Ballston Spa village court leaves Bath Street building

The Ballston Spa village court has moved out of its building at 30 Bath Street after engineers found water damage, apparent mold and a chimney pulling away from the wall. Under agreements that took effect Sunday, Sept. 27, regular court sessions are held at the Saratoga County complex at 40 McMaster Street and arraignments at the Milton Town Court. The village board approved four resolutions for the move on Wednesday, Sept. 23, according to Saratoga TODAY.

Mayor Frank Rossi announced the closure in a Facebook post on Tuesday, Sept. 22, after engineers from Laberge Group reviewed the building following reports of unsafe exterior conditions, The Daily Gazette reported. Part of the building’s perimeter was barricaded, and the engineers recommended moving court and office operations to temporary space.

Where to go now

Anyone with a case in the Ballston Spa village court should expect notices with the new locations. Under the resolutions, the court’s work is split across three addresses from Sept. 27 through March 31, 2027.

• Regular court sessions: the Saratoga County Board of Supervisors meeting room in the county complex at 40 McMaster Street.
• Arraignments: the Town of Milton court at 345 Rowland Street.
• Court records and administrative work: leased space at 199 Milton Avenue, units 5 and 11. If the Milton court cannot take an arraignment, it can be held there, with extra police on hand because the space is not set up for it.

Rossi told the Gazette that each space-use agreement runs six months, which gives the village time to come up with a longer-term plan. He credited County Administrator Steve Bulger and his staff for offering the county space so court could continue without a break.

What the engineers found

Rossi’s post listed the problems that led to the closure, as summarized by Saratoga TODAY.

• Water getting in at the roof, the cornice and the fascia, with substantial damage at the rear of the building.
• Apparent mold and a musty smell throughout.
• A south chimney that had separated from the building wall.
• A furnace vent tied into that chimney that could not be confirmed as intact.

Crews took the chimney down the next day. Rossi said the building is unsafe to occupy but that there is no concern about the exterior falling on anyone. “The bell tower is definitely caving a little bit internally,” he told Saratoga TODAY, which is why staff were moved out and why the village is working to get files and records out for good. The Gazette reported that the village planned to reopen the alley next to the building once the chimney was down.

The timing of the special meeting was driven partly by public works. Rossi told the Gazette that holding the vote that week let the Department of Public Works help move files and equipment before crews turned to street paving scheduled for this week.

Questions at the special meeting

All four resolutions passed unanimously at the 3 p.m. special meeting at Village Hall. During public comment, speakers asked how the Bath Street building was allowed to fall into disrepair and questioned why the meeting was held during working hours, when most residents could not attend, Saratoga TODAY reported. Neither report included an estimate of what repairs to the building would cost.

A permanent home depends on the county

Rossi said the village will not look for a permanent court home until it knows what Saratoga County plans to do with its own offices in the village. That question is open. In June the county issued a request for proposals for up to 275,000 square feet of office space for 750 to 900 employees, somewhere in the towns of Ballston, Malta or Milton or the village of Ballston Spa, according to an earlier Gazette report.

The current county complex on McMaster Street, the same one now hosting village court, was built in the 1960s, when the county had less than half its current population. Some county employees have worked out of a trailer next to the county office building since 2024. “Nobody likes working in the trailer, but that’s all we have,” Bulger told the Gazette. The village of Ballston Spa is the county seat, and moving the seat would take a referendum, but county offices could still consolidate outside the village.

The county’s request describes what it wants a new building to hold, according to the Gazette.

• Up to 20 county departments that now work out of nine separate buildings, including the County Clerk, the DMV, the Treasurer, Real Property, the Veterans Service Agency and Social Services.
• Room for 300 to 400 visitors on an average day, since several of those offices serve the public directly.
• Class A office space, following a 2024 facilities study that found the county had outgrown much of its existing space.

County officials told the paper the new offices would focus on government operations rather than the courts, which the county is still looking at improving in place. The county has about 1,300 employees in 31 departments serving roughly 250,000 residents. The McMaster Street complex already houses the county court facilities, the County Clerk, the Treasurer and the county administrator’s office, so village court sessions now share an address with the county’s own courts.

Our read: the village has six months of borrowed space and a decision that hinges on a county process with no public timeline. If the county picks a site outside the village, Ballston Spa loses a large daytime workforce downtown as well as a possible landlord for its court. We will follow both the county’s office search and the village’s plans for 30 Bath Street.

Know about something changing in your neighborhood? Send us a tip through our contact form.