The wind was cold but the sun was bright as the justices of the Georgia Supreme Court and the judges of the Georgia Court of Appeals signed the final beam to top the $127 million building that will be home to the state's high and intermediate appellate courts.

“I can't believe this is happening. I have to pinch myself,” said the lead architect on the job, Bill Clark, president of the Atlanta office of Stevens & Wilkinson. “We've been talking about this for 20 years.”

Clark guessed that maybe Roy Barnes was governor of Georgia when his firm first began the dream stages of designing a dedicated home for the state's appellate courts. It could have been Zell Miller, he added.