After almost 10 years of planning, Santa Barbara County officials have finally approved the initiation of construction on a new North County Superior Court Clerk’s Office building.
On Sept. 16, presiding Judge Arthur Garcia and Court Executive Officer Gary Blair planned—along with representatives from local law enforcement agencies, attorneys, and court employees—to gather for a special groundbreaking ceremony at the county courthouse facility on East Cook Street.
In a recent interview with the Sun, CEO Blair said the county started fundraising for the project back in 2001. Approximately $32 million, generated primarily by court fines and other citations, was allocated to construct the new juvenile facility off West Foster Road, and to
the County Courthouse Construction Fund.
But even though money for the new building was secured, he said, “there were lots of snafus and things holding us up along the way.”
According to Blair, in late 2003 the state of California released a report detailing plans to approve legislation that would transfer ownership of courthouse facilities to the state. Meanwhile, another study found many existing courthouse buildings in California to be seismically deficient. As a result, the county opted out of constructing a new clerk’s office and transferred the money to seismic retrofitting projects.
“The county didn’t want to spend all that money on the new building only to have ownership transferred to the state,” Blair explained.
The decision, however, ended up saving the county money in the long run, he said.
“The recession hit and costs went down on construction,” Blair explained, adding that since 2003 construction bids on the project have gone down nearly 35 percent.
The new, 18,500-square-foot, two-story office building will be built on the same property as the current court facility on East Cook Street, and will be home to most court operations and employees.
“The majority of the footprint will go right over where the modular building used to be,” Blair said.
The modular building Blair referred to was a temporary, 27-year-old structure that, according to court officials, had been “continually decaying” for years. That facility was torn down on Sept. 9.
“It sure was something to see [the demolition crew] go through and take the building apart section by section,” Blair said.
Construction on the new court clerk’s office is expected to take about 18 months, with the completion date scheduled for early February 2012.
This article appears in Sep 16-23, 2010.