City officials unveiled the final design of Denver's new courthouse Thursday - a building with different types of glass in its folded-plate eastern facade and a slanted vertical glass "beacon" on the Fox Street side.

Other changes include shrinking the jury assembly room - from two stories to one - that juts out from the front of the building, and using bays popped out about four feet to add movement to the western facade.

"The site now complements the architecture and vice versa," said James Mejia, policy manager for the Denver Justice Center project, which includes a new courthouse, jail and parking structure/post office.

"We're looking at a stone and glass building," Mejia said. "I hope the voters of Denver will agree that what we have is a permanent and dignified building."

The courthouse is predominantly light Alabama limestone, accented by dark gray granite at the base and entry canopy.

The entry sits on a plaza that separates and links the courthouse and jail.

At one point, the design for the western wall included a perforated metal screen, but that is now gone. The city wanted stone to be the main material.

The jail design remains the same, a 400-foot-long neotraditional structure of buff variegated Indiana limestone.

The primary architects are the Denver firm klipp for the courthouse; Washington, D.C.-based Hartman-Cox Architects and Denver's OZ Architecture for the jail, with Denver landscape architects Studio InSite.

Denver voters approved a $378 million justice center bond issue, including improvements at the Smith Road facility, in May 2005.

Construction costs have increased dramatically since that time, with the price tag now about $265.6 million on what had been a $214 million project.

Changes also include more trees on the plaza: surrounding an oval space, lining Elati Street and circling the complex between West 14th and West Colfax avenues, Delaware and Fox streets.

That central space will be the site of a $1.2 million work of art being created by New York-based artist Dennis Oppenheim.

The post office and parking garage to the south of the jail is near an Oct. 1 completion date. Officials project a December 2009 completion for the jail, and a May 2010 finish for the courthouse.

chandlerm@RockyMountainNews.com or 303-954-2677