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All Rise for the Cement Palace

State court officials are ready to call for bids for construction of a planned $118 million new Mendocino County Courthouse in Ukiah.

The new court building will be erected on the south side of Perkins Street, on a four-acre site wrapping around the Ukiah Train Depot, a 1920s-era local historical landmark. Completion is expected in 2026. 

The state project is a significant shift in the historic center of court operations. The new location means that for the first time since 1860 the Mendocino County Courthouse will be found out of Ukiah’s core downtown.

If the California Judicial Council acts favorably as expected this coming week the project will move into a final design and build phase. The action virtually assures construction of the largest public works project ever in Mendocino County. It also will redirect future commercial development in Ukiah to the east.

A call for bids to construct the new courthouse is a critical turning point in the state’s decade-long effort to move out of an aging 1950s-era building hampered by seismic issues, inadequate handicapped access, cramped offices, and failing heating, cooling, and air circulation systems. 

“It is exciting. This project is finally moving forward,” said Kim Turner, Court Executive Officer for the Mendocino County Superior Court.

State plans for the new courthouse stalled in 2016 because of the lack of money. State court officials earlier this year revived the Ukiah courthouse project, labeling it an “immediate need.” It is the second highest priority on a list of courthouse construction projects planned statewide.

Project details are still sketchy, but some basics are outlined in a 175-page document that sets design and construction criteria for prospective bidders.

The proposed courthouse is contemporary in design, rising three stories above a surrounding landscape of mixed uses, some dating from a century ago. The old Northwestern Railroad tracks run along the western edge of the new courthouse site.

Planners envision rows of trees, native landscaping, and a boulevard-like entrance to soften the scale and overall appearance. A landscaped north public parking area will wrap around the train depot, with more public and staff parking on the south side of the new courthouse. Eventually Clay Street may be extended through the four-acre site to Leslie Street.

Infrastructure in the new building is to be designed with advanced heating, cooling, and water retention systems, and sophisticated building-wide communication technologies.

In short, it will be unlike any other building in Mendocino County.

Still unknown are any development plans for seven publicly owned acres east of the new courthouse site. The two parcels will be separated by a planned “Courthouse Drive,” and a new bridge crossing Gibson Creek will supply a new entrance from Perkins Street.

The defunct North Coast Railroad Authority originally owned the seven-acre site. On March 1, that agency became the “Great Redwood Trail Agency” which was signed into law by Gov. Gavin Newsom. It is charged with planning, building, and supporting a planned 320-mile hiking and biking trail from San Francisco Bay to Humboldt Bay.

Mendocino County Supervisor Maureen Mulheren, a board director of the new Redwood Trail Agency, said she is unaware of any plans the trail agency may have to develop the property.

“I hope we learn something soon at one of our meetings,” said Mulheren.

There is speculation that the trail agency site will be developed to house critical court-related agencies that are not included in the state’s courthouse plans. Specifically, future locations of county offices like the District Attorney’s Office and Public Defender are at issue. The DA’s Offices historically have been found in the current county courthouse three long blocks from the planned new facility. 

How county employees in the DA and Public Defender’s offices will interact with the new courthouse especially in inclement weather when it opens is unclear. There will be 160 parking spaces at the new site, but will dozens of county employees be asked to get in their cars and drive to the new site in the face of cold rainy weather, or scorching hot summer days?

“All of the options are being explored,” said Burton, the court Executive Officer.

The city of Ukiah is engaged with county and state officials in resolving such issues. 

For the city, how to bridge the gap between the new courthouse site and the historic downtown area, and local businesses dependent on foot traffic generated by the current courthouse, still is an issue.

Deputy City Manager Shannon Riley said the perceived gap “has already been bridged somewhat by the recently completed Downtown Streetscape Project.’ 

Riley said the city is designing street improvements along Perkins Street between Main and Orchard streets. 

“That project is likely to be under construction in 2023,” said Riley. 

For the past decade the city of Ukiah has been engaged in planning for the new courthouse, and its effects on the core downtown area, said Riley. 

“The stage was set in 2012 when a new ‘downtown zoning code’ was adopted. It addresses the downtown core, much of the new courthouse site, and the entire Perkins Street corridor and was developed with many years of community input,” said Riley.

Riley said the city believes the zoning will “help ensure that the entire area has a cohesive feel, similar landscaping, is walkable, and has compatible uses and business types.”

The zoning admittedly doesn’t have the “ability to change the entire area overnight,” said Riley but it will ensure that “each time a property within the zone is developed, it is developed to the approved standards, thereby making incremental progress toward fully closing that ‘gap’,” said Riley.

In the meantime, the city has a long-term lease on the historic train depot, first reached with the old railroad agency and now continued with the new state trails agency.

