Santa Barbara’s proposed $152 million criminal courthouse project is expected to create 3,500 direct and indirect jobs in the area over a five-year period, representing a major economic boost to the region’s sagging construction industry.

Local builders say the project will likely be handed to a larger, out-of-town general contractor who can handle the scope of the 97,000-square-foot building, but that they expect to see some of the stimulus trickle down to them in the form of subcontractor and supplier jobs.

“It’s a job almost to the magnitude of Cottage Hospital. It will put a lot of people to work,” said Frank Schipper, president of Santa Barbara-based Frank Schipper Construction Co.

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