Library Designer Choice Irks One of Losing Firms : Public building: Chula Vista’s selection of Mexico’s Ricardo Legoretta doesn’t sit well with local Mexican-American.

Internationally known Mexican architect Ricardo Legoretta was chosen to design a new library in Chula Vista last month through a selection process that had become highly political when local architect Joseph Martinez questioned the city’s lack of a policy for hiring minority architects.

In a highly unusual move, the city added Martinez Cutri McArdle, the company at which Martinez is a partner, and one other firm to a list of six finalists that had already been determined through a lengthy evaluation and interview process. Martinez and his partners finished seventh, far behind the winning team of Legoretta and Irvine-based architects LPA Inc., which also has an office in San Diego and will administer the new library’s design and construction.

The $10.4-million, 35,000-square-foot library will be built at Orange and Fourth avenues, with construction scheduled to begin late next year. Although Legoretta was selected for his track record, and has not yet begun the the design for the Chula Vista library, based on his previous work this promises to be an architectural landmark, his first major project in San Diego County (he previously designed a home in Rancho Santa Fe). His best-known works include a huge IBM complex outside Dallas (in conjunction with LPA), and he is also designing a new library in San Antonio (with 3DM Inc, a San Antonio firm).

Meanwhile, San Diego County architects and public officials are sorting their thoughts in the aftermath of the selection process, wondering if there’s a better way to encourage minority architects without sacrificing good design or placing non-minority architects at a disadvantage. Although most public agencies, including UC San Diego and the city of San Diego, have quotas for hiring minority architects, meaning both women and people of color, Chula Vista has none.

Chula Vista wants the new library to have a “binational” and “bicultural” focus, appropriate for this section of the city only 4 miles from the Mexican border.

The library will be among the most up-to-date in the county, coupling a design by Legoretta, who is known for his colorful, minimal, monumental buildings, with the latest in information technology such as CD-ROM, computers and interactive videos, and a range of programs and services designed for both local residents and business operators.

Obviously, it’s a plum design assignment, especially in these recessionary times. Thirty-four architectural firms applied for the job. Some who made the final “short list” felt selection was handled well, including San Diegan Rob Quigley, who finished a close second to LPA/Legoretta.

But Martinez criticizes Chula Vista for what he feels is a backward attitude toward involving minorities, especially Mexican-Americans, in shaping a southern Chula Vista community center for a city population that is 37% Mexican-American.

“My local Hispanic firm, which is already doing a bilingual, bicultural library for San Diego State (a $7.7-million, 21,000-square-foot remodeling and addition to the library at the university’s Calexico campus), can’t make the short list?,” Martinez said. “What does that say about the role of the public sector in terms of enhancing the condition of ethnic minorities and other disadvantaged groups in society? What does it take for someone to secure that kind of commission? That’s what affirmative action is for.”

But other finalists believe the best team won and point out that the winning design team combines Mexican and American architectural firms with additional design consultants owned or significantly staffed by minority members, including mechanical engineers Tsuchiyama, Kaino & Gibson of San Diego.

“We did not become vocal with the city about the selection process,” said Bob Rodriguez, a Mexican-American architect and partner at San Diego-based Brown Gimber Rodriguez Park, the other firm that was added to the city’s list of finalists after Martinez protested. “We didn’t call anyone. I thought the city did the evaluations to the best of their ability. I always go into a project expecting that the entity I am pursuing work from will make its selection based on the best qualified firm for the the work.”

Adds Quigley, who finished second to LPA/Legoretta by a mere half a point out of a possible 300 in the city’s evaluation:

“From my standpoint, the interview committee did their jobs extremely well. It was one of the most thorough and probing interviews I’ve been through. They asked very intelligent questions.

“I don’t believe it’s proper to go back and have intercourse with the selection body after the interview,” Quigley said of Martinez’ protest. “If there are two equal teams, the job should go to the minority. I don’t have a problem with that. But, if one team is rated higher, even by a half point, the job should go to the team most qualified.

“That’s almost separate from the idea of a firm demanding to be put on the short list after the list has already been interviewed. That’s highly irregular. I’ve never heard of it happening before. There’s so much riding on this, as far as all of us staying in business, the ethics have to be completely aboveboard.”

Martinez has other complaints. He claims the Legoretta/LPA team’s fee for architectural and engineering services is unreasonably high, but at $527,000, it works out to 12% of the building’s basic construction cost, average for such a job. Martinez also claims the city had already decided on Legoretta before opening the selection process. In securing $6.7 million in state financing for the library last year, the city hired San Diego architects Wheeler Wimer Blackman & Associates to develop a preliminary site plan and building design. Their design drew heavily on Legoretta’s style, acknowledges architect Richard Blackman, but the city never asked for a Legoretta clone.

George Krempl, the city’s deputy city manager, says there was no preordained Legoretta agenda. Rosemary Lane, the city’s library director, who chaired the selection committee, says the city wants a “contemporary Mexican” building in keeping with the city’s heritage, not the kind of Spanish Colonial knockoffs that are common in San Diego County. As Wheeler Wimer developed its scheme, Lane was especially taken with photos the architects showed her of Legoretta’s work, according to David Palmer, assistant library director in Chula Vista.

Given that the new Chula Vista library will be a vital cultural hub in a largely Mexican-American neighborhood, Martinez believes it should have been “crucial” to hire a Mexican-American architect--not a Mexican, such as Legoretta--and preferably one from Chula Vista.

“Guys like Legoretta do Mexican-Americans in San Diego a great harm,” Martinez said. “White America picks a Mexican national architect to do a public sector job and infers that Mexican-Americans don’t have the qualifications. That says to young kids in our public schools that someone from outside has to do this work because we can’t do it. That’s a bad precedent.”

Although there is much truth to Martinez’ words, he oversteps the boundaries of fairness and logic.

He is right that Chula Vista should adopt some form of affirmative action. But the ad hoc approach he advocates in this instance--selecting his seventh-ranked firm because it has some local Mexican-American ownership--is ludicrous. The binational, multicultural design team the city has selected was chosen for its experience on large institutional projects, Legoretta’s solid design reputation and LPA’s track record of completing projects on time and on budget.

The issue of public-sector affirmative action as it relates to hiring design consultants deserves broader consideration, and is receiving it. The city of San Diego recently has been threatened with lawsuits by both minority and Anglo-owned firms who feel they have been treated unfairly. In response, San Diego is setting up a task force to examine its hiring of design consultants.

Meanwhile, the local American Institute of Architects chapter is also grappling with the affirmative action issue. At its July 28 meeting, the chapter’s board of directors, which includes one African-American and three women, will discuss the city’s minority participation policies.

“I’ve had a number of calls from individuals on this, and I think we need to know what’s going on in this city,” said David Crawford, executive director for the local AIA chapter. “There seems to be a lot of information and misinformation, and we need to clear it up. If there’s a position to be taken, we would like to look at what our membership would like to see: a revised policy for the city, or an affirmation of what they’re doing.”

Getting disparate voices together through various forms of dialogue, as San Diego and the AIA propose, would be a good start to addressing this vital issue, if such forums can move beyond the usual bureaucratic rhetoric and prompt some action. Neither Martinez’ extreme form of activism, nor Chula Vista’s lack of a formal policy, make sense.

In the meantime, the Legoretta/LPA team is a solid choice that will probably give Chula Vista a first-class library, one that should satisfy the city’s diverse population.