GSA Favors Santa Ana as U.S. Courthouse Site : Justice system: Local officials and congressmen hail the report. The agency once leaned to Laguna Niguel.

An $80-million federal courthouse planned for Orange County should be built in Santa Ana, the county seat, the General Services Administration concluded in a report released Tuesday.

The new report reverses an earlier recommendation by the agency to build the courthouse on a federally owned site in Laguna Niguel. The proposed 218,000-square-foot facility is expected to attract new law firms, restaurants, and other businesses and bring in millions of dollars.

The GSA recommendation marks Santa Ana as the probable site for the courthouse, and it represents a major victory for Mayor Daniel H. Young and other city officials who fought hard to best competing proposals from the cities of Irvine and Laguna Niguel.

“It is an absolutely clean, flawless, unhesitating recommendation for Santa Ana, and I am absolutely delighted,” Young said. “I think we prevailed upon them to consider that the federal government should never lead an exodus from the downtown of a major urban center.”

The final decision on the courthouse site will be made in the coming weeks by the public buildings subcommittee of the House Committee on Public Works and Transportation. The committee already has approved construction of a new courthouse in Santa Ana, with the stipulation that the site can be changed any time before Sept. 30, the beginning of the new fiscal year.

The panel is expected to give substantial weight to the final recommendation of Rep. Christopher Cox (R-Newport Beach), a subcommittee member who has taken the lead in working to build a new federal courthouse in Orange County.

“I’m going to study (the new GSA report) carefully and address any questions the report raises to the GSA,” Cox said. “If the recommendation is very strong, and their conclusions are based not only on accurate data, but on all the facts, then we can expect that recommendation to move forward.”

Rep. Robert K. Dornan (R-Garden Grove), who represents portions of Santa Ana, was less reserved. “The land (Irvine) was offering was checked, and check-mated,” Dornan said. “They’re going to have to go some distance to beat this GSA report. This puts it away, as far as I can see.”

The House already has approved a $250,000 appropriation for preliminary design work on the new courthouse.

The only federal judges now sitting in Orange County hold court in a leased, 30,000-square-foot temporary structure in the Santa Ana Civic Center. Cox has maintained that the county’s population of 2.4 million justifies a permanent courthouse to serve local residents.

The GSA, which oversees the construction and operation of federal buildings, concluded that a 4-acre site in the Santa Ana Civic Center to be donated by the city was superior to two other sites: a 3-acre parcel, to be donated by the Irvine Co., in the Irvine Spectrum commercial and industrial park, and a site on 92 acres of federally owned land next to an existing federal building in Laguna Niguel.

The agency said that the Santa Ana site is preferred by leaders of the federal judiciary, including the chief judge of the Central District of California, which includes Orange County, that it has more immediately available parking for jurors and visitors, that it is better served by public transit, that it is large enough to accommodate future expansion and that it would require no more construction money than the competing sites.

The last finding reverses the key conclusion of a GSA report released in March, which recommended the Laguna Niguel site as less expensive because it would not require an underground parking garage.

Santa Ana’s offer to make municipal parking spaces available to court employees, as well as its promise to donate the land, apparently reversed the GSA’s thinking.

The initial report said construction costs in Santa Ana would total $79.8 million, while building in Laguna Niguel would cost $77.5 million. The new report includes no cost figures but states that “construction on the Santa Ana site would be no more costly than on the other two sites. . . .”

Laguna Niguel City Manager Timothy J. Casey said he had not seen the latest report but registered “surprise and disappointment.”

“But it’s not over until it’s over, and we will continue to impress upon (Congress) the advantages of our property.”

The earlier GSA report considered only Santa Ana and Laguna Niguel as possible locations. After it was released, the Irvine Co. and Irvine city officials put in a third bid for the project, offering to donate a site in the Irvine Spectrum.

But the GSA said the Irvine property has serious drawbacks. A courthouse in Irvine would require additional, potentially expensive, soundproofing to block the noise of jets stationed at the El Toro Marine Corps Air Station, about 2.5 miles away. In addition, the federal government would have to adhere to strict development conditions set by the Irvine Co., including height limits. And, the GSA said, parking for jurors and other visitors probably could not be provided on the site itself.

A spokesman for the Irvine Co. declined comment. But Irvine Mayor Sally Anne Sheridan said she was “philosophic” about the decision.

“We tried as hard as we could to get the courthouse, but the GSA recommended Santa Ana,” she said. “Santa Ana didn’t use the nicest tactics. The mayor and the city councilmen said a lot of things about Irvine that we objected to.” But, she said, “I have to work with (Santa Ana officials) every day. I’m flying with Mayor Young to a meeting in Vancouver. He did what he felt was best for his city; I did what I felt was best for ours.”

Although Santa Ana officials spent 20 years hoping and planning for the permanent courthouse facility, they were stunned by the last-minute entries in the competition by the other two Orange County cities.

They were particularly piqued by the Irvine Co.’s involvement and accused the giant developer of trying to “steal” the courthouse from Santa Ana by using political influence.

However, Young said Tuesday that the dispute should not have a long-term effect on his city’s relationships with Irvine and Laguna Niguel.

“I think it was a competition that happens out there from time to time,” Young said. “We’ve got the strength of a long-term quality relationship with those cities.

Young said he expects “Congress would follow through with the GSA recommendation.” Nevertheless, Mayor Pro Tem Miguel A. Pulido Jr.planned to travel to Washington to meet today and Thursday with key congressional committee members to secure the prize for Santa Ana.

“I am the only Democrat on the council currently in Santa Ana,” Pulido said, “and I am going to go as a Democrat, making strong arguments just on the merits.”

Robert W. Stewart reported from Washington; Gebe Martinez reported from Santa Ana, and contributor Terry Spencer reported from Laguna Niguel.

A Nod to Santa Ana as Courthouse Site

A new report has recommended Santa Ana over Laguna Niguel and Irvine as home for Orange County’s new federal courthouse. While not a final decision, the report is a major victory for the city.

Source: General Services Administration