March 11, 2009
San Diego's new downtown federal courthouse can move forward now that President Obama has signed a bill including an additional $110 million for the project, stalled since 2007.
“This project has been shovel-ready for a while,” Rep. Susan Davis, D-San Diego, said in a news release. “The additional funding will allow us to move on to the next phase for this much-needed judicial building.”
Federal officials said the addition brings the total federal funding to $368.7 million and allows the government to sign a contract with a builder. Past attempts to collect bids were halted when construction costs outstripped the previously approved budget.
The site, on Broadway between State and Union streets, has been a block-sized hole in the ground since the Hotel San Diego was demolished in 2006.
Irma Gonzalez, chief judge of the U.S. District Court, said the government already has new bids and hopes to award the contract in 60 days. Groundbreaking is planned for late May, she said, and the 16-story courthouse should open in October 2012.
According to one estimate, the project could create 500 construction jobs over three years.
A nosedive in construction costs since 2006 means details cut from the original blueprint as a cost-saving measure can be restored, Gonzalez said.
Those cuts had included making the glass entry rotunda smaller, trimming some exterior flourishes and simplifying the building's foundations and framing.
Some of that can be inserted again, Gonzalez said, but the building won't be returned to its original 22 stories. In order to add the deleted floors, the judiciary would have to return to Congress again, she said.
The new facility will be an annex of the existing federal courthouse downtown, which is one of the nation's busiest border courts.
Because the project was stalled, the federal court probably will have to rent office space until the new site opens, Gonzalez said.
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