County previews new "Justice Center"

Durhamites -- or at least the hardy few who made it to the downtown library in a crowd where insiders seemed to practically outnumber "civilian" citizens -- got an interesting peek at the proposed new Durham County Justice Center last night.

County government officials joined representatives from project architects and designers O'Brien Atkins, Heery-HLM Design, and The Harris Collaborative to present the rundown on the 300,000 sq. ft., $100 million replacement for Durham's 1970s-era courthouse, itself a facility renowned for being outgrown as soon as it opened -- and with elevators prone to breaking down without fail.

Come the fall of 2012, county officials expect the replacement facility to stand as a beacon on the skyline, providing a gateway to the Bull City, a portal to downtown -- and, not coincidentally we suspect, a visual barrier obscuring Durham's largest downtown multi-unit residential complex.

In this artist's rendering, the new courthouse is visible on the block bordered by Mangum to the west, Roxboro to the east, and Dillard to the south. The justice center is designed to stand 11 stories in height, and at 187 feet in height the tall, narrow tower would stand almost as tall as the SunTrust/Hill tower downtown, and almost as long as a football field.

Which is the perfect height, really, to block the Durham County Detention Center from view coming up the freeway. And, less cynically, to provide what designers and county officials describe as a signature "gateway" to downtown, with blue-green North Carolina slate accenting a sandstone-colored building.

Also part of the design: a mid-rise wing providing extra office and administrative space, a public plaza intended to open onto American Tobacco and the future Scientific Properties high-rise development across Dillard, and a parking garage that's, well, a parking garage. (More on that in a bit.)

The justice center, which as envisioned is almost twice as large as the Diamond View II office complex visible at left in the artist's rendering, will unite a number of justice-related departments in the county, including the Sheriff's Office, which will unify its downtown operations currently bifurcated between the existing courthouse and the 300 block of East Main Street.

Juvenile Justice, the Public Defender's Office, the Clerk of Courts, and the District Attorney's office are also among the dozen or so departments set to move into the facility.

Conveniently, the justice center and the jail will be linked by an above-ground secure corridor: handy if you need to transport prisoners between the big tower and the big house or, less commonly, should your D.A. need to go spend a night in the slammer, courtesy of what we should call the Nifong Causeway.

The complex is set to be built upon the site of Scarborough & Hargett funeral home and the former downtown U-Haul center; both facilities are set to be demolished by early 2009. Construction will begin at the end of that year, with the parking deck wrapping up in winter 2011, with the center itself ready for move-in in fall 2012.

The design team emphasized the facility's intended impact on Durham's skyline, noting the "strong civic image" of Durham it was intended to portray, including notably the slate-covered stairwell rising the height of the tower, which prominently includes the Durham County seal at the building's peak.

A number of aesthetic improvements have been made since the spring's initial revealing of the plan to elected officials, who expressed caution at what was described in one reporter's coverage as an outsized hotel.

Among the changes: a more signature roofline and upgraded materials. Additionally, the front lobby to the facility has been augmented, standing now as a prominent three-story entrance point with double-height entries and the signature slate look. (To give you a sense of perspective, that blue-green entry point, seen below, is about the size and massing of the old courthouse that now serves as a county government office building on Main St.)

The building, as viewed from Mangum:

A closer look at the plaza and the entry wing...

...intended to be evocative of the World War I-era courthouse that preceeded it:

Inside, the courthouse will be constructed with an eye towards future expansion -- something the existing "tomorrow's courthouse" didn't quite meet. The facility will be constructed initially with 16 courtrooms, but a number of the office spaces within the building are designed for easy eventual conversion to such spaces, bringing the maximum capacity of the facility to 25.

To that end, the courthouse is designed for future expansion, since the structure (and its parking deck) would need to be enlarged to create displaced office space. Regular office space is cheaper to build down the road than the structural and circulation elements supporting courthouse areas, the latter of which require separate egress and wayfaring paths for staff/judges, the public, and defendants. In a smart move, the building's tower -- which is set up from day one for such multi-party circulation -- allows for easy conversion to more courtrooms, with offices sliding over if ever needed.

As the schematic above shows, if you're going to have a massive courthouse, it seems you need a massive parking deck to go with it. And we have nothing less than a 900-vehicle deck immediately adjacent to the courthouse.

To this observer, one of the elements likely to draw some questions (though only receiving it last night from me and one other public meeting attendee) is the parking deck's prominence along both Dillard and Roxboro, raising spectres of Durham Centre II: The Revenge. (For those new to the downtown debates, the Durham Centre tower across the street from the Carolina Theatre draws catcalls periodically for massing a large parking deck without pedestrian interest or features right along Morgan St., effectively killing any street-level activity.)

Twenty years later, the parking deck for the justice center will... sit without pedestrian interest or features right along Dillard and Roxboro.

