Connecticut’s congressional delegation Tuesday hailed the approval of $135 million for a new federal courthouse in downtown Hartford that would replace the aging and outdated court complex on Main Street.

“The 57-year-old U.S. District courthouse in Hartford has simply outlived its sell-by date,” Sen. Richard Blumenthal said. “There are major structural problems and its design makes providing court security very difficult. A new courthouse will bring judicial civil and criminal operations into the 21st century.”

The $135 million approved late Monday in the federal budget and COVID-19 relief bill is just the first appropriation that will be needed for the project that is eventually expected to cost about $270 million.

The federal courthouse in Hartford was ranked this year as No. 1 among all federal courthouses in the country that needed to be replaced. The existing courthouse is part of the Abraham A. Ribicoff Federal Building and Courthouse on Main Street, just south of the Hartford Public Library.

Rep. John Larson said the delegation worked together to get the project moving.

“The federal judiciary has found that the federal courthouse in Hartford is the most outdated in the country,” Larson said.

Talked about for several years, the project is still in its earliest stages. A site must be found for the new courthouse and no construction timetable has yet been established. According to a staff member in Sen. Chris Murphy’s office, a groundbreaking could still be a couple of years away.

Murphy framed the funding as a “big deal” to give the project a start.

“The $135 million we secured will create construction jobs in Connecticut and build a space that will be safer for judges, jurors, plaintiffs and defendants,” Murphy said.

In an email, a spokeswoman for Chief Judge Stefan R. Underhill and the U.S. District Court for the District of Connecticut said the court was grateful that initial funding for the project had been secured.

“We understand that we have now reached our first major milestone,” Clerk Robin Tabora wrote. “The court recognizes this is a long process. We are excited to continue working with the [General Services Administration] and the city of Hartford to get this new courthouse designed and constructed.”

In 2019, the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts said the GSA was examining building design and locating potential sites in downtown Hartford after concluding a year earlier a new courthouse was needed.

Construction of a new courthouse was needed to address significant ongoing security, space and building condition deficiencies at the existing location in Hartford and was the judiciary’s top priority, a spokesman for the courts said.

David Sellers, a spokesman for the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts, told The Courant last year security concerns are high on the list for replacing the existing courthouse, built in 1963 and named for Ribicoff, a former governor and U.S. senator, in 1980.

“Currently, prisoner movement is through public corridors, and through the public entrance of each courtroom because the layout of the building does not allow for separation of public, prisoner, judge and staff circulation,” Sellers said.

The sally port where prisoners are transported to and from the court isn’t big enough. The co-location of Immigration and Customs Enforcement offices in the building are also a problem.

The complex now has eight courtrooms and 11 chambers, many of which do not meet modern size standards. A new courthouse would likely have 11 courtrooms and 18 chambers for 18 judges.

“In addition, growth in replacement judges throughout the district will be consolidated in the new Hartford facility, minimizing the need for additional space in New Haven and Bridgeport,” Sellers said.

The delegation, all Democrats, said there was some eleventh-hour lobbying to get the Hartford project included in the legislation.

Republicans in the U.S. Senate had only included funding for a new courthouse in Chattanooga, Tennessee, even though Hartford ranked as the top courthouse replacement site for the second year in a row by the Federal Judiciary Courthouse Project Priorities list.

If Hartford wasn’t included, it would have been the first time Congress overrode the recommendation by the judiciary.

“When it became clear that the Hartford funding was in trouble of receiving nothing because of an egregious and frankly unfair earmark inserted by Senate Republicans, the delegation was able to come together to make it right to ensure Hartford received its fair share,” said Rep. Rosa DeLauro, who is set to take over as chairman of the House Appropriations Committee.