New Idea Will Help City Hall Shed Old Look

Almost anyone who has tried to find San Diego’s City Hall for the first time can tell you a story about searching for the anonymous, faceless 13-story building on C Street.

In 1964, the city moved to this undertakers’ paradise of poorly lit spaces from the stately quarters it shared with the county in what is now the County Administration Center on Pacific Highway.

There is no cause for civic pride in the present city headquarters. Realizing this, the city has ambitious plans to open a signature civic center by 1995 on four city blocks east of 12th Avenue and Broadway downtown.

The man charged with delivering a first-class, world-class project is Portland, Ore., architect Donald Stastny.

Stastny was chosen by city officials because of his experience with design competitions and because he wants to use a competition process called “design/develop,” thought by many to be the ultimate marriage of good design, feasible construction, and quality and cost controls.

By selecting a group of potential architects first, then asking developers to team up with them, design is given the priority it deserves.

Although various incarnations of the design/develop approach have been used in the past, the San Diego civic center will be an extremely refined version. This competition could well become a model for major public building competitions for years to come, according to Stastny.

Among the building designs resulting from competitions run by Stastny are the Beverly Hills Civic Center, designed by Urban Innovations Group with Charles Moore; the Domaine Clos Pegase winery in Northern California designed by Michael Graves; and a planned Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles, designed by architect Frank Gehry. (Stastny has also designed and planned a number of large projects.)

Clearly, Stastny isn’t known for producing middle-of-the-road architecture. He likes innovation, and hires world-class juries to sort through proposals from internationally known architects such as Graves, the leading postmodernist, and Gehry, the architect and artist whose bizarre combinations of forms and materials have inspired a whole generation of cutting-edge Southern California architecture.

Unlike other consultants who place design decisions in the hands of juries composed of city officials and assorted civic leaders, Stastny believes that only those trained in design should judge the merits of architecture.

A jury including a prominent architect, landscape architect, urban planner, developer and outside city official who has been through a competition will ensure that good architecture doesn’t take a back seat to economics, as it can in projects of this magnitude.

Instead of merely selecting a design based on a ballpark construction cost, then hiring a contractor to build it, Stastny’s design/develop approach combines top architects with developers who will commit, in writing, to bringing the 1-million-square-foot project in on budget, in this case $242.3 million.

Materials and construction guidelines will be prepared so that finalists meet quality standards. That, it is hoped, will minimize developer bidding wars and encourage design competition.

Because of high construction costs and tight budgets, many cities are trying to “privatize” the development of public buildings, according to Stastny, and the design/develop method is one way to do this. Teams including experts in design, budgeting and project management should minimize city staff costs.

Stastny outlined the process.

In a month or two, the city will issue a “request for qualifications” through word of mouth, direct mailings and architectural publications, inviting architects to apply for the job.

Applicants will have to supply not just resumes, but one art board (30-by-40 inches),giving some idea of their intended designs. Younger, less-known firms may want to catch the jury’s attention with actual preliminary design proposals, Stastny said, whereas older firms might submit only a site plan or art work from earlier projects.

The jury will narrow the field to 20 or 30 architects.

Next, a second request for qualifications will go out to developers, asking them to approach the architects and form “design/develop” teams including contractors and other professional consultants.

Several teams will be interviewed by the jury, and three to five candidates will be chosen to compete for the job.

Finalists will each receive $100,000 to develop their proposals. The city should choose a winning proposal by next fall.

The design/develop process has drawbacks. Developers may be reluctant to team up with less-known architects. The odds against a small firm winning are probably substantial.

So there’s a chance San Diego will miss out on some great designs. For example, the excellent new Escondido City Hall was designed by Pacific Associates Planners Architects from San Diego; in 1985, when they were selected from an international field of more than 100, they had no experience doing large public buildings. Yet, probably because their thinking was unjaded by years of experience, they produced the freshest design.

According to Stastny, young architects won’t necessarily be out of the picture. They can team up with architects who specialize in project management and the production of construction drawings.

Public opinion will be important, Stastny said. Public meetings, mailed questionnaires and phone polls can all be valuable tools. There will be at least one public display of designs before final selection.

Stastny realizes that the civic center could be the key to a successful urban center in San Diego.

With the civic center at the east edge of downtown, and the Navy’s planned complex on the waterfront, Broadway will assume its natural role as the primary downtown street. This will be a shift, since most key streets--5th Avenue, 1st Avenue and others--run north and south, not east and west.

A well-designed civic center will help people adjust to the change.

Skeptics have grumbled that the significant project cost is unjustified, that existing city buildings on C Street and nearby could be altered or expanded to do the job. Stastny doesn’t agree, for several reasons.

“There’s a feeling among citizens of every city that city officials and employees should not work in luxurious surroundings,” he said. “The reality is that what we need in city government is efficiency. A workplace that is equal in quality to the private sector will give us better service.

“A city hall also needs to be accessible. Anyone held up on the elevator trying to get to the council chamber on the 12th floor of the existing City Hall knows that the current configuration doesn’t lead to accessible government.