It’s good that plans to replace the Roderick L. Ireland Courthouse in Springfield are moving forward. The old state courthouse, built in 1971, is quite literally making people sick.
The fact that employees have suffered for decades in an allegedly mold-infested building makes it imperative that the new courthouse be built to modern standards, with a state procurement process that ensures Hampden County residents get a well-constructed courthouse that suits their needs as soon as possible.
Unfortunately, the procurement process has been compromised by a possible conflict of interest, which is casting doubt among Springfield leaders about whether the best proposal was chosen.
The contract was awarded to Liberty Junction, whose principals include John Barros, a former Boston mayoral candidate and City Hall official in Boston, and Conan Harris, the husband of Democratic Representative Ayanna Pressley of Boston.
The involvement of Barros raises particularly troubling questions. Barros was appointed interim executive director of the Massachusetts Convention Center Authority in January 2026, meaning he was a high-ranking state employee at the time the state Division of Capital Asset Management and Maintenance was evaluating his courthouse bid.
The Convention Center Authority oversees Springfield’s MassMutual Center, near Liberty Junction’s proposed courthouse site. Secretary of Administration and Finance Matthew Gorzkowicz, who oversees DCAMM, is an authority board member.
The Globe reported that Barros filed a required state ethics disclosure documenting the conflict the day before the bid was awarded in July, which stated that he was a passive investor in the project.
Two Springfield developers who also bid for the courthouse project — Jeb Balise and Dinesh Patel — sued Liberty Junction and the state, seeking to have a judge vacate the decision to grant Liberty Junction the bid because of Barros’s conflict of interest and some technical concerns with the proposal.
Barros’s attorney Gary Ronan told the editorial board Barros consulted with the Massachusetts State Ethics Commission before starting at the Convention Center Authority and “followed their directions every step of the way,” including filing a disclosure promptly when he learned that Liberty Junction was being awarded the courthouse project.
But even if Barros himself did everything by the book, that does not mean the state handled the bid correctly.
For now, the DCAMM is requiring Liberty Junction to resolve any conflicts of interest with the State Ethics Commission. The Ethics Commission should determine if Barros must take any steps to resolve any ongoing conflicts of interest — such as having Barros divest his stake in the project.
Resolving conflicts of interest only after the contract has been awarded, though, doesn’t address concerns that conflicts could have influenced the choice of Barros’s bid in the first place.
The DCAMM should review the bid process to ensure Barros’s position did not play a role in the bid’s selection. If evidence emerges that Liberty Junction’s selection was influenced by political connections, the state should consider reopening the bid process — as it did with the recently bungled procurement of highway service plazas.
To its credit, the state, which had received public records requests as part of the litigation, publicly released the full procurement record for the courthouse bid on Tuesday.
A DCAMM spokesperson wrote in an email that the records detail a “fair, thorough, and competitive process” for a project that “will deliver a safe and modern courthouse that residents and workers deserve, while delivering the best value for taxpayers.”
A spokesperson for Liberty Junction said the release of documents “makes abundantly clear why Liberty Junction was selected.”
Those records will be important in allowing the state to make the case to the judge — and, as importantly, to the people of Springfield — why the state believes Liberty Junction’s project is the best one.
Springfield officials have voiced concerns that the state chose the cheapest project, not the best one. Springfield Mayor Domenic Sarno favored a riverfront project, which he said would have been more transformative for the surrounding area by catalyzing investments in housing, retail, and a mini-marina. An internal letter courthouse employees wrote to Hampden County Clerk of Courts Laura Gentile, first reported by MassLive, raised concerns about whether there is adequate safe parking for jurors and court employees in the high-crime area where the winning bid was located, as well as other issues related to space and workflow. Choosing the cheapest project, Gentile told the editorial board, is “insulting to everyone who works at the trial court in that building.”
Some of the losing bidders, meanwhile, question whether the Liberty Street bid was really even the cheapest. According to state projections, the Liberty Street project would cost the state an estimated $611.4 million over the 40-year lease compared to $720.7 million for the Dwight Street project proposed by Balise and $772 million for the riverfront project, after adjusting for inflation.
But the losing bidders say those numbers don’t represent a full apples-to-apples comparison of the projects’ costs. The Liberty Street bid requires the state to pay for building maintenance, for instance, while other proposals have the property owners pay for maintenance. The Liberty Street project would be less energy efficient than some other proposals, which could push up the long-term cost to taxpayers of operating the facility.
The winning bid also does not include the cost of a project labor agreement with construction unions. Those agreements are bad policy that increase costs, but many Democratic politicians favor them. Governor Maura Healey, for instance, signed an executive order promoting the use of project labor agreements for all large public projects.
But even if the Liberty Street cost projections are completely accurate, the state has to juggle many factors. State projections scored the Dwight Street and Liberty Street projects highest, based on numerous factors related to project design and developer qualifications.
Ultimately, someone is going to lose in a competitive bidding process, and if the state’s choice was made fairly based on the proposals’ characteristics, then the project should move forward. But if the process involved inappropriate political influence, the state should be prepared to reopen it.
Editorials represent the views of the Boston Globe Editorial Board. Follow us @GlobeOpinion.