(Bob Ferguson) This is King County Conversations. I’m Bob Ferguson and I represent District 1 on the King County Council.
The King County Courthouse located between 3rd and 4th avenue on James Street in Downtown Seattle has had a long and mostly distinguished history. It was built in 1916 by architect, A. Warren Gould, for a cost of $1.3 million. The courthouse originally housed not only King County’s judicial branch but also many governmental offices for both the County and the City of Seattle. On an average day the Courthouse is entered more than 6000 times making it one of our most important public buildings. When you receive a King County jury summons, or you attend a King County Council meeting, you will visit this courthouse.
The original main entrance of the King County Courthouse was located at the south end of the building facing the site of the 1856 Battle of Seattle. This battlefield, which is now City Hall Park, was where Chief Leschi fought early settlers and the US Navy over the surrounding land.
Amongst many elegant design features, the original south entrance consisted of Alaskan marble floors, acorn shaped pendant lights and a grand staircase of green and white marble leading up to the second floor. Regrettably, in 1967, in an effort to modernize the Courthouse, this entrance was converted into a loading dock. To save money during this conversion, much of the marble was left in place. This renovation also included a similarly misguided effort that covered the courtroom windows with aluminum panels.
Today, City Hall Park now faces the Courthouse loading dock and as a result sits under-utilized by the general public. The City of Seattle, which owns the land, is currently undertaking a project to renovate City Hall Park with the goal of transforming it into “an attractive gateway to Downtown Seattle.”
I’m interested in restoring the King County Courthouse to its past grandeur. In step with the 1987 ordinance that designated this Courthouse as a King County landmark, I believe we should re-open the South entrance to the public.
In 2001, the King County Council explored the idea of re-opening the South Entrance. Shortly afterward, however, the project went dormant partly due to seismological retrofitting priorities that arose after the Nisqually earthquake. Then, in 2006, as Capital Budget Chair, I revived the issue. I sponsored legislation to fund a design plan for the renovation of the south entrance. The results of this plan then gave a framework to move forward.
Many citizens have also contacted my office in support of restoring the courthouse to its former grandeur. Lauren McCroskey, the chair of the King County Landmarks Commission, said that during the 1960s remodel the “building was assaulted in horrific ways” as aluminum panels were bolted over the original oak frame windows and the south entrance was shuttered and converted into a loading dock. I am working to undo the damage that remodel caused to the courthouse, because I truly believe this is the “people’s building.”
Additionally, in 2006 the County received an $800,000 grant from the Historic County Courthouse Rehabilitation Grant Program of Washington targeted specifically to fund a restoration to the South Entrance.
If the King County Council acts soon and funds this restoration, the City of Seattle will then be able coordinate their design efforts for City Hall park so that these two adjacent regional landmarks will once again provide a jointly welcoming meeting place for King County’s citizens.
I recently sat down with the Seattle City Council’s Parks Committee to discuss the inter-governmental coordination necessary for carrying out these two projects. With me in attendance and King County Councilmember Dow Constantine along with King County staff Mark Melroy and Sam Downing. From the city, Councilmember Tom Rasmussen chaired the meeting. Also in attendance were Councilmembers Jan Drago and Richard Conlin, and Seattle Parks Officials Tim Gallagher and Kevin Stoops.
(Councilmember Tom Rasmussen) I’d like to invite up County Councilmember Bob Ferguson. The reason why I invited Councilmember Ferguson here is in order to make City Hall Park as great as it can be, I think we really need to work really closely with the County because it fronts on the County’s building and the way the building is designed and how it is operated can really impact the success of anything we want to do with City Hall so what I am hoping is that we develop a great coordinated and cooperative relationship that helps both the county and the city with that area that at times can be a difficult area to manage. Councilmember Ferguson.
(Bob Ferguson) Thanks very much Councilmember and thanks to you for holding this briefing, I really appreciate it. So I’ve got some relatively brief comments, the first thing I want to say is that the loading dock is currently a nightmare situation having a loading dock right there facing that park.
(Rasmussen) It seems to add to some of the challenges and problems that we have there.
(Ferguson) There’s absolutely no doubt about it, in fact I think I’m safe to say that it is probably the only loading dock in the country with a marble floor, if you go in there it literally has a marble floor and the original south entrance was an incredibly beautiful grand entrance that was built many years ago of course. So an architectural disaster occurred back in the ‘60s to turn that into a loading dock.
(Rasmussen) I think there were many architectural disasters in the ‘60s.
(Ferguson) This was one of the worst, I think. So, out of the crisis comes opportunity. I think that we’re both facing our challenges. I think the county faces the challenges of trying to bring back this grand entrance, the city faces the challenge of revitalizing the park. They really go together in a symbiotic way so I’m going to just speak briefly to what the county’s been doing the last couple of years as we potentially move forward.
So 1987 was when the courthouse was designated a King County landmark and the County Council at that time commissioned Cardwell Thomas architects to prepare a courthouse restoration study, a major element of that study included restoring the original entrance was one of the key elements. So I became the chair of the capital budget committee two years ago and that’s when I got interested in looking into this issue again. It had been explored back in 2000 but the earthquake had set it aside. Since then, in 2006 we appropriated $105,000 in 2006 to a south entrance study to get the ball rolling again. The executive then proposed and the council approved another 375,000 for design so that also went forward. At that time the executive warned that the south entrance project would likely not be feasible if the City Hall park, the work wasn’t done there as well.
