Nine more renderings of the planned $150 million Mendocino County Courthouse in Ukiah have been publicly posted by the state Judicial Council of California, which is overseeing the controversial project.
A rendering of the front exterior released in mid-August was greeted with derision by county residents. The latest renderings may not ease community concerns, based on the reactions then.
The additional renderings on the Judicial Council’s website amplify a three-story “barcode” exterior cited by critics, and depict a crisp, stark interior.
The new renderings show interior spaces and how courtrooms in the 82,000 square foot three-story building will look. It will be constructed on a state-owned site south of Perkins Street, and immediately adjacent to the historic Ukiah Railroad Depot, a Colonial Revival-style building erected a century ago in the heyday of North Coast railroad service. Railroad tracks from that era will mark the new courthouse’s rear property boundary.
State officials boast that the new courthouse will feature the most advanced environmental related technologies used in construction today. They, however, will be largely hidden from public view.
Instead, renderings show the new courthouse’s glass-enclosed entrance facing east and away from downtown on its four-acre site, flanked by parking lots, the train station, and a large mobile home park to the south.
The new courthouse’s broad rear will be what downtown Ukiah denizens see from where a courthouse has been located since 1860. The historic site is a square block bounded by State, Perkins, School and Standley streets in the heart of downtown.
The state’s expanded design artistic renderings are not likely to ease local critics, who lashed out at the first look.
Mendocino County resident David King wrote in mid-August that the planned façade looked like a “barcode,” a comment that was readily picked up by others.
A reader named Todd described the design as “hideous prison aesthetic.” Another called the courthouse design “Soviet Brutalist architectural style meets Apple store banality.”
Fentress Architects, a global architectural firm with California offices in Sacramento and Los Angeles, did not respond to requests for comment on the selected design.
The Fentress firm is working with Hensel Phelps Construction Co, a Washington state company, on the Ukiah project. Construction is scheduled to begin early next year, with completion scheduled for 2027.
As it is, the Fentress/Hensel Phelps team is the state’s designated design-builder contractors for the single largest civic construction project in Mendocino County history.
The new courthouse will remove court functions from an ill-designed 1950s era building located in the heart of downtown to a new courthouse located three long blocks away on Perkins Street.
The current courthouse is in a deteriorated state. It is seismically unsound, does not provide adequate access to all courtrooms for disabled people, and needs costly retrofit of basic infrastructure including heating and air conditioning systems, according to state officials.
What will happen to the aging structure is unclear. It will revert to County ownership by a County which is struggling with budget deficits and does not have an estimated $10 million plus for needed repairs so county offices could be moved in. In addition, the new courthouse does not provide space for two critical departments integral to the local justice system: the county District Attorney and the Public Defender offices.
County and city representatives are meeting every other month to discuss the situation, but no clear idea has yet to emerge.
The new courthouse has been envisioned for more than a decade, but state budget woes and other issues delayed action until now.
Construction of the new Ukiah courthouse is currently ranked the second highest on a lengthy list of state court projects.
A smaller courthouse project in neighboring Lake County is at the top of the list.
How the new courthouse will look, and what happens to the old courthouse, continue to be hot topics among residents.
“We already have the Palace Hotel and the former Post Office anchoring downtown decay,” wrote a reader after getting a first look at plans in mid-August. “A chain-link fence around the next corpse is all that is needed.”
I’ve been living in Mendocino county since 1994, I love the small town country feel of the area.
Stop trying to turn this place into a big city with the architecture of the buildings. Find some architects who know how to design a courthouse that’s beautiful and functional.
The monstrasady that’s being proposed is ugly and will not hold up overtime (it does look like a bar code) stick with the old architects, those designs last a lifetime.
I grew up in L.A. county suburbs and the building is too ugly for even there.
Put some heart into it people.
This is further evidence of the State’s “one size fits all” approach to everything. Rural areas have different needs than urban areas. Sticking urban design in a rural town makes no sense. Heaven forbid the state actually include localities in the process!