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Thursday, May 24, 2012
State weighing courthouse sites
by Suzanne Hurt, published on March 14, 2011 at 9:01 PM
Storyline: Development
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Local leaders are pushing to get a new criminal courthouse built at the edge of the railyards downtown, with a decision on the location likely to be made by the end of March.
Bill Vickrey, the director of the Judicial Council's Administrative Office of the Courts, is reviewing two sites where the state could build a $439 million courthouse. One location is at Fifth and H streets across from the federal courthouse, and the other is a hole in the ground at 301 Capitol Mall where developer John Saca once planned to build twin 53-story condo towers.
The 44-courtroom facility is being built to relieve crowding at Gordon D. Schaber Sacramento County Courthouse and is currently one of the state's largest new courthouse projects. Sacramento's new criminal courthouse project is second only to a $633.9 million, 71-courtroom facility being planned in San Diego, said Teresa Ruano, spokeswoman for the Administrative Office of the Courts.
"We expect to be able to announce a decision about site selection by the end of this month," Ruano said.
A project advisory group that includes representatives from the city and county of Sacramento and the courts has provided input on the downtown sites.
In June, the Sacramento City Council agreed to support construction at the northeast corner of Fifth and H streets. Just two blocks from Schaber Courthouse, that site is adjacent to Sacramento Valley Station and close to the Sacramento County Jail. The site currently holds a parking lot and railroad tracks that are being relocated by the city as part of a project to build a new regional transportation center.
City officials think a stately courthouse at Fifth and H would be a catalyst project for redevelopment of the historic railyards. But they'd like to see more residences, restaurants and other mixed use brought to Capitol Mall to liven up the area after 5 p.m., said Assistant City Manager John Dangberg.
"It's arguably one of the grandest boulevards in Northern California," he said. "Certainly in the Central Valley, there's nothing that compares with it."
Image by: City of Sacramento
Business leaders including members of the Downtown Sacramento Partnership are also voicing support for that location in letters and meetings with the Administrative Office of the Courts. Building a criminal courthouse that requires high security on Capitol Mall would be a "short-sighted" waste of prime real estate that serves as a scenic gateway into downtown, according to the partnership.
"Clearly, the Fifth and H site is what we feel is the most appropriate location for this facility, with related adjacent services and an opportunity to really complement starting the development in the railyards," DSP Executive Director Michael Ault said Monday.
The Sacramento District Council of the Urban Land Institute has also weighed in on the process. In a letter last month, urban designer Allen Folk, the council's chairman, encouraged the courts to consider the regional and neighborhood contexts, access to public transit and whether the building would promote nearby development when choosing a site. A courthouse should be near support services such as law offices, bail bondsmen and restaurants, he said.
"Courthouses by nature need to be located in an area that would be convenient to visitors and services," he said.
The 1965 Gordon Schaber courthouse was designed with 22 courtrooms but is currently operating 44. Criminal and civil court cases will be divided up once the criminal courthouse opens, with Gordon Schaber courthouse being used for civil court matters and administration. The new courthouse will replace 35 of the courtrooms and allow nine new judgeships, Ruano said.
Construction is expected to begin in early 2013 and be completed in 2015. Funding for the project would not come from the state's general fund. The Administrative Office of the Courts must ask the California State Legislature's Joint Legislative Budget Committee to issue lease-revenue bonds. The bonds would be paid back through court fees, penalties and assessments from within the judicial branch under Senate Bill 1407.
Suzanne Hurt is a staff reporter for The Sacramento Press. Follow her on Twitter @SuzanneHurt.
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Why would Capitol Mall be a better site than a location that is already close to similar uses (existing courthouses, jail, law library bail bondsmen, attorney offices), and part of an even bigger "hole" in the city (the Railyards)?
If Fienstein had thought this way about San Francisco, the Coyt Tower would still be the tallest structure on the skyline.
I don't know if the courthouse should be on CapMall or not. But I don't think that it will be a catalyst for the Railyards. I mean a courthouse a catalyst? Come on.
midtownchair if the goal of the City has "always been to encourage a vital neighborhood with activity 24 hours a day on the Capitol Mall" then what the hell have they been doing for last 30 + years? A lousy job?
All I'm saying is that it doesn't matter much in terms making a positive or negative impact on the surrounding neighborhoods. And that the Cap/3rd site is probably going to stay a hole for a long time if it's left up to private enterprise to fill it.
Rhys02 Sacramento doesn't dream big because it's not in our culture to do so. It's filled with non-risk taker (government employees) and people born & raised in the Valley who think big city ideas only belong in San Francisco or LA. BTW Coit tower was never the tallest tower in SF and the Transamerica Pyramid went up way before Feinstein ever became mayor.
