News that the county courthouse slated for downtown Morgan Hill
will cost 20 percent more than planned got us pondering the
importance of the two ‘Cs’: cooperation and communication.
The 80,000-square-foot courthouse, to be built on eight acres at
the northwest corner of Diana Avenue and Butterfield Boulevard just
east of downtown, is a joint project of the Morgan Hill
Redevelopment Agency and Santa Clara County.
News that the county courthouse slated for downtown Morgan Hill will cost 20 percent more than planned got us pondering the importance of the two ‘Cs’: cooperation and communication.
The 80,000-square-foot courthouse, to be built on eight acres at the northwest corner of Diana Avenue and Butterfield Boulevard just east of downtown, is a joint project of the Morgan Hill Redevelopment Agency and Santa Clara County. It was originally projected to cost $40 million, but steel prices rose during design disputes, severely impacting the project’s price tag.
When the county and city agreed to undertake this cooperative project, in part to prevent a lawsuit between the two parties over RDA revenue splits, the county agreed that Morgan Hill’s strict design standards would be respected.
The county offended city council members when officials failed to consult the city before moving ahead with schematic drawings, despite the agreement stipulating the project would be a partnership. The county loudly disputed those charges, and the two agencies descended into a public squabble.
The embarrassing public spat was just the beginning of the problems. Things got ugly, literally, to many South Valley residents when the architects’ initial design was unveiled.
A drive around Morgan Hill, which has a well-deserved reputation for creating aesthetically pleasing new civic buildings (such as the community center and playhouse), should have given the architects plenty of design inspiration and direction.
Instead, the county’s architects, Chuck Drulis and Mallory Cusenbery, submitted a design for a gray, soulless building that didn’t fit – or lift – the spirit of Morgan Hill in any way.
With the poor communication and dreadful cooperation exhibited by these agencies, the project’s completion date slipped from December 2005 to spring 2006 (note that spring includes most of the month of June, a potential delay of six months), and county officials are already hedging that date with weather worries.
With those delays came the rising steel costs, and an additional $8 million out of county taxpayers’ pockets. In addition, that delay means downtown businesses have to wait longer for the anticipated economic boost courthouse employees and visitors are expected to bring.
No matter how you look at it, the time lost is very costly.
All in all, the squabbling provided an expensive abject lesson in the cost of uncooperative, uncommunicative government agencies. If only our elected and appointed officials stuck with the basics, where might the county be spending that additional $8 million?
