Alberta Premier Rachel Notley made the trip to Red Deer Thursday afternoon to officially announce the new Red Deer Justice Centre as part of the 2017 Capital Plan.

Construction for the estimated $97 million, four-year project could start as early of May, 2018.

Notley said she is excited about the project and believes it’s exactly what Red Deer and the surrounding communities need.

“This new justice system will significantly increase the current number of courtrooms serving the area and it will make more services available to Albertans through two distinct components. A main courthouse and a resolution support wing.”

The new courthouse will include 12 courtrooms with potential to add four more for a total of 16, a significant upgrade to the seven courtrooms in their current building.

Mayor of Red Deer Tara Veer said the city has been waiting for this decision for over ten years and with the backlog of court cases, a new courthouse couldn’t come soon enough.

“Timely access to justice has become more critical for those seeking justice and our concern, of course locally, was that charges that are laid by our local police force could potentially be stayed because those cases were delayed in coming before the courts.”

The new justice is expected to be built at the former downtown Red Deer RCMP building, but the city is still in the process of making that happen. Once the city has the location, planning the design will follow.