One design team member noted the aesthetic upgrades to the parking deck, including a slate-covered tower at its southeastern corner and the presence of green trellises on upper floors, as ways of softening the look of the deck; indeed, one noted that the structured parking should be a signature gateway into Durham as drivers proceeded north on Roxboro into downtown.

In their defense, both county engineer Glen Whisler and county commission chair Ellen Reckhow noted that the much-ballyhooed concept of local governments providing street-level retail pads or allowing the decks to be "wrapped" with office space or residential as with American Tobacco's East Deck were difficult to accomplish under what both noted were legal constraints impinging on the possibility of creating such public-private partnerships.

Whisler also noted the massive mixed-use development that Scientific Properties has proposed to sit just south of the complex across Dillard Street, and noted that retail and dining options would likely be just steps away from the new justice center at both the future Scientific site and at American Tobacco. He and the design team noted that crossings to both projects would be at-grade and that the large public plaza leading into the justice center was designed to open up onto both sites.

(For that matter, an on-site cafeteria is also not planned for the justice center, just a range of vending machines and a seating area for staff and members of the public to sit and dine or talk.)

The connections to Ambacco aren't just spatial, they're visual. One rendering of the east-west hallway running through the tower shows that in the westmost windows of the hall, the Lucky Strike smokestack and water tower remain visible on most floors.

One other benefit to a large parking deck close to the justice center: overflow parking for the Durham Performing Arts Center! Whisler and a member of one of the design groups both noted independently that there aren't enough spaces in the DPAC to accomplish all the patrons at the performing arts center show, and that with the East Deck being privately controlled there were no guarantees of parking access.

Which means if you're coming to the DPAC in, say, four years, look for the big parking deck at Dillard and Roxboro. The County'll gladly take a few bucks for theater parking from Raleighites stopping at the most convenient NC 147 exit. (Perhaps we'll see Mayor Bell out front with those glow-sticks, directing drivers instead to a city-owned deck?)

North of the parking deck, past the future deck expansion zone, sits the current staff parking area for the detention center; that lot is slated for future expansion of the jail itself, a facility that could end up doubling in size as Durham's population grows in the coming decades, according to Whisler.

We wouldn't expect too many changes to the design at this point. Reckhow noted that the commissioners had had some reservations about the first pass at the design, but that from what she understood of individual commissioners' responses to the revised look, the "design is vastly improved," seeming to signal smooth sailing for the $100 million project with Durham County's elected board.

Comments

[hurley]

If people want to move into apartments "right next to the jail", that's their business. If the amenities-location-rent equation suits you. more power to you. I didn't know there was a "major art gallery" on the east side of Roxboro, they should put out a sign.

Comparisons to the American Tobacco projects are irrelevant. The new courthouse is a government project. Do the people on this blog not know the profound differences this entails?

Basically, on the one hand, you have Duke money moving east, on the other you have a lot of college urban design cliches crashing into political and economic reality.

[David Rollins]

hurley, you are my new hero. However, I must take exception to your comment that this didn't happen because there's no demand -- rather it's due to the mentality of the city council (best described as "mixed use was hard and made us stay late for more discussion, so we just approved a leviathan garage so we could get home in time for American Idol").

If you don't think deadbeat criminals have money to spend (not to mention jurors on their lunch break), you obviously haven't been to any number of a series of east durham shopping corners. Put in a bodega, an african hair braid store, and a taco truck and you're in business. Add in the bail bondsman and a storefront shyster with a 24-hr. pager and you've got yourself a regular small business "enterprise zone". You might not ever get the Cold Stone Creamery crowd, but I guarantee the helado will be flying off the shelves.

[Bull City Rising]

"The new courthouse is a government project. Do the people on this blog not know the profound differences this entails?"

Silly me! I naively was assuming the government might want to allow the private sector to handle part of the development, keeping part of the property on the tax rolls and adding to the sales tax revenue. Must be the college-liberal bias of my MBA talking.

Those public-private partnerships are just a bunch of hooey anyway, eh? We should ignore the state-level discussions of such approaches in places like California (http://tinyurl.com/bcr-california-courthouse)?

Or how about Wake County, which was looking at a private sector partnership for the new parking deck for _their_ new courthouse, at least as of three years ago?

"The new complex would include 400 parking spaces, but the county will need 900 more, Stout said.

To provide parking for Wake employees, jurors and visitors when the courthouse is built, the county is considering building as many as 900 spaces on 1.3 acres it owns at the southwest corner of McDowell and Davie streets, near the site of the city's under-construction convention center.

That project, which Wake wants built by July 2008, could include condominiums, retail space or a mix of both. Officials this week discussed possibilities with developers, Stout said."

