Revised design plans for a new Mendocino County Courthouse show a two-story glass entrance to an 82,000-square foot, seven-courtroom building whose estimated costs have risen to $150 million, according to the Judicial Council of California.
Construction is now scheduled to begin in May of next year, with completion tentatively set for August 2027. If all goes as planned, state officials in October will begin to secure necessary permits allowing the building of the most significant public civic project in 75 years in Mendocino County.
Shannon Riley, Ukiah’s Deputy City Manager, said she is engaged in bi-monthly meetings with court and county staff as plans for the new county courthouse firm up.
“Our engineering team is collaborating with their design and engineering professionals to help ensure proper coordination of utilities and streets” with the city’s planned revamping of Perkins Street, the main artery between downtown and Highway 101.
Court Executive Officer Kim Turner on Monday released a state update outlining the updated courthouse plans but deferred comment to state officials who are the “project managers.”
The new Mendocino County Courthouse is to be located on the eastern edge of downtown Ukiah on a 4-acre site on Perkins Street abutting the historic Ukiah Train Depot and bordered on the west by abandoned railroad tracks.
Fentress Architects, a global design firm based in Washington, D.C., completed the latest courthouse revisions and prepared design plans that will be the basis for the development of actual construction documents for the downtown Ukiah project. Hansel Phelps, an employee-owned construction company based in Washington state that has emerged as one of the nation’s largest, is the designated builder.
The Mendocino County courthouse project and a smaller $83 million courthouse development in neighboring Lake County are currently ranked as the two top “immediate need” court-related projects that are estimated to cost $2.3 billion statewide. The Mendocino and Lake projects are among the first to use the state’s new ‘design build’ method, which calls for a single “design build” team to work on a project from concept to completion, according to the Judicial Council.
The new Ukiah courthouse will replace an aging 1950s-era building that the state believes needs millions of dollars in infrastructure improvements, and security updates.
The fate of the current 1950s-era main courthouse, and an adjacent century-old limestone clad building fronting School Street remains uncertain. Ownership will revert to the county of Mendocino County when the courts move into the new courthouse.
The existing courthouse is a mishmash of offices and courtrooms, with elevator access limited to three of its five floors. Millions of dollars in deferred maintenance undermines the structural integrity of the 72-year-old building, which has been labeled a ‘high-risk seismically deficient building’ by federal agencies. As it is, the current courthouse suffers from inadequate heating and cooling systems, inmate security issues, and ‘woefully inadequate’ state and public parking even with city-owned parking lots in surrounding areas.
Relocation of the courthouse from its historic site in the heart of downtown, however, has raised larger community concerns about foot traffic for shops and restaurants dependent on courthouse visitors and employees.
It also raises questions about how other court-related offices are going to connect with the new courthouse, which will be located three long blocks away. Office space for the county’s District Attorney’s staff, currently housed on the ground floor of the existing courthouse, is not provided in the new courthouse plan, for example.
There has been talk of razing the existing courthouse structure that fronts State Street and turning the space into a new downtown square. The historic limestone-clad annex facing School Street could be saved for other public use, according to proponents.
Locally, it is a dollars and cents issue that is fueling uncertainty surrounding the demise of the county courthouse downtown.
The city of Ukiah hopes a new courthouse will spur commercial and retail development along that section of Perkins Street but there is no longer a redevelopment agency to help finance any private development-related projects.
A plan to tear down the historic Palace Hotel located a half block north of the current courthouse, and rebuild a boutique hotel and retail complex on the site appears to be stalled after a state agency earlier this year rejected a bid by the Guidiville Rancheria and private developers to secure $6 million in special state funding to cover demolition costs.
At the county level, finances are shaky at best.
There has been talk that some scattered county offices could be consolidated in the old courthouse, saving lease and maintenance payments but the overriding question is how a financially strapped county could afford to bring the existing courthouse up to current building code and seismic safety standards.
I think given the serious state of the economy, the serious state of the water availability combined with the serious state of the polluted ocean and intense limited fishing restrictions, that to spend $150 million dollars of tax payer blood, sweat and tears to BEAUTIFY A COURTHOUSE is an enormous tragedy. The commonwealth would be MUCH better served with an influx of stable affordable housing and securing available water and investing in creating new employment opportunities combined with training programs. Investing in a process by which the commonwealth is NOT supported and nurtured but imprisoned and taxed by enormous fines, fees, jail costs to inmates and their families is a GIANT STEP IN THE OPPOSITE DIRECTION A SOCIETY OR COMMUNITY WANTS TO GO. INCARCERATION guarantees the breakdown of the family structure and statistically shows NO rehabilitation, BUT RATHER A pattern of continued incarceration. This is cultural totalitarianism.
What makes you think the Judicial Council of California is going to build affordable housing? Like, on what planet do you live? Do you have any notion whatsoever of how projects are created? How funding works? Do you think that $150 million is just sitting in a bank someplace waiting for literally anything to grab it first? You understand that most of the crimes in this county are related to Drunk Driving and petty crimes which don’t involve incarceration? Of course you don’t, which is why you wrote such a naive comment.
