The federal government has officially put Anderson's historic downtown courthouse up for grabs, listing the G. Ross Anderson Jr. Federal Building and U.S. Courthouse for disposition after decades as a hub for justice in Upstate South Carolina. The 1938 building at 315 S. McDuffie St. once housed a post office, a federal courtroom, and even the local tax collector, but its days as an active federal property may be numbered as officials look to offload it to a new owner.
The General Services Administration announced the disposition listing, which the agency describes as the first step in a process that could see the building transferred, exchanged, or sold to a federal, state, or local entity, or even a private buyer. According to Greenville Journal, GSA says removing the building from the federal inventory would eliminate $2.2 million in delinquent and annual maintenance costs. The agency evaluates underutilized federal assets like this one as part of a broader strategy to shrink its overall footprint.
The listing comes as federal court operations that once ran out of the McDuffie Street building have been consolidating into the Carroll A. Campbell Jr. Federal Courthouse in Greenville, part of a wider Upstate judicial reorganization that has also absorbed functions from Spartanburg's federal building, according to the Post and Courier. Court hearings at the Anderson courthouse were scheduled to wind down around late summer or early fall, though the federal judiciary is retaining a property lease through March 2027 while the administrative transition finishes, per the Anderson Observer.
A Building With a Long, Contested History
This isn't the first time Washington has tried to shed the Anderson courthouse. The Post and Courier notes that a 2020 effort to close the building was blocked by U.S. Senator Lindsey Graham and local leadership, and the property later resurfaced on a federal cost-cutting list in 2025. Before court operations relocated, Chief U.S. District Judge Timothy Cain was the sole district court judge permanently stationed there, a staffing footprint that made the smaller courthouse a target for consolidation.
Designed by New York architect Thomas Harlan Ellett, the building was completed in 1938 to serve as a joint U.S. post office, federal courthouse, and local tax collector office, the Anderson Observer's reporting shows. It earned a spot on the National Register of Historic Places on December 13, 1971, according to the Historical Marker Database, a designation that limits future exterior alterations but could also open the door to historic tax credits for a future buyer.
Inside, the building holds a piece of Depression-era public art: the 1940 mural “Corn, Cotton and Tobacco Culture,” painted by Arthur Sinclair Covey, according to Greenville Journal. That New Deal-commissioned artwork remains part of the building as it heads toward its uncertain next chapter.
Honoring a Native Son on the Bench
The courthouse was renamed in April 2002 to honor Senior U.S. District Judge G. Ross Anderson Jr., an Anderson native appointed to the federal bench in 1980 by President Jimmy Carter, according to the University of South Carolina School of Law. Judge Anderson, who died in December 2020 at age 91, was awarded South Carolina's highest civilian honor, the Order of the Palmetto, by Governor Jim Hodges in 2002.
Under federal property disposition rules, surplus real estate like the Anderson courthouse must first be offered to state and local public bodies or eligible nonprofits, sometimes at discounts up to 100 percent, for approved public uses before it can go to auction for private buyers, according to the General Services Administration. That process, which the GSA administers under authority from the Federal Property and Administrative Services Act, is meant to balance taxpayer savings against the potential for community redevelopment.
For now, the disposition listing marks only the beginning of what could be a lengthy process before the historic courthouse changes hands. Whether Anderson's local government or another public entity moves to claim the building for public use before it reaches private bidders remains to be seen.
