Relief on Way; New Courthouse to Open

A new county courthouse charged with handling all civil lawsuits filed in San Diego Municipal Court will open downtown next week, easing some of the congestion at the long-overburdened Broadway facility.

“It’s not the grand palace that people would envision . . . but this courthouse was built with the public in mind,” court administrator D. Kent Pedersen said, calling the new courthouse’s design simple and very contemporary. “This will provide some relief to the court employees and the public. People are working here (at the Broadway courthouse) under extremely crowded circumstances.”

However, he said, the new courthouse, which opens Monday, “still leaves us short of the right number of courtrooms, though it gets us closer to what we need.” Crowding is so bad at the Broadway courthouse, he said, the fire marshal has several times cited officials there for allowing too many people in the misdemeanor arraignment area.

The new six-story building, on 4th Avenue about half a block north of Ash Street, has four courtrooms and a clerks office, plus roomier accommodations for the public than can be found at the Broadway courthouse. Four of San Diego’s 28 Municipal Court judges will transfer to the new building.

Other Municipal Court matters, including criminal, small claims, traffic and family law, will continue to be handled on Broadway.

The $6.9-million 4th Avenue courthouse includes a luxury for attorneys and their clients: Next to each of the four courtrooms are two private rooms for attorney-client consultations. Usually, attorneys and their clients struggle for privacy in the often-crowded hallways.

The new courthouse also has separate research rooms for the public and for attorneys at the clerks office. Pedersen said a computer system, which will be partly operational next month and completed by next summer, will provide easier access to dockets and information on municipal cases, eventually creating a near-paperless clerks office.

Judges and other court employees in the new courthouse will have their own second-story parking lot--there is no public parking--with 29 spaces and a private elevator to take them directly to their work areas. For added security, 28 video cameras survey the parking lot and most of the building’s interior.

The street-level floor consists of the public entrance and much of the building’s utilities. The third floor is home to the court clerks, and the fourth is dedicated to the deputy marshal, security, research attorneys and the jury assembly room. The fifth and sixth floors will each hold two courtrooms, two judges chambers and four attorney-client consultation rooms. Employees can use an outdoor patio on the roof.

Pedersen said construction of the courthouse went off without a hitch and was completed on time and within budget.

“It’s remarkable for me to be able to say that, in tough times, a project has been done as right as this one has,” Pedersen said.

Developer Chris Penrose, executive vice president of Western Devcon in San Diego, explained that “with the low interest rates and the drop in construction costs and land values, we were able to custom-fit this building for less than it would have cost to retrofit the existing courthouse.”

Planning on the 50,000-square-foot structure started about three years ago, and construction began last December.

Funding came from what is commonly called the justice system fund, a pool of cash generated by fees assessed in criminal cases. A person who pleads guilty or is convicted of certain kinds of crimes pays a surcharge along with whatever fine a judge assesses. For a moving traffic violation, the fee is $1.50.

The new building was a priority because the court handles 25,000 to 30,000 civil cases annually. It also processes 25,000 to 30,000 small-claims cases and about 390,000 criminal and traffic cases. Municipal courts handle civil lawsuits of $25,000 or less, and superior courts decide disputes of more than $25,000.

The San Diego Municipal Court handles cases from San Diego and Poway. Cases from other areas of the county go to either the North County, South Bay or El Cajon municipal courts, which are run separately.