Looks like a Soviet era building which seems appropriate as we slide into the “Big Sister” communism and suppression of free speech.
Hideous prison aesthetic. It would have been more appropriate to design it in the shape a giant middle finger. Either way it’s one more “F you” bestowed on Ukiah.
All that public money could have done some good elsewhere.
Dude why are you always in these comments do you not have a job?
Ugly as sin.
Soviet Brutalist architectural style meets Apple Store banality
The entire frontage visually communicates “this is the place you go to, BEFORE you go to prison.”
What City or County agency chose the architecture firm for this? Why did it have to be a bunch from Washington DC? Couldn’t find anyone closer to home?
City and/or County should pass a law that all public buildings over X square feet in size or X million dollars in project cost get their proposals publicly viewed & voted upon, with at least 2 major design options.
The state of California’s Judicial Council is responsible for the design, funding, and construction of any new courthouse. City and county representatives are consulted but decisions rest with state officials.
Would you prefer the build price double so we could have aesthetically pleasing buildings? I wouldn’t, and I could almost guarantee you’d be complaining about the price if the tables turned. This is basically the same as a DMV or Forestry office. It’s a building which exists to serve a necessary purpose, not to titillate the senses. Don’t get me wrong, I’d love for our country to be run so well that we could be building things that impress people hundreds of years from now, but the sad reality is that our state isn’t run efficiently. Until that day comes (unlikely…), these things are built cheaply because the exterior is less important than what goes on inside.
Then why not just design it as a simple cube like Costco or Walmart? Wouldn’t need a firm from D.C. to do that. Seems to me that they ARE going to waste a lot of public money on extra aesthetics and titillations while ignoring the actual shortcomings of the Mendocino courts.
I agree with “…lack of understanding”. Given the budget and the inflation the country is undergoing, this is as good as it gets folks. The longer the delay the more expensive the project becomes. The current court house isn’t getting any better. Build it. The County could sell the old courthouse to developers to dig itself out of the hole it is in. Many county staff workers work from home or are on hybrid schedules and many more could work from home or hybrid if the elected heads were on the same page. No needs to maintain costly office space for a deficit spending county.
Forgive me – Am I missing something? Who’s idea is this? And what a burden for ordinary people. Hypothetically, each of the roughly 89, 000 people populating Mendocino County – men, women and CHILDREN – each need to fork over $1,685 for a facility they ideally and quite likely will never need to set foot in… Meanwhile pockets of life in downtown Ukiah feel larger and scarier as if lurching toward a zombie apocalypse… $150 Million can pay for a LOT of shelter, medical care, food, education, environmental cleanup (read pick up a lot of trash) public transportation and improving quality of life for many.
This is funded by the State via the Judicial Council of California. Your “150 million divided by 89,000” is inaccurate. It’s 150mil divided by 39.1 million. We are already funding for shelters, medical care, Food aid, education, and environmental protection and cleanup. While I agree the state could be doing a much better job running those programs, it’s not like Mendo County was like “hmmm, $150 million for homeless shelters or a new courthouse?”. Wild how uninformed people are so frequently the loudest and most confident about their misplaced beliefs.
This courthouse is to be in and for Mendocino County and its residents, yes? Thank you for properly informing us.
Its funded by the tax payers, end of story. This multiple “fund” thing is a bunch of hogwash and just a way to try to justify the gross mismanagement of public funds.
Only 7 courtrooms? How many courtrooms are in the old one?
The current one is 7 as well
We already have the Palace Hotel and the former Post Office anchoring downtown decay.
A chainlink fence around the next corpse is all that is needed. But State Street is looking fresh and new.
Someone just bought the post office for $475K in March 2024. Hopefully it has a functional use again.
My thoughts exactly.
I left Ukiah behind me some years ago and frankly I no longer even like to visit the place and when I do I take the freeway or back streets on the westside to avoid the annoying downtown streetscape nonsense.
So admittedly i’m behind the times and uninformed and again to be direct don’t give a shit so feel free to enlighten me and bring me up to date.
So what is the problem with the current courthouse?
Not earthquake compliant or not enough adequate parking?
My cynical side tells me to follow the money and keep an eye out for the kickbacks.
So let me get this straight… you don’t even live in ukiah but here you are always giving your opinion on topics that have nothing to do with you even living here??!! The nerve! ?
You don’t have anything straight you damn fool.
I lived in and around Ukiah from 1958 until 2016 and moved on after the naive and gullible California voters passed proposition 64 and legalized a product that was impossible to control and regulate and in doing so took it out of the locals hands and pretty much killed the Golden Goose.
The Ukiah area and Mendocino County was a wonderful place to live in once upon a time but in case you haven’t noticed it has become a shit hole.
So anyway fuck you and the Unicorn that you rode in on and if you have any friends fuck them too!
If our finances are so shakie, why can’t we just maintain what we do have, and make do!? When you brake a window, you don’t tear the whole house down , no you just fix the window! Why go further in debt! Our county has been mismanaged for a long time, so instead of flower pots down the middle of State Street let’s just have a nice street we can all drive on!!
