Wake Co. Justice Center

[ncwebguy]

It will be interesting to see what affect this will have on the redevlopment of the blocks to the north (N&O) and west (Carey Limosine, surface parking lot). More deck parking could go on those blocks to support this. Other than the Berkley and its neighbors, everything on the block to the west woud not be missed -- Turn Key tire, Mort's trophies, Firestone, surface parking lots, etc. The "Nash Square" corner is ok, but could easily be better with a little better design and for about the same amount of money. It is sad that they get public feedback now, well after any chance of saving GJ and Raleigh Lawyers buildings.

I think the two levels of underground parking will be *very* secure and not availble to the general public, *maybe* jurors.

[formotion]

Great Eulogy to The Garland Jones Building HERE

[only]

But you and I will never agree on this matter if you believe that AESTHETICS are IRRELEVANT.

[askmisterbrown]

Only:

Architecture was once considered one of the three major branches of visual art, along with painting and sculpture. Surely you don

[Spatula]

Really this entire thing was a mistake. The original courthouse should have been built in the government complex, along with the jail, and this new building. That's where they belong. As they are now, they're just going to provide a monolithic impediment to the commerce and atmosphere of the area.

No reason to make it worse though. They could've built the new building without using the entire block; they just decided not to, because hey!

[Jones_]

Part of the situation is that the Gales Family gave the Fayettevile St site to the County for a courthouse and a courthouse must be maintained on that site or it reverts to the Gales....how complicated that would be nowadays....the jail though does not necessarily need to be downtown, though logistics make it a good idea (though the jail tower is ugly as he%^ skyline). The whole county complex is a drag on downtown imo, with bail bondsmen (legitmate businesses I know) all over and convicts released right into our soon to arrive convention crowds. Durham Life would make great retro converted condos too but the County would likely demolish it in 2025 for another modern building as they declare it unfit for rehab before being willing to sell it.

[jnzllwgr]

Jnzllwgr:

You are right to state that we are using old styles poorly. At least in most cases we are, because the new orthodoxy is that anything old must be rejected. (We are also using new styles poorly; that is a separate issue.)

But I disagree that old styles should never be used. The volutes and flutes may have had a certain meaning in ancient Greece, but ever since, they have simply been part of a beautiful and impressive style of architecture. I hope you don

[askmisterbrown]

Oh, yes! There is nothing that would please me more than a beautiful design in a completely new style. I would love to feel the thrill they felt when the first Gothic buildings, or the first Art Deco buildings, or the first International Style buildings went up. I felt a little of that thrill when the first Art Deco Revival buildings went up; even though the style was derivative, it was somewhat new. But so many of these new buildings give me a sick feeling instead. And I have also felt this sick feeling before, when the early "Mansard Revolution" buildings went up in the 1970s.

I hope I will live to see a beautiful and completely new style emerge. For this to happen, there will probably have to be a return to emphasis on aesthetics in the design schools. Beauty will have to be exalted above novelty. That would require a counter-revolution.

Yes, I understand that our society has sunk to the point where we don't put a value on fine materials and workmanship. I will not say that we CAN'T afford it because supposedly we have a much higher standard of living than we did a century ago. We just WON'T afford it.

You are right, the San Francisco Federal Office Building says something about our time. But I don't like what it says. It says we live in an ugly time.

I guess I'm just an anachronism. I have to learn to "stop worrying and love the bomb."

Golly, maybe that's it! Why should we design for the ages when we all know that the bomb or global warming or water wars will erase all this in a few years anyway?! Why should we adorn the earth with beauty when it is about to be burned up, dried up and hurled into space? These designs are the last hideous gasps of a world in its death throes! It would be inappropriate for them to be beautiful! I get it! At last I get it!

[Jones_]

This site plan from the City website does not even show a building at the GJ and Lawyers site...just a grassy park...wonder how old it is and why whenever it was devised the "needs" were not as great....

