Courthouse Building Plan Moves Ahead : Justice: Nine developers will bid on the $58-million project that will hold 16 courtrooms and offices for prosecutors’ and judges’ staffs.

The badly needed addition to San Diego’s downtown court system moved forward Tuesday after months of delay when the county Board of Supervisors approved a joint funding plan with the city of San Diego and agreed to solicit building proposals from nine developers.

The $58-million project, scheduled to open as early as 1995, would total at least 355,000 square feet, including 16 courtrooms for civil trials and offices for staffs of the district attorney, county marshal, county probation department, the grand jury and the law review board.

“I think the time has come,” Presiding Superior Court Judge Arthur Jones told the supervisors. “We should move ahead.”

The nine qualified builders may attempt to squeeze more office space, parking or other amenities into their proposed project in order to win what is expected to be a hard-fought competition for the right to build the courthouse.

“We are just going to be negotiating the best economic deal,” said Rich Robinson, the county’s director of special projects, who predicted that hard economic times would work to the county’s advantage.

Even with its 60 courtrooms, the downtown courthouse on West Broadway cannot accommodate the growing number of county judges. The 32-year-old facility is plagued with bugs, rats, sewage leaks and asbestos problems.

On Friday and Monday, for example, business at the decrepit facility was disrupted by a ruptured sewage pipe that rained waste water on the files and a leaky water pipe that sent water gushing onto a third-floor landing.

In April, a plan to build nine Superior Court courtrooms at the former El Cortez Hotel Convention Center fell through when the developer suffered financial problems. And in September, nine temporary Superior and Municipal courtrooms at the Hotel San Diego on Broadway were closed when tests showed evidence of asbestos at the hotel.

Eight of those courtrooms will be moved to the Home Savings Tower in the 200 block of Broadway. They are scheduled to open in May.

The supervisors rejected a draft request for building proposals in November, objecting to the $83-million cost of the project and a staff plan to limit sites to parcels of land within a three-block radius of the current courthouse. The latter qualification would have eliminated five developers with privately held plots of land near the courthouse.

The staff also had rejected a county-owned parcel at Front and B streets as too small.

But under the plan approved Tuesday, nine developers within a five-block radius have qualified to submit bids on the project. Seven have made proposals for the county-owned parcel, which would cost considerably less to develop than private sites.

Six other privately held sites also have been proposed. On Tuesday, the supervisors agreed to allow the builders to propose alternate sites, joint development of any site by more than one developer and a courthouse-only option for any developer who wants to propose that kind of project.

The project’s price tag was reduced by $13.1 million when staff recommended that the board select an “average-quality” building over a “high-quality” one--the basic difference being the structure’s exterior skin.

The exteriors of average-quality buildings are largely composed of glass, while high-quality buildings use more granite and marble, according to a report to the board.

Other cost savings and a revised construction estimate brought the total cost down to the approved $58 million. Funded jointly by the county and the city of San Diego’s Redevelopment Agency, the project, to be built with borrowed funds, would cost about $7 million a year.