Most of the upgrades happening in Ukiah are done with state grant money including the purple pipe water re-use project. The locals aren’t paying for these projects. It’s a benefit to this community that the state has grants to offer.
Fashion over function. More lipstick on the old sow that is Ukiah.
Less Lipstick and more long over due change. Ukiah has more projects happening than the rest of the county. Ukiah is annexing county parcels and will be planning on growing the community.
Where do you think the grant monies come from? Does the money fall from trees???? Nothing is free! Our tax paying dollars foot all State and Federal grants which includes good project and wasteful project spending.
No need to be condescending. I’m aware CA pays taxes (and Mendo in particular disproportionally benefits from these programs) to fund these grants and they are mostly a positive improvement in their communities. Ukiah and Mendo (as a whole) couldn’t afford to build out these projects by itself nor could many small communities in CA. Gov’t spending to jump start economies is nothing new and the grants have been an improvement to Ukiah overall. The water districts in Ukiah and Redwood valley are combining into one district so they all can take part in the water infrastructure grant programs. Mendocino will likely have more water scarcity in the future and will likely need to depend on the grants to expand water infrastructure. Places where there is little to no water infrastructure will simultaneously become more difficult to live in as time goes on. Just an FYI to all the well and septic tank users.
There was a time when the justice department held themselves and our citizens to the highest standard. We built sophisticated and grand courthouses to instill a feeling that we are trying as a society to go above and beyond the simple and mundane. We must strive to be better.
In the 80s we let politicians write tough on crime laws to look favorable during elections. This with the lobbying of the prison guards for three strikes we embarked on the closing of public prisons for private for profit prisons. This is when the prison industry was born. And its expansion was robust.
This courthouse design is in line with today’s judicial branch. It looks like a manufacturing plant, which it is. The barcode on the outside is symbolic of the product that the entire prison industry operates on. Which is us the citizens. We become the product after being processed through the well oiled machine backed by politicians and shareholders. I could not design a more appropriate building myself, it is absolutely genius.
The very first time that I looked at that image I found it to be unsettling and it set off my creepy detector.
I could not put my finger on it until I read your comment.
“The symbolic barcode”bingo!
An old friend has one tattooed on the back of his neck maybe he is onto something?
It’s kind of funny, the front looks like giant jail cell. What happened to beautiful Greek Roman or European beauties with style that would make downtown look better? So streets are worth beautification with old style lampost and huge sidewalks, but a courthouse, is not worth making a 150 million gorgeous Ukiah building statement that will look amazing with the smalltown esthetic? Ever been to Philadelphia or Washington DC? I understand we are limited on costs. But there are some amazing smalltown era building style courthouse.
This towns building ideas are so contradictory and inconsistent in style. Can’t decide what era want town to look like ?
Complete waste of money obviously! So right on par with the way out government spends our money. Also, 150mil? BS!!! Nothing in this country, especially California, is ever built on budget. Expect that number to grow by millions more.
Ahh the perfect place to deny due process, place children in drug ridden environments, and work hand in hand with the women’s bar association (Why the need for distinction? Shouldn’t it just be the bar association?) for unjust and biased, fraudulently based decisions.. It’s a glorified testament of much they’re raking in from the Title IV-D program.
The Ukiah Unified School District Measure that went on Ukiah homeowners property taxes cost 149 million with the interest. That was for a handful of UUSD schools to get paint jobs and roofs. It passed by 12 votes I believe.
They used the money to put fences around our schools. The teachers be pissed
We’re a poor county. What are they thinking??
Courthouses were originally respected as Standings where the rule of law was decided impartially by the men and women in a community. The courts were considered to be of the People where justice was served as fair as imperfect human-beings could determine. As the nation developed into a statist society, court officials and others empowered by the state took over complete control. Rights were denied thru administrative hearings aimed at picking the pockets of unwitting defendants with traffic and other hearings where no discovery, jury, and other defense means are permitted. In matters with juries, primarily criminal trials, the process has been manipulated over the ages by ambitious DA’s and other court officials leading back the the fugitive slave act of 1850. It was in that era that the protection of the juries power of determining right from wrong was altered forever. As juries in the north began refusing to convict run away slaves, confederate supporting court officials began selecting and instructing juries to convict based on the law instead of what they thought was moral. Resulting in what we have today which in many ways is not far from Kangaroo courts. With this in mind, perhaps the $150 million budget could afford the erection of a giant Kangaroo in front? Furthermore symbolizing the attitudes of current leaders in this county of corruption and general disregard for those they serve. If nothing else, tourist might mistake it for a Toys-R-Us and actually exit at Perkins for a picture in front of the giant Kanga and discover the wonders of Ukiah’s gateway to an empty downtown core.
UGLY! So much for the downtown astetics.
This is a complete travesty. The county is broke, towns are dying as cannabis money disappears and these clowns want a $150 million court house? This is freakin nuts. Everyone involved should be fired immediately. The current court house works ok, stop your entitled whinging and make do you paraquats.