[jnzllwgr]

Yes, I understand that our society has sunk to the point where we don't put a value on fine materials and workmanship. I will not say that we CAN'T afford it because supposedly we have a much higher standard of living than we did a century ago. We just WON'T afford it.

[only]

Only:

Architecture was once considered one of the three major branches of visual art, along with painting and sculpture. Surely you don

[wfdude]

This site plan from the City website does not even show a building at the GJ and Lawyers site...just a grassy park...wonder how old it is and why whenever it was devised the "needs" were not as great....

[dmccall]

That is really unfortunate. To tear both of them down for a grassy area. Thats almost as bad as tearing it down for a parking lot.

This entire thing is tragic. Why don't we honor and save our history? I drove through downtown Charlotte this weekend and there was barely any "old" buildings with character. Before long, we'll be like them if we keep this up.

[orulz]

I went to the public meeting today at the Western Wake regional library, and had a chance to talk in depth with Mr. Stout, who is heading up this effort. He recognized my name from the e-mail that I sent to him some weeks ago on the subject, and we talked for 20 or so minutes about how they arrived at the plan we are seeing today.

He was very open to my comments and I encourage you all to e-mail him and your county commissioners on the subject.

I feel this plan does have a number of positives:

• To my (admittedly untrained) eye, the internal space, layout, and circulation of the building seems well thought-out.

• I am not an architectural purist. The general architectural style is, in my opinion, attractively conservative

• I rather like the entrance facing Nash Square

• The building will be made of quality materials (granite, limestone, metal, and glass will be the primary materials)

I learned several new facts about the plan. They are not planning on building a new tunnel under Salisbury, they will tie into the existing one. The current set of county commissioners voted 5-2 to put the county offices (register of deeds, GIS, commissioners, etc) inside the secured area, but there is an option, with a relatively simple reconfiguration of the lobby area, to open it up so you don't have to go through a metal detector to get a marriage license. That decision actually doesn't have to be made until very late in the game, and actually there will be two separate county commission elections between now and when the walls will be built and it will be set in stone. He also mentioned (forget whether this was already brought up here or not) that if Empire can't find tenants for the 'L' building, they might just lease some space and locate the public defenders' offices there, rather than in the Justice Center.

I am not pleased with how they have handled the disposition of the Garland Jones building and the Judicial Services building. Once the decision was made that the JSB (Lawyers bldg) and the GJB (First Federal bldg) could not be retrofitted to be a part of this complex, the only other option considered was to demolish them and start with a clean slate. I asked whether they considered building the entire program of county offices and courts in the parking deck's footprint, leaving the GJB and JSB as stand alone buildings for other purposes, public or private. He said, basically, no. He had no idea how much it would cost or if it would be feasible to dig one floor further down for the parking, or to reconfigure the building to achieve the same square footage on less land. They had not looked into whether or not it would be possible to reconfigure the lower level of the Public Safety Center to route the tunnel around the JSB rather than through it.

Basically, the primary goal of the team was to fulfill their objectives as economically as possible, given their limited budget. However, I made a point that really seemed to register with him, that one of their stated objectives was to "fit in with the urban fabric." Fitting in with the urban fabric should mean coexisting with what's there, not demolishing it and starting anew.

Here is an e-mail I sent to him on the subject:

It was a pleasure to meet with you and your team today and discuss development of the new courthouse building. I'd just like to take a minute to sum up my comments based on what I learned today.

I, personally, am pleased with the overall architecture of the building, the McDowell Street entrance, and particularly the treatment of the Nash Square corner.

I am not so pleased about the impending demolition of the Judicial Services Building and the Garland Jones building. In our discussions today, you told me that throughout the process, it was assumed that these buildings would be incorporated into the complex (which was not possible) or demolished to leave a blank slate for the new courthouse. What was omitted was consideration of what could be done to leave the two buildings for other purposes, not incorporated into the complex, and building the courthouse on the rest of the land.

