Rendering Courtesy of Richard Meier & Partners
Spaces Age: For the new city hall, the city selected architect Richard Meier, who designed the Getty Center in Los Angeles. Meier's design incorporates design elements such as glass and open spaces to make the publice feel welcome.
New civic center to reflect past-- and a vision of San Jose's future
City wants a landmark to put it on the map
By Kate Carter
San Jose is paying extra for a landmark civic center "to be proud of," according to Mayor Ron Gonzales.
Although the new downtown city hall will cost about $50 million more than originally planned, city officials say the extra expenses are worth it. They point to the projected $100 million savings in rent it currently pays to house most city staff outside city hall. They also say a monumental downtown city hall will help revitalize downtown San Jose and distinguish the heart of Silicon Valley.
The city council approved the schematic plans and the final budget for the new downtown city hall last fall. The complex, designed by world-renowned architect Richard Meier, will fill a 4.6-acre site on the south side of E. Santa Clara Street between Fourth and Sixth streets. It will stand in the center of a seven-block redevelopment district that will include a rebuilt elementary school and church and possibly a new symphony hall.
Construction on the new civic center could begin as early as this fall; demolition of one of the off-site parking garages has already begun. If plans stay on schedule, the complex could be completed in late 2004 or early 2005.
What has made the $273 million project more expensive than the initial projected cost of $214 million is the desire of the city's redevelopment agency for a notable civic center, according to Gary Thompson, deputy director of the department of public works who is overseeing the project. They have tried to make the new civic center "reflect the history and future of San Jose," he says.
As costs have increased, city officials have scrambled to scale them down. Substitutions in the design have lowered costs and the city has also placed funding for 1,250 parking spots in two off-site parking areas into the city's parking budget.
Other budget increases, officials say, are due to the rising costs of labor and materials in the Bay Area, as well as costs of buying property in the civic center site and relocating 15 historic homes from the site to other places.
But the city says it is still saving money. Even as property, labor and material costs are increasing, the cost to rent space for city employees is increasing, too.
"We're paying for it by not paying rent," mayoral budget director Joe Guerra says.
The city is financing the project by selling 30-year municipal bonds. Some smaller bonds have already been sold to pay for architects and consultants' fees, Guerra says. But he says, and other city officials concur, that the most important thing--more important than the budget increases--is that the project "passes the Measure I test."
Measure I, passed by San Jose voters in 1996, allowed the city to circumvent a 1968 referendum, Measure Q, which required city hall to remain at its current location. Measure I permits moving city hall to a site downtown, as long as the project could be completed without raising taxes or using other city funds.
Mayor Ron Gonzales, in a Nov. 28, 2000, press conference, said that the project is still on track monetarily.
"It reflects well to accomplish what voters approved in the general election. We've made trade-offs to get the best value for this project. It will give the people of San Jose a civic center they can be proud of."
Photograph by Jeff Kearns
This Old House: City officials still aren't sure what's going to become of the existing 40-year-old city hall at Mission and N. First streets.
A User-friendly Complex
Plans for the new civic complex incorporate classic architectural elements with a futuristic approach, designed to make the center user-friendly and withstand the test of time.
But Thompson says he's also heard a lot of people say it looks like something out of Star Wars.
The civic center will actually consist of three buildings of varying heights and include open outdoor space on two roofs, expansive glass walls with views to the west and east and an underground parking garage with 400 spaces. The council chambers are centrally located and accessible from each building and the garage.
The approach to the center will be across a wide courtyard. The main entrance will be in a rotunda building that recalls such buildings as the Pantheon in Rome and capitol buildings throughout the United States. A slanted, or "battered," wall along the south side is reminiscent of early California adobe walls and provides a sense of solidity and feeling of the strength of government, Thomson says.
Designers also wanted to enhance the outdoors in the project. A wide promenade stairway from the courtyard up to the council chambers will include an informal arbor and landscaping to make the center more inviting and familiar. The hall's large main doors could be left open to create an indoor/outdoor environment in the rotunda, Thompson says.
The complex has been designed to be as user-friendly as possible, Thompson says. The first thing visitors will see as they enter the rotunda is the "focal point of the new facility," he says--the public information desk. The city is in the process of revamping its information center and expanding the services it provides. Thompson says that people should be able to walk straight to the information desk with questions or complaints and have them handled right away or forwarded directly to the appropriate person or office.
The four upper levels of the rotunda will be connected by sloping ramps along one side. The even-floored areas will be fronted by glass walls and are intended to house permanent and traveling art exhibitions that "celebrate the community," Thompson says.