“Many years ago, we received a grant to complete its historic renovation, and the requirements of that grant will continue to determine how the facility can be used while ensuring that its historic design elements are maintained,” said Riley.

Riley said the city expects there will be “significant demand” for leased space in the historic building once the new courthouse is developed.

When the new courthouse is completed, the current structure which has been leased by the state will revert back to county ownership.

Its fate is uncertain. The state estimates the building needs at least $9 million in repairs. In reality, the current courthouse is two structures merged into one. 

The rear part facing Ukiah’s School Street is a notable limestone clad building. The larger section facing State Street is a mish-mash of offices, and steep stairways. Only one elevator serves the public and staff.

Some civic leaders are suggesting demolition of the main building, creating a plaza in its place, and anchoring the west side with renovation of the older building facing School Street.


IN HONOR OF THE COURTHOUSE DESIGN, A SING-A-LONG

Cement Mixer (Put-Ti Put-Ti)

by Alvino Rey & His Orch.

 Cement Mixer! Put-ti, Put-ti

A puddle o'vooty, puddle o'gooty, puddle o'scooty

Cement Mixer! Put-ti, Put-ti

A puddle o'veet! concrete

First you get some gravel, Pour it in the vout

To mix a mess o' mortar you add cement and water

See the mellow roony come out, slurp, slurp, slurp

Cement Mixer! Put-ti, Put-ti

Who wants a bucket of cement?

Cement Mixer! Put-ti, Put-ti

A puddle o'vooty, puddle o'gooty, puddle o'scooty

Cement Mixer! Put-ti, Put-ti

A puddle o'veet! concrete

First you get some gravel, Pour it in the vout

To mix a mess o' mortar you add cement and water

See the mellow roony come out, slurp, slurp, slurp

Cement Mixer! Put-ti, Put-ti

Who wants a bucket of cement?


NO ONE except our nine judges wants the new County Courthouse, although none of the judges have dared to say anything publicly about the misguided project. And, natch, the Supervisors are silent, too, as is Ukiah's City Council.

THE DESIGN — Neo-Cement Factory — was predictable enough given these bleakly unimaginative architectural times. We suggested a structure consistent with California history, maybe a mission-style building similar to the one at the south end of Ukiah built as a brewery, presently some kind of dope factory.

BUT, BUT, BUT what about security? One of the feeble arguments for a new Courthouse from its sole public proponent, former Superior Court Judge David Nelson, is that the present Courthouse is insecure. Nelson cited a thirty-year-old episode where a mommy tried to hand her murdering son a handgun out on the street. The handoff was unsuccessful, of course. 

THE OTHER pro arguments for a new Courthouse have to do with the ancient age of the present Courthouse, so ancient it can't be upgraded. 


WHY THE NEW COURTHOUSE IS A BAD IDEA

District Attorney David Eyster lists his objections: 

The primary problem with the current courthouse is the expense, staffing, and all-day delays in bringing prisoners from Low Gap to the courthouse? Those bottlenecks will NOT be resolved by a new building.

Traffic impacts on Perkins directly across from Hospital Drive?

The cost of having to build new office space for the DA and his staff, who are currently housed on the ground floor of the courthouse? Where will it go? Who pays?

What is the specific, doable plan for the future use of the abandoned old courthouse.

The current courthouse could be renovated and expanded at much less expense.

It’s for nobody but the judges. No thought given to other impacts.

No effort made to solicit feedback from any local authorities or people.

A new County Courthouse is not workable from a logistics perspective.

It will make a big dent in Ukiah’s already struggling downtown.

What you’ve been told is that the present Courthouse is a dangerous building because it is not earthquake-safe. In the last earthquake, as Napa was falling, this place looked out onto downtown Ukiah with no impact on it. They say it’s dangerous for security. I can show you how that can be fixed. The front the Courthouse is just plain ugly. I think that’s a selling point to rehab this building because the ugly front facade takes up a lot of space that can be re-done as s usable, attractive work area. The back side of the Courthouse is perfect and beautiful. And it is historically significant. The front of the Courthouse can be made beautiful, too.

Down past Rainbow Ag and the new sports bar there’s the railroad station. On days like this — bright, sunny, cheerful — maybe it’s relatively easy for us to get 50 to 100 cases up and down Perkins without the files falling apart on the street. But last year when all the cats and dogs were falling out of the sky, explain to me the means of getting the cases down the street safely and whole. We’d have to have drying rooms for our files.