(http://www2.nccommerce.com/eclipsfiles/12134.pdf)

Tell me, how can Wake County look to such partnerships, and Durham County can't?

Bottom line: If local government likes seeing the kind of private-sector development that's happening to the east and west sides of the courthouse site, it ought to consider for its own projects designing them in such a way as to help, not hinder, _those_ additions to the tax base. I like the courthouse in general, but the parking deck doesn't seem to help urban connectivity there.

[Allen]

Sitting on the first baseline last night, I could imagine seeing this. I actually find the new Quintiles building more aesthetically enjoyable than this. I wish the city would do more for the street-level activity of downtown first. I am more excited to see how the SP and Greenfire projects turn out. It does seem like activity on the north end of AmBacco is seperating itself from the rest of downtown as a "safe place" for business folks.

I think I'll just stick to the cooler surrounding downtown neighborhoods. Since I've been here, it seems to be where anything interesting happens.

[GreenLantern]

"Like I've said, I'd love to know whether the County reached out to private developers to build and operate a deck/mixed-use structure, with or without incentives. Clearly that can be done, like at American Tobacco. Was there any effort to do this? Perhaps there are good reasons why not, but it would be good to know them."

David, you make a good point. I am also curious as to the reasons why a mixed use parking deck wasn't considered, other than it was too "hard". As long as the deck plans don't significantly delay the courthouse construction, and there are interested private parties out there, they should be encouraged to make an offer to split the costs with the county to put in street level retail. We really don't want to see the cost of the courthouse soaring and eating up any savings we could get from shared financing of a parking deck. Now that SP is clearly going to build something magnificent across the street, it might be a good time for someone like Andy Rothschild to help now out instead of asking for the city/county to build him a parking deck of his own as a prerequisite later. Either that, or perhaps split the costs of both parking decks with private/public funds to serve both the courthouse and the SP project. That may be a better route to get funding for an SP parking deck, because many of us want to finally see a stop to having the city/county build parking decks for the primary use of private developments.

It may be harder for government to get retail shops lined up to open under a parking deck, and I suppose that's one reason why we don't see them. Perhaps the county doesn't want to get into a legal fight over who gets public support for their businesses when it's not offered to other businesses that do not locate under a parking deck. That's why private business parking should be financed by private developers, for the most part.

[GreenLantern]

"Regarding the deck, I think I'd be happy if they just put in 3000 sq. ft. of retail on the first floor only at the Dillard/Roxboro corner. Just having a presence on the corner would make a huge difference."

I agree. At least two or three small businesses on the corner of Roxboro St. would be enough to make a difference. I don't think requiring the entire first floor on all four sides of the deck to be retail is a practical consideration and it would risk further delay getting the courthouse built.

All these parking decks in such close proximitiy to each other means that the spaces will be shared amongst several developments including the courthouse, SP office towers, Durham Bulls, and the Performing Arts Center. I'm going to park wherever I want to depending on how crowded or expensive the other decks are. Sharing the costs of getting these things built means that the developments will get built faster at a lower cost. Concrete and steel aren't getting any cheaper, and the sooner we get property tax and sales receipts from all these new developments, the better. Decent profit margins are a matter of timing. If a developer wants quicker approval for his project, it's not too much to ask to help line up a few interested parties for a little "seed money" to put up a parking deck next door that some of your future patrons are going to use. It may even grease the skids for future incentives and keep contruction costs down for both the developer and the government. If this sounds too much like quid quo pro, then there may be some legal constraints I haven't considered. If the county would just come out and say what those contraints were that prevented adding retail to a courthouse parking deck, it would be helpful to the discussion.

[Bull City Rising]

@GL: I think that's at the heart of the matter. If I have time during lunch this week (doubtful with the current work schedule) I'd love to call over to Wake County and see what their thinking was with a privately-developed deck with wrapper for their courthouse. It's possible they ran into the legal constraints that Ellen and Glen mentioned.

In all fairness, it almost certainly is too late at this point to make this change to the project without running into the escalating costs of steel and building materials. I'm not convinced the benefit of making a change is worth the extra cost of construction. Still, this is far from the last time local government will go through the process of building a deck, and it would be good to understand this issue for next time.

There's an interesting counterpoint to what I'm suggesting here, of course. The City is really doing exactly what we're talking about here with the Chapel Hill St. deck and Greenfire, and that proposal ran into a lot of heat from other developers. One presumes it was because of the direct-deal with Greenfire as part of their massive build-up of infrastructure downtown. I would assume that something like a courthouse or human services complex deck would go through a (time-consuming) public bid process.

Playing devil's advocate on myself, of course, there's another good reason for a county gov't to want to build it themselves: they control the timeline of delivery. The County could make the argument that if they relied on a private firm to build the deck, and it fell behind or went under while the public courthouse construction proceeded on schedule, you'd end up with a courthouse without parking -- also expensive to taxpayers. Again, it's hard to imagine doing such a deal without retaining the right of reversion.