WillBurg- the usual. It's good to be a champion for Sacramento but to challenge everyone who dares to say anything against the status quo here is getting old. But to answer your question. Market Street in SF comes closest to a boulevard in Northern California. I think people mistake width with greatness. CapMall reminds me more of Century City down in LA than a real boulevard.
Capitol Mall was the product of a decades-long desire (dating back to about 1910) to replace the old waterfront district with a "White City", a massive public plaza and boulevard inspired by Chicago's 1893 Columbian Exposition. It didn't arrive until the post-WWII era when redevelopment funds became available--in a lot of ways we became the model for downtown redevelopment through demolition throughout the United States. I'm not sure whether you would consider the demolition of a square mile or so of city and displacement of the most populated neighborhood to count as "thinking big" or not, and I'm the first to agree that it was probably not such a hot idea in retrospect, but it was at least big.
In recent years we have gotten away from the idea of downtowns as places where nobody is supposed to live, but we have to overcome the last half-century or so of momentum to the contrary, including suburban real estate developers who still want to make money turning more foothills and farmland into tract housing, and suburban mall owners who consider a vital, active downtown a threat to their own business interests. But that's the way things seem to be going, and personally I'd rather see something large and dramatic, and preferably residential, on the 3rd and Capitol lot--and so would a lot of Sacramentans who are interested in such things. In the long run, I think we should try to double the population of the central city by 2030 and am reasonably sure it can be done without demolishing any more neighborhoods. That's also the outlook taken by the City of Sacramento's General Plan and the SACOG Blueprint for growth. Not sure if you consider that dreaming big or not, but it's a start.
Putting this courthouse project on the edge of the Railyards site makes more sense for a lot of reasons--it would be next to other related uses (the other courthouse buildings, the jail, bail bondsmen), and it's ideally located for public transit. It might not be the perfect catalyst for the Railyards, but it's a start--once one project breaks ground, others are more likely to follow suit. By placing it on the edge between existing office buildings and the new-growth area in the Railyards means that the project won't be isolated physically, but it moves development into the area where we want to see it happen.
I consider the idea of Sacramentans always getting it wrong, or always playing it safe, to be almost as ridiculous as the idea that I am some kind of defender for the status quo. In our relatively short history, we took control of governing a brand-new state after years of a "wandering capital," jacked our downtown above flood level to keep it dry, built a transcontinental railroad, were the only city in the western US where full-sized steam locomotives were built, the only city with two transcontinental railroads' main shops in the city limits, home of the two biggest fruit canneries in the world (at the time), and managed to maintain control of the capital despite opposition from two much larger metropolitan areas in the state. Maybe these are just legacies of being a city full of stubborn, grumpy people who don't know when to quit, but it's a legacy I don't mind carrying on.
The Third and Capitol Mall location is inferior for a variety of reasons. The parking at this site for the public and jurors is proposed across I-5 in Old Sacramento about five blocks away. Parking near the Railyards site already exists plus there will be plenty of surface parking lots that could be made available immediately adjacent to this site. The Third and Capitol Mall site should be reserved for a landmark building which ideally will include a mix of uses including residential, retail and/or office. The goal of the City has always been to encourage a vital neighborhood with activity 24 hours a day on the Capitol Mall.
I believe the above are some of the reasons that the City Council, Board of Supervisors, Downtown Sacramento Partnership, Metro Chamber of Commerce and a large number of community and civic leaders and residents are supporting the Railyards site. Hopefully the Administrative Office of the Courts will confirm this location as the preferred site for this new downtown courthouse.
The Capitol Mall site would not only send the wrong message as one enters the gateway to our city, but this site for the new courthouse would be completely incompatible with Old Sac, the river, and the Downtown Plaza Mall. The Capitol Mall site could undermine the progress in remediating blight that the City and private investors have made through large investments of public and private resources.
The current jail and Schaber Courthouse have a logical proximity to each other, but naturally this produces a virtual dead zone of business activity around them, especially on evenings and weekends. It is undesirable to place another such dead zone on Capitol Mall where a dynamic condo and hotel project once promised views of the Capitol and the river to new residents of downtown. The Capitol Mall parcel is too strategically important to yield it for the next 50 or more years to a criminal courthouse.
The railyard site is nicely adjacent to the existing jail and courthouse, which will allow ease of movement for judges, lawyers, and prisoners between facilities. Indeed, a tunnel could be constructed between the jail and the new courthouse in the railyard that would enhance public safety by moving prisoners securely below ground.
Finally, parking is one of the most significant logistical challenges to the Capitol Mall site. There is little opportunity to place parking on the proposed Capitol Mall site, whereas the railyard provides ample parking in existing Court lots or possible new lots on the site. Also, the railyard site is very close to the nexus of public transportation in Sacramento. There is bus, train, light rail, and walking access to the railyard site. As you can see, the railyard site allows for multiple modes of transportation potentially reducing single occupancy vehicle traffic and the parking impact of those cars.