Visitors to the courthouse will find fewer parking spots as the construction of the new criminal justice center starts today.

The portion of Pearl Street adjacent to the existing courthouse will be closed permanently as the new facility is built on top of it. Ten spots in the visitors’ parking lot will be reserved for law-enforcement use. Four parking stalls on the east side of Broadway will be eliminated.

Further, nearly half of the parking lot will be fenced off and used for heavy machines by the end of the month.

The county administration department is asking employees not to park on College Street and encouraging them to use the municipal lot and county fleet lot on Newton Avenue, or the lot at Trinity Lutheran Church, which the county rented for temporary parking spaces.

The new criminal justice center is expected to be completed in July 2004, and the whole project, including the old courthouse remodeling and 1954 building demolition, are scheduled to be done by the end of that year.