In 1992 a proposal was made to convert the Star Theater in Covington into courtroom facilities to ease overcrowding in the St. Tammany Parish Administrative Complex over in the next block. The need for more courtrooms was pressing, and the one courtroom parish courthouse on Boston Street had been outgrown for years.
A few years earlier, in 1983, The Southern Hotel building had been purchased by the parish and converted into the Administrative Complex which contained a police jury meeting room and a courtroom or two, so the Star Theater proposal was not that unusual.
Warren Salles, owner of both the Star Theater and the building diagonally across the Gibson Street/New Hampshire Street intersection, also proposed turning the old Acme Building into another courtroom. It had at one time housed the Deluxe Theater, which had also been owned by the Salles family.
The Star Theater courtroom proposal would have provided around 10,000 square feet of floorspace to court facilities. It would have been connected to the existing courthouse by an interior hallway. The plans called for two judges office, two jury rooms, other staff offices and a number of restrooms.
Here are the tentative plans for the renovation.
