Supervisors' Vote May Delay County Courtroom Project to '95 : Government: Board hopes to cut costs by changing proposal requirements for developers.

By LEONARD BERNSTEIN and ALAN ABRAHAMSON

Nov. 6, 1991 12 AM PT

TIMES STAFF WRITERS

A plan to build 16 courtrooms in downtown San Diego unraveled under fire from the county Board of Supervisors Tuesday, creating new delays that will likely postpone construction of the complex until 1995.

In a unanimous vote aimed at reducing the cost of the courthouse, the supervisors ordered the revamping of a county request for proposals from private developers interested in building what was projected to be an $83 million facility. The building is slated to include the courts and offices for the district attorney.

“We’ll probably just start all over again,” said Rich Robinson, the county’s director of special projects, which plans new courts and jails. “It’s certainly going to delay it a number of months.”

County judges, whose 30-year-old downtown courthouse is plagued by bugs, rats, sewage leaks and asbestos problems, had hoped to expedite construction of the new, supplemental facility and open it by September, 1994. But Tuesday’s action left them disappointed.

“It’s really discouraging,” said Judith McConnell, presiding judge of the Superior Court. “We feel like we’re moving one step forward and two steps back.”

McConnell added that the vote “does emphasize the importance of the county finding immediate short-term space for us. We cannot wait. We must have immediate short-term space.”

The big winners in Tuesday’s action were five developers who would have been prevented from bidding on the project because the county document had limited sites to a three-block radius from the downtown courthouse on West Broadway.

“I think it’s good news for ourselves and good news for the project,” said G. Bradford Saunders, president of Starboard Development Corp., which wants to build on the block bounded by Cedar Street, Beech Street, Front Street and 1st Avenue.

“It’s good because it gives us an opportunity to demonstrate to the county that there may be a more cost-effective solution to meeting their needs on our particular block, rather than a block or two closer to Broadway,” Saunders said.

Supervisor Leon Williams agreed, saying that the board had specifically urged a four- or five-block radius from the current courthouse in order to solicit the lowest cost proposals.

The smaller zone “limits our ability to bargain,” Williams said. “That limits our ability to protect public dollars.”

“Times are too tough today not to make the best possible deal in the best possible way,” Supervisor Susan Golding added.

Robinson said that an expanded area for possible sites might allow additional developers to apply. Before the three-block radius was imposed, nine developers had qualified as financially able to undertake the project.

The new request for proposals would likely include a parcel of county-owned land at Front and B streets that county staffers said was too small for the courthouse complex they envisioned, Robinson said. Seven developers proposed building at that site.

Even with some five dozen courtrooms, the 30-year-old downtown courthouse does not have enough room to accommodate the growing number of judges.

Until two months ago, Superior and Municipal courts leased space across Broadway for nine temporary courtrooms in the Hotel San Diego. But in September, the courts pulled out of the hotel after tests showed evidence of asbestos at the hotel.

In April, a plan to build nine Superior Court courtrooms at the El Cortez Hotel Convention Center fell through when the builder developed financial woes.

Prompted by the El Cortez and Hotel San Diego setbacks, county planners began drafting a long-term plan, anticipating court needs for the year 2010, a county report filed last week indicates.

Sources who asked not to be identified said Tuesday that the county was now considering leasing space for the courts for three to five years at either the First National Bank building at 401 W. A Street, or the recently renamed Home Savings building at 225 Broadway. A final decision has not been made, sources said.

The county is still awaiting a California Supreme Court decision on the legality of a voter-approved 1/2-cent sales tax increase that so far has yielded $325-million over the past 3 1/2 years for construction of courts and jails. The county is unable to spend the money, which is collecting in an interest-bearing account while the litigation proceeds.

The 16-court structure, projected in the county report to cost $83 million, was due to be the first part of that plan. As projected, the building also would have housed the District Attorney.

Last Friday, the agency in charge of downtown redevelopment, the Centre City Redevelopment Corp., voted to provide $20 million--or $800,000 a year for 25 years--for the building. Even with that money, the county was short of funding for the project and was looking to developers to finance the difference.

The only condition for the CCDC cash was that, in the future, the county had to post a significant number of Superior and Municipal courtrooms downtown rather than spreading judges around the county.

But Golding balked at that element, asking whether there might “be a way of phrasing it that doesn’t limit what must be done in outlying areas in the future.”