Before proceeding with the plan as is, I would like to see some preliminary architectural and/or engineering analysis done to determine the feasibility and costs of:

1. Decreasing on-site parking requirements or digging an extra floor of underground parking in order to leave the GJB and JSB in place.

2. Accommodating the courts and county office space in a smaller footprint by increasing the floor plate area and/or height of the tower portion, thereby leaving the GJB and JSB in place.

3. Reconfiguring the lower level of the public safety center so that the tunnel to the courthouse can be routed around the JSB, rather than through its footprint

Allow me to quote the county's goals for this courthouse complex (emphasis is mine)

-- Graceful; Stately and judicial appearance

-- A clear destination or landmark

-- Durability and longevity; Timeless/permanent

-- Create pleasing exterior space; fit into urban fabric

-- Healthy, sustainable and energy efficient

-- Natural light-filled; Welcoming

-- An integrated, functional atrium space; Open, inviting stairways

-- Clear organization and easy way-finding

-- Timely and convenient vertical circulation movement

In my opinion, fitting into the urban fabric should mean coexisting with and next to what's there, rather than demolishing what's inconvenient and building new urban fabric in its place.

Thanks a lot for your time.

[jnzllwgr]

Thank you Orulz for you effort today in talking with Phil Stout about the Justice Center project. Being in professional proximity to him and his office has placed me in a delicate postition and I have, rightly or wrongly, chosen to keep my voice quiet(er) on this topic. However, I can say from experience, that the County has been planning this project for some time now and, given where the process is, the public meetings are more of a dog-and-pony show. When the state held public meetings about the closing of the Dix campus, the design of the Butner facility, I was told, was already 3/4 complete: a point in the schedule where, unless there were riots in the street, there was nothing stopping the state's process.

The decision to tear down the GJ and LB was made several years ago by a prejudiced Board of Commissioners and County Staff and no consultation from the professional design or history community. Without local historic protection, there is nothing to be done. And appointing historic status is essentially impossible, politically or otherwise.

Raleigh residents fall prey to itinerant elected officials whose only responsibility to to their constituents elsewhere. As a matter of fact, the state has passed a bill relinquishing any obligations for State Construction projects within the City of Raleigh to comply with city zoning regulations. This means they can deviate from mandates about street trees, curb cuts, ground floor retail requirments or sidewalk paving details: things that unite the city in its appearance to give it a sense of wholeness. I never thought I would be an advocate for regulation, but in this case the balance is uneven. And the County is no different.

One might say that the Marbles Children Museum or the renovation to the Cameron Village Library demonstrates a committment by the county to providing high-quality projects for its citizens. However, I feel that the county has chosen the easy way out on this matter with the Justice Center, and that speaks to a lack of willingness with the Commission and the staff to work hard in our best interest.

Thank you for demanding a study be completed and published showing the cost differential, that is something that should have initiated the process several years ago, not half way through the design of the new building. I'm not holding my breath, however, for when a release date and if it were, I would question the integrity of the numbers.

[orulz]

You're very right, this is extremely late in the game, and you're probably also right that it would take a monumental effort and a groundswell of grassroots support to turn this ship in another direction.

Mr. Stout said that this will go before the Commission either on March 10th or March 24th for approval of the schematics (10th if the numbers come back and they're within budget; 24th to give them 2 weeks for value engineering if they're not.) So in essence, we have one month, possibly less, to make our case to the county commissioners. I don't expect anybody could convince every one of them in that time frame, but I do think it's quite possible to convince them to table the proposal for two weeks, or a month, or however long it will take, if we can convince half of them that more time is needed to consider all the options (ie, complete a cost & feasibility analysis of a reconfiguration.)

Are you aware if there were any public meetings prior to now? I don't recall any. If I'm right, that's at least some leverage in our favor.