As I sit in my office and watch State and Perkins, I see lots of accidents. Golf carts running around downtown means there’s lots that can go wrong with that. This is an after-the-fact response to the judges’ position of, This is what we’re doing. Ok, they said, you can help us by buying property down here for your offices. I don’t have that kind of purse, and the last time they discussed it with the County, they said no to any purchases of property for Courthouse offices. The County doesn’t have the money, either.

The cost will inevitably go up.

Disruption to and/or relocation of public defender offices.

Travel to and from the new site is and will be at best problematic.

The jail expansion is overrunning and the County is expected to pick up a big part of the tab for that out of the General Fund. In all likelihood the new courthouse will experience the same. All kinds of unanticipated costs and delays. By the time the high-priced consultants get finished with the gold plated ugly design it will cost much more than anybody thought, and be delayed and delayed as they figure out how to pay for it — but because it’s the judges they’ll have to.

The judges say it’s dangerous to have criminals shipped back and forth from the jail to the courthouse with potential contact with the public and they need a new courthouse with a sally port for safe prisoner transport. But in all these years they’ve been saying that, even with the more dangerous criminals now shipped back to Mendo with prison revisions lately, there has not been one incident or problem connected to that particular judicial paranoia. Not one.


Local law enforcement is against it.

DEPUTY CRAIG WALKER “appearing strictly in my capacity as President of the Deputy Sheriff’s Association,” said:

“Our organization is concerned about the county’s potential exposure to costs that will be in our opinion forced upon us by the relocation. The proposed new courthouse would house strictly court employees and that the county employees who currently are housed within the existing court facility and nearby would have to travel that extra distance. We don’t think that’s a feasible alternative for the medium or long term. The county will be forced at some point to construct another building down by the new courthouse or lease space at substantial cost and that the taxpayers would then be on the hook for maintenance of the old and abandoned facility and all of these things could easily run into the millions of dollars in cost for the county that the state which would mean less money for essential services. None of that was factored into their planning. So for those reasons our organization is adamantly opposed to relocating the courthouse. We feel that some reasonable renovations to the existing structure could be made at a fraction of the cost. We realize that this project is being driven by the State Office of the Courts and not by the county and not by some other local agency. Nevertheless, we think that because of that ancillary exposure to the County and to the county employees that we really need to work together and oppose this project and we will be contacting the Governor’s office and the Administrative Office of the Court to express our displeasure and we would like to think that you would join us in that regard. Thank you.” 


A READER WRITES: “Another problem with a new courthouse on Perkins street, other than the area already having traffic backed up for blocks at certain times of the day, court staff having to either walk back and forth from downtown to the new site (yea, I’m so sure people will walk), or get in their cars and drive for three blocks, and the general uglification of Ukiah .Just imagine a typical summer day in Ukiah with a 110 degree sun bouncing off a glass structure. Imagine the cost of cooling that behemoth, and we all know it’s gonna get hotter every year. I don’t understand why we citizens have not had a say in any decision-making. Cause when the accidents start happening, and we know they will, and the as yet unknown and unforeseen expenses become a reality I can only imagine the annoyed and bewildered staff. Ooops, forgot that piece of paper, gotta jump in my car and drive three blocks and back. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat.”

THE AVA: This is the second judicial swindle in my years in Mendocino County, the first being the termination of the county’s far flung justice courts, including the one in Boonville. That move came courtesy of the lawyer-dominated state legislature on the false basis that only lawyers were capable of dispensing justice, a proposition the legislature wouldn’t dare put to a vote. This move was purely for the convenience of 9 (count ’em) new superior court judges, each of them compensated at levels of pay and emoluments not available to most Americans. We now have more superior court judges per capita than any other county in the state, hell, maybe in the world.

SO WE LOST our justice courts, resulting for many of us in long drives to the County Courthouse in Ukiah to get screwed over, er, get our matters heard.

WORST OF ALL, the new courthouse will be a major eyesore for a town already synonymous with architectural squalor. A re-model of the old courthouse, the traditional courthouse that goes all the way back into the 19th century, if it were a restoration of the beauty of the original, Ukiah and the rest of the county’s sorely put upon citizens could point to it with pride.

OPEN WIDE, MENDOLAND as the new courthouse gets shoved down your unsuspecting throats. Your 9 fat cat judges are getting themselves a brand new courthouse that nobody except them wants. 

One Comment

  1. izzy July 14, 2022

    From the provided elevations, it looks like a larger version of the sterile box of a building that will be left behind. Wonder what will actually happen to that – the old PO on Oak St is still sitting empty (behind a chain-link fence), as is what’s left of the Palace Hotel. The historical Train Depot would have made a better model to emulate. That will probably become a trendy lunch spot for all the new local foot traffic, and foot-sore travelers off the Great Redwood Travail. Unless the lights go out first. “Exciting”, eh?

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