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The Columbus Dispatch wrote
Courthouse price tag soars by $11 million
Friday, October 19, 2007
By Barbara Carmen
Franklin County commissioners were reeling from sticker shock yesterday, after learning their dazzling, $105 million glass courthouse could run 10 percent over budget unless they make hard choices.
“It looks like $11 million in compromises,” Commissioner Paula Brooks said after meeting with architects.
Commissioners had an immediate reaction to the redesigned exteriors. They didn’t like them.
Architects allowed that the projector they were using wasn’t the best, but they didn’t argue that they liked the original — and pricier — designs better.
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It seems like the security in post-Oklahoma City/Sept. 11 government buildings would be a barrier to any real ground-level retail. I frequently have to go to various state government offices for work (ODH building across from Nationwide, Lazarus Building, Riffe Center, Rhodes Tower) and they all require some sort of bag search/sign-in process/ID card to get beyond the front door. Without major renovations to reconfigure buildings for retail with separate entrances, etc, people would have to go through that to access the retail within, and I suspect most people would find that not worth the hassle. And honestly the state probably doesn’t want to deal with the added foot traffic and searches.
(Interestingly, the Statehouse is the one government building with no inspections or sign-ins.)
I know it’s theoretically possible to combine government functions with retail. They do it here. It just feels like the existing layouts of the big state office buildings here make it problematic. Although the Lazarus building is still a work in progress…
Sounds like the DRAC doesn’t like it either:
Franklin County Courthouse, winner of DRAC’s Eastern Block Revival Architecture Award
From here: http://www.columbusing.com/?p=612
Actually, I agree with the commissioners: an improvement on the old design. Not the same as a wholehearted endorsement, mind, but a step in the right direction.
Better? yes.
Good? nope.
It still completely ignores pedestrians. Even though there are lots of ‘em in the rending, they won’t be milling around like that without a place to go. Christ, just give me a Starbucks on the High St. corner and I’ll be happy. I’m not asking for much here.
Government buildings typically do not have commercial spaces in them.
I mean… even in Manhattan, the Financial District is dead at night. Very few people there. I know everyone wants street level commercial development, but every building does not have to have ground floor commercial spaces in them for the area to be successful. There are a couple of places down toward the courthouse… The Jury Room, the Main Bar… could be a lot more. THere is plenty of room for development. There are too many security issues for a courthouse to have commercial spaces in them, and too many issues with the government becoming a landlord.
I mean… even in Manhattan, the Financial District is dead at night.
First part of this is definitely true; I can’t think of a single other courthouse in Columbus that has private commercial space built in. Not even so much as a bagel shop.
Second part is starting to change, but doesn’t detract from the first point because most of the financial district is private skyscrapers (think Huntington Center or One Columbus) rather than government buildings (any of our state, county, city, or federal courthouses or offices). Both tend to be dead after five, but I think the reasons are different, and that the private sector is going to be more amenable to change on that score than the government. For the government, it’s a nonnegotiable security issue.
You know though, on the security issue, it’s kind of strange in the current courthouse. Yes, you have to go through a metal detector to actually enter any of the 3 courthouse structures, but not to enter the giant shared lobby the size of 10 Starbucks. In fact, you go through zero security measures to enter there.
New photo:
Anyone know what it is and isn’t supposed to house? Because looking at it, there’s just no way it’s still going to have the amount of jail space the current courthouse holds that I can tell. I also can’t imagine they’re reducing jail space when they’re already at like 250% occupancy though…
That new design is FUGLY. I like the original much better. This one looks like a 1960′s Holiday Inn. The seal or design or whatever it is on the front is terrible. I liked the openness and glass of the original. We can do better.
From my understanding this isn’t a replacement for the old courthouse. It’s an addition/expansion building. They will still use the old building as well.
Yeah…that’s how most gov’t buildings are. You can walk right in the front doors of the statehouse too. It’s not like they can set up a bomb-free perimeter around the building, so what’s the harm in leaving space for a 1,000 sq. ft. coffee shop?
If anything, a Starbucks will make things safer by making people hyper-alert to their surroundings.
First part of this is definitely true; I can’t think of a single other courthouse in Columbus that has private commercial space built in. Not even so much as a bagel shop.
Does that make it the right thing to do? Does it make it impossible?
Newsflash here folks…a staggering number of buildings in Columbus serve government functions. This thread is about us building even more. It’s a problem we’re going to have to confront sooner or later if we want a vibrant downtown. To keep making excuses is too defeatist for me.
This city desperately needs an all out ban on anything built that approaches brutalism.
why do you say that [with so much disdain]?
Yes, we have enough of that.
One city that does an excellent job marrying historic architecture with modern in London. I know that it’s not easily comparable to Columbus, but it’s worth a look. The sheer amount of new construction is staggering, and the skyline (no skyscrapers in the City or surrounding neighborhoods) is beautifully blended with landmarks like the 1600s St. Paul’s Cathedral and the modern Gherkin. Good architecture costs more, but if you are too concerned with cost, you’ll end up with this instead of this.
They did much the same thing with Washington, D.C., only it’s not as obvious because the outer, modern areas aren’t actually in D.C.; they’re in Reston and similar areas in Virginia and Maryland. D.C. imposed a height restriction on buildings, which basically sent all the skyscrapers across the river. London is similar, though I don’t know what legal rules they used to get themselves there. If you take a river tour down the Thames away from the City, you’ll find yourself flowing past new, modern skyscrapers *away* from the downtown core. I don’t remember seeing a whole lot of modern buildings going up in actually within stone’s throws of St. Paul’s.
There are a ton just east of St. Pauls (I think that’s the financial district) and in Southwark, across the river. None more than about 10 stories, and some very conceptual. It’s true, the skyscrapers and convention center area are quite far out in the Docklands, but light rail makes the area accessible to Central London.