More Funds Needed to Finish County's Downtown Law Building

The head of Riverside County’s Economic Development Agency will be asking the Board of Supervisors next week to authorize an additional $11.47 million to complete work on a downtown office building project that’s been dragging for almost three years.

EDA Director Rob Field is seeking the additional funds to ensure all future expenses estimated to complete the Public Defender Building can be met. If the board approves the request as part of its policy agenda Tuesday, the total project budget will come to $31.1 million, according to EDA documents.

“The scope of the project has evolved from a tenant improvement project to a full modernization of the building, including seismic retrofits,” Field stated in documents submitted to the board. “The unknown conditions of the building and the infeasibility of rehabilitation of the building have resulted in a budget increase.”

MORE COVERAGE:

• County Footing the Bill for Millions in Public Defender Rehab Project

The rehab was originally predicted to total $19.6 million.

In addition to the budget increase sought by EDA, the agency will also be asking the supervisors to approve a $1.4 million contract with Wildomar- based ProWest PCM Inc. to manage most aspects of the project, including quality control measures, going forward. The expense would be included in the overall project budget.

Field anticipated completion of the rebuild by early 2017.

He was called onto the carpet during a board meeting last March to explain why it was taking so long to get the eight-story, 77,000-square-foot building back in working order, following two years of repairs and modifications at the site, which is directly across from the Riverside Historic Courthouse on Main Street.

Field explained that the biggest challenge had been seismic retrofitting, which bogged down after inspectors found major flaws in the building’s foundation. According to the EDA director, remnants of an old movie theater were found were solid ground should have been. An entirely new surface had to be laid, Field said.

He acknowledged that the 50 percent savings county officials first believed they would net from simply rehabbing the building and not knocking it down would not be realized. The figure would be closer to 25 percent, Field said.

In October 2013, the board hired Buena Park-based Angeles Contractor Inc. to complete seismic retrofitting on the structure at a cost of $2.5 million.

Angeles picked up where Glendale-based AWI Builders left off. AWI was hired in February 2013 at a cost of more than $14 million to replace most of the interior of the building, as well as take care of the retrofitting, which was deemed necessary after inspections uncovered cracks in the floors from past earthquakes.

The office complex long served as headquarters of the District Attorney’s Office. The D.A.’s staff relocated in 2010 to a newly built tower at Ninth and Orange streets, just around the corner.

AWI was slated to finish all work on the future public defender HQ by July 2014, but according to the EDA, the entire project was only 30 percent complete by that time. The county terminated AWI’s contract on July 26, 2014.

The building, which Department of Probation personnel will also be utilizing, currently resembles an abandoned husk, missing walls and windows on every floor.

Board members have urged progress in rehabbing the structure because the public defender’s present offices at 4200 Orange St. are overcrowded, with hallways used as temporary storage.

All of the work is covered under a bond sale approved by the board in May 2013.

--City News Service, photo via Shutterstock