio Management, said in a statement. “This disposition process will help ensure the building’s future use is considered thoughtfully and in the best interest of taxpayers.”
Still, the building is not merely excess square footage. It is one of those structures whose civic significance survives the shifting bureaucracies that occupy it.
The courthouse was built in 1938 as a post office and courthouse, with offices for tax collectors. It joined the National Register of Historic Places in 1971, a designation that recognizes the building not just as an example of public architecture but as a durable part of Anderson’s civic identity.
In 2002, it was renamed for Judge G. Ross Anderson Jr., the Anderson native and longtime U.S. district judge whose name now provides the building with an enduring personal association. Anderson was born in 1929, practiced law in his hometown, served briefly in the South Carolina House of Representatives and was appointed to the federal bench by President Jimmy Carter after a recommendation from U.S. Sen. Fritz Hollings.
He served as a U.S. district judge for the District of South Carolina from 1980 through 2016 and later received the Order of the Palmetto. His name on the building offers a kind of civic continuity: even if the daily business of federal court recedes, the structure will continue to bear the name of a judge whose career was closely tied to the region.
The building also contains “Corn, Cotton and Tobacco Culture,” a New Deal-era mural by Arthur Sinclair Covey. The artwork is part of the federal government’s historic collection, and GSA said it will work with its Historic Preservation and Fine Arts Programs to protect both the building and the mural during the disposition process.
The mural, the judge’s name, the stone and the corridors all preserve evidence of a repository of accumulated public life with a history of hearings, filings, arguments, judgments, jury service, the slow rituals through which government becomes visible to ordinary people
The courthouse has spent nearly nine decades adapting to the changing needs of the government. Its next chapter may be written not by federal judges or tax collectors, but by Anderson’s local institutions — and by the question of whether a building designed for public service can remain, in a new form, a building of the people.
WPA mural in G. Ross Anderson Federal Courthouse.
