Courthouse May Be Built at Nearby Site : Torrance: Tentative discussions are taking place about possibility of acquiring 6.22 acres of former factory land north of the existing courthouse.

County officials drawing up plans for a new South Bay Municipal Courthouse may purchase a defunct paper products manufacturing plant just north of the existing Torrance courthouse for the project.

County negotiators stressed that there have been only tentative discussions about buying the 6.22-acre site of the former Boise Cascade Corp. plant.

“We’re just trying to determine at this point whether this is even a reasonable thing to consider,” said Julie Wheeler, a specialist in the county Chief Administrative Office who is coordinating courthouse construction projects throughout Los Angeles. “I would think we would know one way or the other within six months.”

The $47.9-million project is expected to include 12 courtrooms and 18 judges’ chambers, a large lock-up area for prisoners and spacious jury service waiting areas for both the municipal and superior courts.

The court’s administrator, who has been trying to figure out how to shoehorn a new 200,000-square-foot building and parking structure onto the existing courthouse’s parking lot, said the Boise Cascade site holds “great appeal.” The land borders the north side of Civic Center Drive between Maple and Prairie avenues.

Without the additional land, the county would be forced to construct a high-rise building and parking garage that would consume all the land adjacent to the existing courthouse.

“The court is particularly pleased to see that there is the possibility of picking up additional land so that this development is not so dense,” said South Bay Municipal Court Administrator Christopher Crawford. “If it doesn’t happen, we still have adequate room to do the project, but this would be ideal.”

Torrance city officials said they hope the purchase will go forward to prevent construction of a huge new building on a site too small to accommodate it.

“This would answer a lot of problems,” Mayor Katy Geissert said. “It certainly would relieve us of some of the anxiety of trying to cram too much on the Civic Center property.”

The 116,000-square-foot manufacturing plant has been vacant for about a year, said Jim Scofield, the site’s real estate broker and an associate vice president of The Seeley Co. in Los Angeles. The plant was last used to produce cardboard sunshades for car windshields and at one time was used to manufacture paper bags, he said.

The land now belongs to Epson Madrona Partnership, which is managed by Shimizu Land Corp., Scofield said. The partnership bought the site, which originally included 17.75 acres between Maple and Prairie avenues, from a development company five years ago to build Epson America’s national headquarters.

Epson moved into the new headquarters building on Maple Avenue last year.

Shimizu executives had planned to hang on to the remaining 6.22 acres either to allow Epson to expand in the future, or to construct a legal services building.

Last summer, however, county officials asked The Seeley Co. to provide an estimated purchase price for the site.

“Shimizu has said the site is worth about $40 per square foot, which works out to about $10.4 million,” Scofield said. “The basis for that is the fact that the site is directly across the street from the county courthouse . . . which provides a unique opportunity because government is one of the only growth industries right now.”

County officials said they could not discuss a purchase price at this time.

“If we find the cost of additional land is equal or less than the cost of the parking structure, we would have to build otherwise, then it is definitely worth purchasing the land and having mostly surface parking,” Wheeler said. “We also want to be a good neighbor to the city as much as possible.”

Wheeler said studies of the court’s space needs can continue for several months before a decision must be made about whether to buy the property.

The building is one of 13 new courthouses mandated for Los Angeles County by state legislation 10 years ago. Construction most likely will not begin for at least two years, she said.

The existing courthouse, constructed in 1968, was originally intended to house only the Torrance Superior Court. The municipal court moved into the building on a temporary basis until its own courthouse could be constructed, but funds were never allocated for the project.