The former Auburn District Court is now an empty building after personnel relocated the last remaining files and documents to their new Candia location.

On Monday, July 21, court personnel said they were all but finished with the building that has served as the area’s main criminal and civil courthouse in the area for more than 20 years.

As the last documents were packed up for the trip down Route 101, Deputy Clerk Maureen Murphy said there was little else in the building.

Murphy said she and her fellow court officers were looking forward to Candia’s new building, which is about twice the size of the former Auburn court and has a much larger office area and a second courtroom.

“It’s a more secure building and very spacious,” she said. “Right now there’s not much left here really, just some file cabinets and that’s about it.”

Last year, state officials chose Candia as the new location for the district court, which serves thousands of residents living in Auburn, Raymond, Candia, Nottingham, Deerfield and Northwood, and contractor Severino Construction of Candia recently wrapped up work on the new 8,000-square-foot building. The new facility at 110 Raymond Road (Route 27) was the scene of much activity on Monday morning as workers brought in furniture, computers and thousands of documents while court employees began setting up the new office area, which appeared to be twice the size of the room they’d previously shared in Auburn.

In an earlier interview, Court Clerk Joann Lemay said she’d already completed a full tour of the new building, which she said was similar in design and layout to the Franklin District Court. Lemay said she anticipated everything would be “business as usual” when the building opens to the public.

Judge David LeFrancois, who has presided over the district court for the past nine years, also inspected his new location on Monday, and he said the new building should be free of the infrastructure issues that sometimes delayed court at the Auburn location. Although court staff and local officials did not know much about the history of the former court building, Judge LeFrancois said that problems with termites and plumbing sometimes delayed scheduled cases.

“It was just time to find a better facility,” he said. “The town of Auburn has been a very good host for many years, and we really appreciate that.”

Currently, there are no plans for the old Auburn courthouse.

As of press time court officials said all signs indicate that the building was going to open to the public as scheduled on the morning of July 23. The telephone number for the Candia District Court is 483-2789.