by Richard Prior
Staff Writer
Mayor John Peyton says it’s time to move on from the new Duval County Courthouse debate and into another, equally contentious, project.
“This courthouse has been a nightmare project,” Peyton told the Rotary Club of Jacksonville Monday. “I haven’t enjoyed a minute of it. It takes more time than you can possibly imagine.
“By the way, I didn’t get elected to build a courthouse. I have other issues I’d certainly like to see done.”
Peyton savored the opportunity to address the public without the “filter” of the media and to demystify the “mythology that goes with the building,” particularly its depiction as a Taj Mahal.
The deal that broke the courthouse budget is not the construction of the building but the land costs, Peyton said at the Omni luncheon.
“The decision to move the courthouse from the river to the inner city was absolutely the right decision,” he said. “But it cost a lot more than they ever thought it would. It was budgeted for $9 million. It’s going to cost $25 million.”
The cost to actually build the courthouse has gone down since the plan was proposed, he added. That total should be $167 million, down $2 million from the original estimate.
Based on comparisons of square-foot cost, Peyton said, “It will be one of the most inexpensive courthouses in the state of Florida.”
The Orange County Courthouse, a building of comparable size at 1.2 million square feet in Orlando, was recently completed for $185 a square foot.
The Duval County Courthouse will cost $147 per square foot.
The courthouse was billed as a $190 million project when voters approved the Better Jacksonville Plan in 2000. Then-mayor John Delaney shifted $21 million from a $35 million contingency fund, making the new price $211 million.
At one point, estimates ballooned to $282 million before settling back to $232 million.
The size of the courthouse has gone from 896,000 square feet to 1,134,000 square feet.
“The question I would ask myself — here’s this project, here’s the enormous budget, the enormous size — what do we do?” Peyton said Monday. “We can’t start over, in my mind.”
That $40 million that has already been spent would be gone, he said. There would be additional costs for a new architect and another design competition. Construction costs would escalate over the new lifetime of the project.
“If we start over, I promise you it’s going to cost more,” he said.
Peyton said he has been meeting with City Council members a lot recently, “encouraging them to dig into this project like I have.
“We have studied it. I don’t like it. There’s no one at City Hall taking more political risk than me at going to $232 million. But, in my mind, it’s clearly the right thing to do. There’s less risk. I don’t think you can do it any cheaper.”
Peyton said that, after the Council studies the figures, members will agree with his assessment when they vote Nov. 25.
“And if they don’t . . . if they want to continue the dialogue, we can continue the dialogue,” he said. “We can spend the next four years debating the courthouse.
“But it’s not a good use of your time. It’s not a good use of mine. And I don’t think it’s good for the City. It’s time to move on.”
One of the projects to “move on” to will be the dozen proposed overpasses included in the Better Jacksonville Plan for $125 million.
“I predict the interchanges will make the courthouse look like a kitten as far as controversy goes,” said Peyton. “But my presumption is there are going to be overpasses. I think we voted on it. Fifty-eight percent of the community said yes to overpasses.”
Peyton said he realizes there is “a lot of opposition in the neighborhoods,” but “that is part of the course with interchange agreements.”
“Traffic is probably our No. 1 quality of life indicator as for what impacts you on a day-to-day basis,” he added. “If you think we you think we can attract the kinds of jobs we want here and raise per capita income when your traffic’s at gridlock, I think we’re being a little naive.”