COURTHOUSE—Downtown Courthouse Plan Blocked

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A long-delayed $315 million federal courthouse that local boosters see as one of the pillars of downtown revitalization has become embroiled in a political poker game, possibly delaying the massive project by a year or more.

In Sacramento, a bill that would have authorized the state to donate land in the Civic Center area, to accommodate the project, died in the final week of the session late last month.

Local officials and state lawmakers are now trying to convince the Gray Davis administration to donate the land on its own, but the administration is reportedly holding out to see if it can swap one of the state-owned Civic Center parcels for a piece of federal land elsewhere in the state.

Meanwhile, in Washington, D.C., the first $36 million installment in the courthouse funding has been stalled, as Democrats and Republicans spar over funding for the Internal Revenue Service and drug enforcement. (Funding for both those purposes is contained in the same bill as the courthouse funding.) The bill may come up for consideration in committee as early as this week.

At stake is a long-awaited new courthouse for downtown L.A., which now has one of the most antiquated and overcrowded federal courthouses in the country. A new courthouse would also be one of the key public projects along with the Disney Concert Hall and new Cathedral of our Lady of the Angels that local boosters hope will revitalize downtown.

Of course, building a new $315 million federal courthouse would provide a major boost to the local economy, through design and construction jobs. And in the long run, a new courthouse could mean more federal employees working downtown, especially since it would free up more space in the existing courthouse and nearby Roybal federal building. Those employees would, in turn, eat at downtown restaurants, shop at downtown stores and rent or buy local housing.

But a new courthouse would also serve another function: it would help ensure that the L.A. Civic Center remains the largest government center west of the Mississippi River. Without it, judges might end up being reassigned to federal courthouses in Santa Ana and Riverside. And along with those judges would go some of the lawyers and legal document firms that now are among the most visible tenants left downtown, as Fortune 500 corporate headquarters have vanished.

Local judges and civic boosters have been pushing for a new courthouse for more than four years. But if the federal funding falls through, it would push back completion of the project now slated for 2006 at least another year. And the collapse of a deal for the state to donate land for the courthouse would only complicate matters by forcing the feds to seek even more funds.

“This is taking what appears to be an inordinate amount of time,” said Terry Hatter Jr., chief judge for the U.S. District Court, Central District of California. “We’re No. 1 on the list for new courthouses, but there have been no new moneys allocated for courthouse construction now for four years running.”

Hatter said the need for a new federal courthouse is pressing. The existing courthouse, built at 312 N. Spring St. during the Great Depression, is completely out of space at a time when the volume of caseloads is exploding. And even though there are currently five vacant judge posts, once those are filled, any additional judges for the L.A. area may have to work out of the courthouses in Santa Ana or Riverside.

An inefficient system

What’s more, federal court operations in L.A. are now split between the courthouse and the Roybal Federal Building several blocks to the east, which causes delays in cases if documents have to be transferred.

“We’re in two facilities right now, one of which was built in the 1930s and is completely lacking modern security systems,” said Allen Leslein, chief architect for the Central District Court. “We now have to take prisoners down public corridors, which is a tremendous security concern.”

Although the federal General Services Administration is far from finalizing its plans, the new courthouse would likely be 17 to 20 stories high and would contain about 1 million gross square feet (including parking, lobbies, elevator shafts and stairways). Cost estimates range from $250 million to $400 million, depending on the site and ultimate size authorized by Congress; Leslein said the current proposal pegs the cost at around $315 million.

Currently, three sites in the Civic Center area are being considered for the new courthouse. One is at First and Spring streets, just south of the City Hall building that is now being retrofitted. That site is jointly owned by the city, county and state.

Another possible site is a block away, just south of First Street and west of Broadway, where the old state building now sits. That building was damaged by the Northridge earthquake; the site is wholly owned by the state.

The third site is a couple blocks to the northwest, just across Olive Street from the Disney Concert Hall that is now under construction. It is currently used for juror and courthouse parking and is owned by the county.

However, courthouse proponents consider this third site to be the least desirable option. It’s too far from the existing courthouse, which would still be used to house U.S. Attorney operations, and too far from the Roybal Federal Building (just north of Little Tokyo), which would house all of the U.S. Bankruptcy Courts.

Looking for a donation

That leaves the focus on the other two sites. And because the state owns some or all of those sites, local courthouse proponents mounted an effort to get the state to donate the land. They convinced Assemblyman Gil Cedillo, D-Los Angeles, who represents the downtown area, to carry a bill to authorize a state donation.

However, that bill failed in the Senate Appropriations Committee during the last week of the session. Cedillo said he dropped the bill after he was told that only one of his three bills would be allowed out of committee. He chose to concentrate on his bill to allow cities access to state income tax data to help the city of L.A. finance business tax cuts.

Cedillo said he would try to broker an agreement between the Davis administration and the federal General Services Agency to get the state to donate the land.

“We have to figure out how to make this happen,” Cedillo said. “It’s not as simple as donating the land. Gov. Davis has an interest in securing some other property. If the state is going to donate this land, then it wants other land in exchange.”

State and Consumer Affairs Secretary Aileen Adams, who has jurisdiction over use of state facilities, said in a statement that the state is working with both local and federal officials to “facilitate the siting of a federal courthouse in Los Angeles.”

But, Adams said her department is currently awaiting word from the federal GSA on which site it prefers.

“Once we have that information, we can proceed,” she said.

A spokeswoman for Adams said she was unaware of any land swap being worked out between state and federal officials.

Federal officials say that getting the state to donate the land would save money and time.

“Certainly, if someone can donate a piece of property, it can move things along faster,” said Mary Filippini, spokeswoman for the General Services Administration’s Region IX office in San Francisco.

But, Filippini said, the entire project will stall if the $36 million in federal funding isn’t forthcoming. That money, which was first set aside in President Clinton’s 2000-01 budget request, is earmarked for site acquisition and preliminary design work. (Of course, if the land were donated, the money would go entirely to design work, which would then reduce future funding needs.)

“Without those funds, we can’t acquire a site or move ahead with selecting an architect,” Filippini said.

That would further delay the design work, setting back construction at least a year from its current start date of mid-2003.

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