The top level will be directly below the glass dome and will be an observation space facing the city center and the west.
The center's southern four-story building will be built above the on-site parking garage. It is the shortest building and will have a footprint of between 20,000 and 25,000 square feet. It will be home to the council chambers and the city clerk and the human relations department.
To the north is the tallest building in the complex, at 19 stories. Its height is planned for 273 feet, but that is not absolutely fixed, Thompson says.
Because the new center is in the San Jose International Airport's flight area, the planned height of the tall building would have violated Federal Aviation Administration height requirements. Thompson says the height problem was due to the exterior elevator shaft, which was designed to be about 50 feet taller than the actual building. He adds that the city had already decided to limit the elevator structure, which will contain six elevators, to the height of the building because the taller shaft was just too expensive.
The FAA is evaluating all the plans for the building and hopes to have its final report sometime in February, he says.
Photograph by Jacqueline Ramseyer
New Site: The new city hall will be on E. Santa Clara Street, between Fourth and Sixth streets. Some historic homes will be moved, but other buildings will be razed.
The Best View in Town
The tall building will be covered by glass windows on both its west and east sides. There will be an observation point to the west by the elevators on each floor to allow visitors to be oriented directionally.
The mayor and city council will be on the top floor, with the majority of the city offices in the floors below. However, Thompson says the first floor is designed to be a "one-stop permit center." Because most visitors to city hall are seeking approval for planning, building and events permits, most inquiries could be handled right on the first floor.
The first three levels of the tallest building will be 30,000 square feet, but the upper levels will be 20,000 square feet. One quarter of the roof will be reserved for usable space. Only 300 to 400 people will be allowed up at one time, to allow all to descend on the six elevators quickly, in case of emergency.
The building has also been designed for sustainability. The complex faces west and should be able to take advantage of much natural lighting. The tall building is narrow enough that light coming in from the west will reflect off the tall ceilings and downward to bathe the entire floor on each level with light, Thompson says.
The rotunda and tall building will also be fitted with exterior sun-shading devices so they will need less cooling in the summer. A ventilation system to the outside should keep the air temperate, and some window elements will be manually operable. Thompson says the building was designed to not require heating or cooling during most of the year.
"The idea is that it isn't just the building but the operations that could be sustainable," he says.
Thompson says the redevelopment agency encouraged the city to make a bigger effort on the new city hall and turn it into a renowned architectural project. The city embarked on an international search for the right architect and received proposals from such well-known architects as I. M. Pei, who designed the Pyramide du Louvre in Paris and the East Wing of the National Gallery in Washington, D.C.
A nine-member search committee of five community members, two city staff and two redevelopment agency staff persons, saw Richard Meier as the best candidate.
"It wasn't so much their architecture as their approach," said Thompson, who oversaw the selection process.
He says the group valued that Meier had worked with residents in the community near to the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles on the plans for the building there. Because of the residential nature of the downtown city hall site, it was important that Meier respond positively to neighbors' concerns.
The challenge of this project, however, Thompson says, is that it was commissioned under Mayor Susan Hammer, but designs weren't completed until Mayor Gonzales took office. Interim designs were changed to complement the different stylistic approaches of the different leaderships.
Before, Thompson says, the outdoor plaza was actually below the building, which was set 50 feet off the ground. It included more buildings than the current plans.
Since then, the modernist style has been toned down a bit, Thompson says, and the size of the public space has grown.
Parking for the 1,800 to 2,000 people who will work in the building will be in the underground structure and in two other off-site structures one block to the north of the building. A total of 1,650 parking spots will be constructed, and parking on the streets will also be available. Thompson says the discrepancy between the employees and the parking spaces is due to the fact that there is as much as a 10 percent vacancy factor and a 10 percent vacation factor, plus the 5 percent the city hopes will carpool or who will use alternative transit methods.
Mayoral spokesman David Vossbrink adds that the off-site parking garages could be designed as mixed-use retail/residential structures. Costs for those buildings could be shared between the city and the partnering developers, he says.
Traffic is already a problem in that area, Thompson says. He says the different parking locations and more mass transit to that location could help ease traffic concerns there. He adds that neighbors are considering adding parking permit restrictions along their streets.
The new civic center is designed to last for 50 years, about 10 years more than the current city hall has. But the city wants to do more than that by building something of historic significance that will be an internationally recognized symbol for the city.
Willow Glen, California Since 1992