Still, all of this assumes local government's interest in investigating such partnerships in the first place, something I don't think we know the full story on.

[GreenLantern]

I've got an idea!

GREEN ROOFS!

Now that Triangle architecture includes plenty of the trendy "aircraft landing decks" on the top floor, it may be time to introduce green "garden" roofs (rooves?) to the mix. How about a couple of top floor open-air restaurents with a view set in a garden environment? Tavern on the Green on the 10th floor!

Unlike commercial buildings where all the AC and water tanks are located on the roof, the top floor of a parking deck has a blank slate to build upon, and everyone gets valet parking!.....I'm sure someone will figure it out someday. I'm not suggesting this approach for the courthouse deck, but it would give us something unique for a while that other cities in the area don't have.

Yeah, I know,....I'm crazy.

[RWE]

"It's smart of the county to stay out of the landlord business ("wraparound" development). If there aren't state laws against this, there should be."

You're fooling yourself if you don't think that the city and county are already neck deep in the landlord business. You can even buy a Subway sandwich in the basement of the old courthouse.

I agree that our governments should divest themselves of the host of crack houses and vacant lots they own and allow private individuals to put them back on the tax rolls. However, when a public entity uses our money to develop an enormous office building on a site that is surrounded by hundreds of millions of dollars worth of ongoing private development projects, they have an obligation to do so in a thoughtful and businesslike manner.

Dedicating small bays to retail space would be a smart business decision on several fronts. The county would generate $$$ from the leases while providing venues for their employees and visitors to eat lunch, mail a package, or grab a cup of coffee without getting in their cars. They would also contribute to a critical mass of street level activity that would increase the chance of the privately funded, tax revenue generating project across the street being a success.

[mjr]

I am not sure why some folks who post here aren't more supportive of public/private partnerships. The investments the city/county made in ATC and WV had probably the best financial return on investment of any expenditure ever made by our local governments. Can anyone think of a better public infrastructure investment? Now I know that our local governments can't focus on just the financial returns of most of their expenditures but these projects didn't just significantly increase our tax base, they also dramatically improved two huge areas of downtown that were abandoned and poorly representing life in Durham.

[Todd Patton]

I have to agree with the sentiment in this topic that we don't need 50,000 sf of retail space in the deck. Just enough room for a place to get a sandwich or some coffee would be welcome for courthouse visitors - not all of whom are criminals. Try spening a week or more on jury duty sometime and you will know what I mean. 3,000-5,000 sf on the corner of Roxboro would help to drive foot traffic in the area.

It is a travesty of 'planning' for the County not to include this when the City-County Planning Department is wisely pushing for this very type of thing in unban areas. Especially since there will be nothing but vending machines withn the courthouse itself.

[Scott Harmon]

I can't believe the County is once again proposing such an antiquated parking solution. All over the country, projects like this are successfully developed with the parking better concealed. Why is the parking not incorporated into the structure? Why doesn't the county at least set the garage back 50 feet from each right of way so that once it can figure out how to do public private partnerships, we haven't permanently eliminated the chance of having meaningful street life. Do you want to see a bad downtown? Go to Raleigh. Dominated by parking garages. Durham can, and should, do better. Does the design team have experienced urban planners well versed in best practices for infill urban development? If so, I'd like to here them step forward and defend this. I'm very sorry I missed this meeting but I plan on expending a lot of energy to improve this design.

[CG]

Would anybody from the County like to comment?

[Todd Patton]

I'd like to know how this is gonna get past City-County Planning. This is a publicly-funded project and we can do better. If the County needs some pointers, just ask Chapel Hill.

[Tar Heelz]

How can it be too late for any public review or changes? If this were a private sector project, it would have months and months and months of review before it would get approved. Undoubtedly, that eventual approval would come only after staff, planning board, DRB, appearance commission, etc. had had an opportunity to weigh in (and pick it apart).

Private projects get copious public review.
Public projects get none?

Weird.

[Tar Heelz]

@ScottHarmon,

Take a look at all the current Downtown Raleigh projects. They all have 1st floor, pedestrian friendly retail. As a great example, take a look at RBC Plaza. 1st Floor Retail/Office wrapping the entrance to the parking deck which has its spaces beginning on the 2nd Floor. Additional deck parking for RBC Plaza has been constructed on the neighboring lot. That Deck is to set back to be completely wrapped with retail and residential.

The only deck project to not get a mixed-use aspect? The State of North Carolina's new deck. Why? The State quickly exempted itself last year from Raleigh zoning review after the Planning Board told the State's attorney they needed to look at wrapping the deck.

"We're from the government. We're here to help."

[Chuck]

Why are they not pursuing Leed Gold?