Then, in 2007 some great news we had, the county secured $800,000 for the state grant for the south entrance project and it won top honors in the historic preservation grant program and the judges were particularly impressed in the project to restore the civic center and the park at the same time. The executive then prepared an extensive south entrance options report and the council appropriated another quarter of a million dollars to fund the south entrance design completion in our last 4th quarter supplemental.
So, long story short, were we are funding wise, we have, the council and the executive, funded to completion the design stage. So that part has been funded and about 800,000 is available in the state grant and the county council, in the budget that we put together last year, set aside two million in reserve for the potential sale of the north lot that you folks may be familiar with.
One thing I want to mention, the $800,000 grant, we do lose if we don’t move forward with the project. So I want to cut off my comments there to see if there’s some questions that Mark or Sam or myself can answer.
(Rasmussen) So what are the next steps that need to happen in regards to both the city and the county to move this forward and Dow, you haven’t really has a chance to say anything so.
(Councilmember Dow Constantine) It seems to me that this park is important not just to the city government or the county government but particularly to the Pioneer Square community. It is going to serve an increasingly diverse population, an economically integrated population. It’s a community, while there are several plazas; there aren’t a lot of green spaces. So one of the things that I want to do is figure out how to involve representatives, in addition to Councilmember Drago, representatives of that community. It is important to consider the needs of those who, say, work in the courthouse, but people who make this their home 24 hours a day.
(Councilmember Jan Drago) Is there money for this park in the opportunities fund.
(Kevin Stoops) No, there’s not. Any development right now is unfunded and unscheduled.
(Councilmember Jan Drago) Because the other Downtown parks did have the opportunity fund money.
(Kevin Stoops) We’d love to have you join us in preparing that opportunity fund plan Councilmember Drago.
(Councilmember Jan Drago) I’m with you, support it, and the question is 08 or 0-10.
(Kevin Stoops) Should we flip on that right now? (Laughter)
(Rasmussen) Alright, I think Tim you were going to talk about next steps.
(Tim Gallagher) Right, we’re starting negotiations with County staff and I think we’ll be proceeding with that over the next couple of months to come up with a management model. The issue right now that will slow it down in coming up with a management model is the economy and what the impact’s going to be both to the county and to the city and how much is available not only for capital but for ongoing operation and maintenance.
(Rasmussen) Now does anyone remember the question that Councilmember McIver wanted us to be sure to ask? He said, ‘since this park is right in front of the County Courthouse would the County put some of its funds into the operation or maintenance of the park.’
(Ferguson) I’d be happy to talk with my colleagues about that but I think it’s an unlikely scenario based on other conversations that have been going on at the courthouse.
(Mark Melroy) Councilmember if I may, I think I’d just add that the County’s probably going to be facing a pretty significant uphill battle just to get the south entrance portion of the project funded which is significant.
(Rasmussen) What does it cost for the renovation of the south end?
(Melroy) The low end estimates in the range of eight to eight and a half million dollars. So the county will still be facing that uphill budget battle just to get its portion of the combined project financed.
(Rasmussen) Eight to eight and a half million for the south entrance.
(Constantine) But it is, if I might, doing that south entrance project is absolutely critical to the functioning of this park and having it be alive and accessible to everyone. The thing that really killed the park, I’m sure, is turning those thousands of people away from the park everyday and onto the side streets.
And you asked, Mr. Chair, about moving forward. I’m open to any ideas folks may have. There’s obviously funding issues for both governments in terms of how to move forward and I know that we’re anticipating this final design to come at some point, I’m told it could be in the next couple of months. So, there may be a logical point in which we could, either here or maybe more informally, come back for a status update both on the funding side as the county is doing a lot of work on the budget side to see how deep are the budget problems that we have, but also come back when we have a final design and that may be part of a conversation as well.
(Rasmussen) Great, Councilmember Conlin
(Councilmember Richard Conlin) How close are we to getting a schematic design that we can cost out and get an idea of what kind of budget implications that we have.
(Gallagher) Well, just based on the estimate that we have right now, and Kevin, I don’t know if you did an estimate off of that?
(Stoops) I believe there was an estimate done in 2006 when this plan was drawn that indicated a total project of two and a half million dollars.
(Ferguson) Really, the million dollar question, so to speak, is the budget side of this. In light of recent developments, does that change the landscape for the county, where does this project fit in with other County priorities? I think the political will is there, I think this is going to become a budget question in the long run, that’s my view anyway.
(Constantine) We’ve lived through, if I may, one three year budget downturn since I joined the council and we’re clearly entering another one, it may be two years or it may be three years and the adjustments are going to have to be made in the budgets to allow us to come in, in black. Getting the political commitment to moving forward with this, is I think the most important task right now. The courthouse was done some damage by our predecessors and I think, Councilmember Ferguson and I and others, feel a certain obligation to correct that and correct the effect that that had on the surrounding neighborhood.
(Rasmussen) Well, some of the improvements that have been completed recently look just great, really, really, nice. OK, thank you for joining us today, I appreciate it.
(Ferguson) Thank you very much.
(Ferguson) Once again, that was a recent conversation I had with the Seattle City Council’s Parks Committee Chaired by Councilmember Tom Rassmussen.
If you would like to view King County’s past legislation regarding the Courthouse’s South Entrance, I encourage you to visit www.kingcounty.gov/council/legislation. From here, click on the “search legislation” link, and then type “Courthouse South Entrance” into the resulting search box.
And as always, if you have any questions or concerns about this or any other issue, I encourage you to contact me at bob.ferguson@kingcounty.gov.