Courthouse tab jumps to $310 million
More funding sought as bids exceed budget
By Jeanette Steele
UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER
November 24, 2007
DOWNTOWN SAN DIEGO – The price of a new federal courthouse for downtown San Diego has ballooned to $310 million, making it the third-most expensive U.S. courthouse on the books.
Court officials are asking for an additional $80 million from Congress, after all bids exceeded the existing $230 million construction budget this year.
Meanwhile, federal officials have streamlined the Richard Meier & Partners design to cut costs. The glass entry rotunda is smaller, the building's foundations and framing have been simplified and the exterior will lose some flourishes.
Previously, court officials lowered the height to 16 stories from the 22 in the original design, unveiled in April 2005. Fourteen courtrooms would be built instead of 18.
The cuts mean the courthouse would fill the San Diego judiciary's need for only 10 years, instead of the 30 years that the original building was designed to address.
“We're trying to make it a lean building,” said Judge Irma Gonzalez, U.S. District Court chief judge. “I mean a building where it's still very nice – it's a wonderful place to do business, for the public to come to – but one that's utilitarian and one that certainly is not wasteful.”
Federal officials blame spiraling construction costs in Southern California for the increase. Only a $315 million courthouse that opened last year in Brooklyn, N.Y., and a $399 million federal complex planned for Los Angeles would come with higher price tags.
If Congress awards the extra funding, court officials want to begin construction in the spring, with completion in mid-2011.
If Congress doesn't approve the extra funding by year's end, court officials estimate that costs will rise by $2 million to $3 million a month next year.
The $80 million is in the Senate version of an appropriations bill, but not in the House version. Rep. Susan Davis, D-San Diego, who supports the funding, said a decision probably will be made next month.
Federal officials said the courthouse – technically an expansion – is a priority because of the heavy local caseload. Filings were up 70 percent in August and 50 percent in September, compared with the same months last year.
Gonzalez said spikes happen whenever Congress allocates more money for the U.S. Border Patrol and other law enforcement agencies. Others credit interim U.S. Attorney Karen Hewitt with filing more drug and immigration cases after her predecessor, Carol Lam, was fired amid complaints that she didn't file enough.
The federal court system has reined in its court-building costs after the U.S. Government Accountability Office called it out in the 1990s for high-priced courthouses that came in over budget.
The courts imposed a moratorium on new projects between 2004 and 2006. This year, the federal judiciary put out a new design guide, which calls for smaller judges' chambers with a standardized layout, smaller libraries and less public space.
Federal officials blame the high costs of the San Diego and Los Angeles projects on earthquake standards and the hot commercial construction market in Southern California, which has pushed up the price of steel and concrete.
Despite the revisions in design, David Allen, a court district architect, said San Diego isn't getting a bargain-bin building. He said a casual observer won't notice a big change from the original design.
The original blueprint called for a 20,000-square-foot civic plaza between the new building and the Edward J. Schwartz federal courthouse to the east. That plaza hasn't been decreased, Allen said.
“We have fought very hard to maintain the form of this building, primarily to keep that plaza space in play, and it's all still there,” Allen said. “I think the average person on the street will not see the difference, except for the height.”
The 2-acre site is on Broadway between State and Union streets. For nearly 100 years, that block was home to the Hotel San Diego, a 1914 building that housed low-income, weekly renters before it closed.
Since the hotel was demolished in April 2006, the property is just a hole in the ground.
If the money doesn't flow from Capitol Hill, Gonzalez said the federal judiciary will probably ask the General Services Administration – the government's real estate arm – to find the money elsewhere.
Davis said she's hopeful of success, in part because San Diego got five new federal judgeships in 2002.
“I think it's really problematic if they don't get it, and we will have to think creatively,” Davis said. “At this point, we are not looking at a Plan B.”
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Jeanette Steele: (619) 293-1030;
jen.steele@uniontrib.com
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