At any rate, I plan on writing the County Commissioners, and attending their meeting on March 10th or 24th, nevermind that I'm getting married in the 1st week of April and things will be very hectic right around then (hope my fiancee understands... heh heh.)

[ChiefJoJo]

I would suggest getting together an online petition and presenting that to the commission in March. I suspect there is evidence somewhere that can show that these two buildings are indeed rare relative to the overall architectural and historical downtown catalogue, and that losing them would be counter to the county's stated goals of having the new center 'fit into the urban fabric' of downtown. It seems to me that is the key--maybe the only--argument that has a chance.

I heard today from HNTB (comp plan) planners that less than 6% of downtown's building stock is in fact historic (I'm assuming pre-WWII here). That's a pretty strong case right there for the county to somehow consider selling or reusing those buildings. It's easy to think that an individual decision by a county board doesn't really impact the urban fabric so much, after all it's only replacing two structures, right?... but the problem is that the collective individual decisions over 10, 20, 30 years that lead to a massive loss of the historic makeup of Raleigh.

Again, I think a potential reolution of support from the Raleigh Historic Districts Commission, City Museum board, or Preservation NC would be very helpful. If this has any prayer of happening, someone needs to take the ball and run very quickly! I'd certainly be willing to sign the petition, distribute it to others, and come to the meeting if my schedule permits.

[dmccall]

To add to Jojo's point, I took the Google Map Sat view and calculated the number of pixels on the entire property in the photo. Then figured out the pixels for both Garland Jones and the other little building (next to the safety center).

What I found is that these two buildings we're talking about comprise a whopping 10% of the property's footprint. Given that less than half of the footprint of the proposed building is actually high-rise, why not just drop the parking garage and create a T shaped building that utilizes its height more effectively than the proposed?

[ncwebguy]

As I posted earlier, and Orulz's conversation confirms, Wake County never considered reusing the buildings (too costly to update) or sell them off (they would not have brought in much money given the downtown market of 7-10 years ago when they first started planning this, without public input.)

It seems the county is ignoring these opportunity costs (not having to demolish the existing structures, disposal/recycling of materials, sale of building, and tax revenue). When they first started planning this, they probably wouldn't get enough money selling the buildings to make the numbers work. But with the way downtown has changed over the last few years, the numbers could work out so that saving the buildings makes sense. I would hate that we are stuck with only one plan due to the downtrodden downtown of the late 90s/early 2000s.

[jnzllwgr]

A good article discussing the importance of the presevation of Modern buildings: http://www.aia.org/aiarchitect/thisweek08/...307t_fixler.cfm

[orulz]

Approval of the schematic diagram for the justice center is on the BOC agenda today. In fact, the meeting started at 2:00PM. Presumably, this is when the fate of the GJB and Lawyers building will be sealed. I find it somewhat unusual that this event would recieve exactly zero coverage in the local media. You can also watch the meeting live online. The presentation is item 11, as of 3:00 pm it seems they have covered up through item 10.

If any of you are downtown or otherwise free (and agree that the 2 buildings should be saved) you might want to see if you can make it to the meeting. Not sure if there will be opportunity for public comment on that agenda item.

I've been so busy planning for my wedding (less than 2 weeks now) that I've just completely dropped the ball on this one. Crap. But I still think that it's important.

[ChiefJoJo]

The Justice Center is under site plan review by the city, FYI. the plan looks largely unchanged from what I observed at the public meetings, although this only shows the ground level layout.

[Francesca]

Has anyone heard anything about this lately? Is there nothing else to be done about Garland and Lawyers? I know the National Trust for Historic Preservation profiled it on their "threatened" list a month ago, and the N&O ran an editorial last month. Any hope, or no?

http://www.newsobserver.com/opinion/editor...ry/1208331.html

[Gard]

^

Well according to a news article from September 3rd on the city website, Garland Jones is still slated for replacement by a new courthouse:

[Jones_]

worse still, Garland Jones has fencing going up around it.....