Mayor scraps courthouse plan

http://www.jacksonville.com/images/102804/46779_400.jpg

By MARY KELLI PALKA and MATT GALNOR
The Times-Union

Jacksonville Mayor John Peyton said this afternoon that he's scrapping current plans for a new Duval County Courthouse complex and will start over.

In a 1 p.m. meeting, Peyton told Chief Judge Donald Moran that estimated construction costs would push the overall project budget above $268 million, which is Peyton's current proposed budget. The mayor said he doesn't want to pour more money into the project.

Peyton has terminated the city's contract with the project construction manager and architect, saying in a news release that he had lost faith in the design and construction teams.

The City Council had been expected to vote on the mayor's proposed budget increase, which would add $36 million more to the current $232 million figure, next month.

Peyton is holding hold a 3 p.m. news conference this afternoon to discuss his decision and future plans for the project. The mayor said he has told his staff to get the most up to date information on the needs of the community and court users, develop a budget, and hire new design and construction teams.

Skanska Dynamic Partners, the construction manager, submitted a guaranteed maximum price of $225.3 million for construction costs on the project, bringing the overall budget to $294 million. The construction price is about $26 million more than the city set aside to build the project.

When Skanska submitted the guaranteed maximum price, they were still committed to building the courthouse on time and within that price, according to documents filed with the city.

Gary R. Miller, co-chairman and chief executive officer of Cannon Design, the architect, sent a letter to Peyton's office this morning in a last-ditch effort to keep the job.

"It is our opinion that the financial interests of the construction manager are at odds with the goal of the city to get a functional building at a fair price," Miller wrote.

Council members have been telling Peyton for weeks that if the guaranteed maximum price comes in above the $268 million, it's time to move on.

Voters in 2000 approved taxing themselves a half-cent to pay for the $2.2 billion Better Jacksonville Plan. Included in plans for new public buildings was a $190 million courthouse.

A new arena and ballpark came in on budget, but the courthouse has had financial problems from almost the beginning. When Mayor John Delaney, who came up with the Better Jacksonville Plan, left office in July 2003, he said he had the budget near $230 million. Peyton, who took office in July 2003, said he inherited a project at about $282 million, but that he cut the budget by $50 million.

About $59 million has been spent and committed on the project so far, with about $27 million not recoverable. It's not clear yet how much of that could be used for a new project.


mary.palkajacksonville.com, (904) 359-4104

matt.galnorjacksonville.com, (904) 359-4550



This story can be found on Jacksonville.com at http://www.jacksonville.com/tu-online/stories/102804/met_courthouse.shtml.

Whoa, that's really surprising. Ugly Courthouse though.

ah man, ill admit i dont pay enough attention to florida outside of miami, but i had been watching this one... i hear alotta people saying they dont like it, i personally loved it, this woulda been great for the city, man, sux

I, just like most Jacksonville residents, are glad this plan has finally been scrapped. The plan on the table had been scaled back considerably and had become a poor looking, but still expensive, building after all the cut backs.

The original design was a 900,000sf low rise building (8 stories) consuming seven blocks. Now we'll get the chance for a better design that respects the Northbank's urban landscape by not closing several streets to accomodate a sprawling complex.

IMO, hopefully, we'll get a high-rise courthouse out of this, which will enable the city to sell the extra land, for mixed-use projects by developers looking to jump in on the downtown development boom.

They should definitely go highrise. The money the city could make by selling those other blocks to developers (and the resulting property taxes) could practically pay for the courthouse, or at least a huge chunk of the price. (or the land could make for a nice park or whatever)

http://www.bizjournals.com/industries/real_estate/construction/2004/11/15/jacksonville_story4.html

The Business Journal of Jacksonville

From the November 15, 2004 print edition
KBJ Architects seeks to clear the air about courthouse project
Ann Luce
Staff Writer

JACKSONVILLE -- The name KBJ Architects Inc. kept on surfacing through the controversy over the new Duval County Courthouse Complex, and the firm wants to set the record straight.

KBJ was one of four firms that made it to the final design competition stage in June 2002.

The firms -- Rink Reynolds, Cannon Design, KBJ and Spillis Candela -- made presentations to a selection committee that chose Cannon Design as the designer of the complex.

But that decision prompted officials at Jacksonville-based KBJ to file a complaint.

"We have been involved [in the courthouse project] for the last two and a half years, mostly during the first four or five months of the project," said KBJ principal William Morris at the last meeting of the Jacksonville City Council's special committee on the courthouse on Oct. 29. "We have been accused of sour grapes, but it's time to clear the air.

"City government is a steward of the city. As a private citizen I may be angry with the progress on this project, but as a firm, we know the city has the option to choose the firm of its choice."

Former Mayor John Delaney's administration heard KBJ's complaint that the Cannon design did not meet size or budget specifications and found no grounds for the complaint.

That should have been the last anyone heard on the subject from KBJ, which started in Jacksonville in 1946 and now employs more than 50 people at offices in Jacksonville and Orlando. But the firm's name has continued to come up throughout the courthouse project process.

It came up when City Council member Suzanne Jenkins brought a bill before the council more than a year and a half ago asking Mayor John Peyton to stop the project temporarily because information from members of the design and construction communities indicated the numbers were not adding up.

Cannon's design was "twice, or at least one and a half times, its original size," Jenkins said. "People were coming up to me and asking me to do something. But when I brought it to the mayor, he thought I was pushing KBJ. I told him, 'Listen, we're going to train wreck, it won't work, we're not going to bring it in on budget.' But the mayor didn't know me; he was new, too, and he figured I was bringing him trouble. He felt it was an assault on him."

So the process continued and the courthouse complex under Cannon fluctuated in size and cost on a month-to-month basis.

But KBJ's name was still still out there when Dan Kleman, chief operating officer for the city, arrived seven months ago.

Kleman visited the KBJ offices this past summer at the company's invitation, he said, and after KBJ had been telling him, Peyton and City Council members how much it would cost to complete KBJ's project.

"We did not solicit information from KBJ," Kleman said. "We had no interest in them. They were a proposer, they appealed, they were unsuccessful in their appeal. We have no interest in conversing with them on this project."

But Tom Rensing, a principal at KBJ, said KBJ's original project could be completed for the $232 million budget the city has allocated for the project thus far.

"Our recent estimate [of] June 4, 2004, is that we can build our design for $114,110,784 million," he said at the special committee meeting Oct. 29. That number is the construction budget only. "We have built in escalation costs of $6 million for increases and an additional $4 million for contingencies. There is plenty of room to make this work."

Under the numbers KBJ presented at the meeting, the project could be finished for $198 million. That would include construction costs, land, the old federal courthouse, monies that have already been spent and an additional $10 million for contingencies.

Peyton stopped work on the courthouse complex Oct. 28 when he fired Cannon and construction managers Skanska Dynamic Partners. Officials say the city will take the next two or three months to evaluate the project.

Morris said he and KBJ are hoping that they can have a say in the future direction of the courthouse, but they are concerned about how the name of the firm has been thrown around in the past.

"Different people have had different political agendas and have used us to paint us as a thorn in his [Peyton's] side," Morris said. "We don't want to say anything more because we hope to work with the city in the future."
http://www.bizjournals.com/industries/real_estate/construction/2004/11/15/jacksonville_story4.html?f=et178