After the completion last year of a 12,500-seat baseball stadium, the Central Valley city readies for a new federal courthouse and first high-rise in three decades

By Richard Horgan

Over the past five years, new federal courthouses have opened in Las Vegas, Phoenix, Sacramento, Santa Ana and Tucson.

But when it came time to design a new $121 million judicial facility in downtown Fresno, the federal agency charged with the assignment sought inspiration from courthouses well beyond the boundaries of its western region.

“The district’s chief judge, Robert E. Coyle, was born and raised in Fresno,” said Maria Ciprazo, project executive with the General Services Administration’s Pacific Rim Region in San Francisco, which oversees the procurement of federal facilities in Nevada, Arizona, California and Hawaii.

“We looked at the context of what the Central Valley is about as well as how Mr. Coyle and the other judges perceive the concept of justice itself. Then we went to Boston and toured historic courthouses on the East Coast. It’s going to be a pretty imposing building with Jerusalem stone accents.”

When completed in the spring of 2004, the 450,000-sq.-ft. structure will stand as downtown Fresno’s tallest structure, taking over that title from the former Del Webb building, which opened in 1969.

The general contractors on the project are Pittsburgh, Pa.-based Dick Corp., in partnership with Matt Construction of Santa Fe Springs. The executive architect is the Los Angeles firm of Gruen & Associates, which previously worked on the Ronald Reagan Federal Building and U.S. Courthouse in Santa Ana and is currently involved in the renovation of the Foley Federal Building and U.S. Bankruptcy Courthouse in Las Vegas.

“Federal courthouses are such a significant type of building historically,” said Debra Gerod, project executive for the courthouse’s design-build architectural team of Gruen Associates and Santa Monica firm Moore Ruble Yudell. “The challenges include the desire to allow many potentially conflicting emotions to be felt simultaneously when experiencing the building, evoking awe, respect and yet warmth and comfort.

“These buildings may be the most tangible experience that the public will have with the U.S. justice system, as juror, witness, observer, plaintiff, defendant and so on. They tend to be very significant from an urban-design standpoint, being the focal points of their communities and catalysts for growth. Additionally, they are designed to last 100 years, which is a great opportunity for an architect.”

Two blocks away, across from the Fresno Convention Center, a $50 million 11-story office building and 900-space parking structure is on schedule for completion by December. The Tower at Convention Center Court, which will house workers from the IRS and Caltrans, is the first privately funded high-rise in Fresno since the Masten Towers went up in 1973.

It is also one of the first buildings in California to meet the requirements of the GSA’s new Design Excellence Program, an effort to substantially streamline the way the organization hires architects and engineers, thereby cutting the cost of competing for GSA design contracts.

The property is being developed by Fresno-based Penstar Group, in partnership with the Los Angeles architecture firm of Gin Wong Associates and Bethesda, Md.-based general contractor Clark Construction Group Inc. It is being built in advance of a nearby $29 million, six-story, 193,000-sq.-ft. compliance center that the IRS will complete in 2004.

More than $1 billion of private- and public-sector funding is currently fueling the revitalization of downtown Fresno, according to the Economic Development Corp. of Fresno County.

Last year, the city unveiled Vision 2010, an eight-year plan for the revitalization of the city core and is currently looking at ways to resuscitate Fulton Mall, an open-air retail concept.

“Several developers are looking at coming in and totally refurbishing Fulton Mall and putting in a lake,” said Cynthia Harris, vice president of corporate marketing for the Economic Development Corp. “It’s in the middle of downtown, so there’s going to be more growth to come beyond the construction of the two current high-rise projects and other recently completed buildings.

“People are starting to consolidate here from Los Angeles and San Francisco. There’s also another high-rise project adjacent to our headquarters with a parking structure that is scheduled to break ground this fall.”

Over the past few years, owners of several downtown Fresno buildings have spent millions of dollars resurfacing their exterior facades, including a recent effort by the County Hall of Records building to refurbish its modernistic 1935 styling.

The precast façade of the Fresno Courthouse is scheduled to be erected this month. Gruen & Associates’ Gerod said it is unlike anything she has seen before.

“It is one of the most unique aspects of the exterior design,” she added. “The samples we reviewed are very beautiful.

“There is a lot of activity in Fresno right now and we believe that it has been spurred, at least in part, by the fact that the courthouse project is under way. We saw a spurt of activity in Santa Ana around the construction of the courthouse there, but then it slowed down by the downturn in the economy. It is just now picking up again.”

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