Santa Rosa-based TLCD Architecture and national firm Shepley Bulfinch were chosen to design the project, estimated to cost $71.7 million, according to the Administrative Office of the Courts (AOC) announced today.
“We are fortunate that the Judicial Council has placed the Lake County courthouse as one of the first projects funded in the state, and we are very pleased with this selection of an architecture partnership that will bring both Northern California experience and national expertise to our new courthouse,” said Presiding Lake County Superior Court Judge Richard C. Martin.
Martin added, “This project is not only critically needed by our court, but it will be an important addition to Lakeport’s civic community and an infrastructure effort that will provide economic benefits for years to come. This expertise will help us ensure that we get it right, and the design of the building will harmonize with our community.”
The current main facility for the Lake County Superior Court is located on the fourth floor of the courthouse and county building at 255 N. Forbes St., built in 1968.
The AOC has determined that the current location is overcrowded and unsafe, posing security and accessibility challenges as well as having physical problems that the state reported prevents the court from offering safe and efficient services to the public.
As a result, the new courthouse project is listed as an “immediate need” in the judicial branch’s capital-outlay plan and is among the judicial branch’s highest-priority infrastructure projects, the AOC reported.
The new, 50,158-square-foot, four-courtroom courthouse is expected to be completed in the fall of 2014, the state reported.
The new courthouse is among the first of 41 projects to be funded by Senate Bill 1407, which finances critically needed courthouse construction, renovation, and repair through a portion of judicial branch fees, fines, and penalties and not county or state general funds, the AOC reported.
AOC spokesman Philip R. Carrizosa told Lake County News that the requests for proposals went out this past Feb. 27.
“No local firms put in a proposal,” Carrizosa said.
The project is in the early stages of site selection, “We're months off on that,” Carrizosa added.
A site selection committee which includes community members is working with the local court and the AOC to review a short list of sites, said Court Chief Executive Officer Mary Smith.
She said the committee is set to meet Tuesday to finalize the short list. At that point the locations on the list will be announced.
TLCD Architecture, founded in 1965, is a 50-member firm that has experience designing numerous Northern California civic buildings for government, academic, health care and community clients, according to its Web site, at www.tlcd.com .
Some of its projects, according to the company Web site, include the Frank R. Doyle Library at Santa Rosa Junior College, Santa Rosa High School's DeSoto Hall – which is in keeping with the campus' historic architecture. The firm also is designing the expansion for Kaiser Santa Rosa Hospital.
They'll work with nationally ranked firm Shepley Bulfinch, founded in 1874 and based in Boston. That firm, which the state said also has extensive civic architecture experience, worked on the recently completed University of California, Riverside Genomics Building. Their client list includes Duke University and Harvard Business School.
Both firms also bring extensive experience in sustainable design to the project, according to the AOC.
The AOC said the architecture team now can begin preliminary space programming. However, architectural design must wait until a site is selected and acquisition is approved by the State Public Works Board.
The site selection and acquisition process typically take a year or more, according to the state.
E-mail Elizabeth Larson at
How to resolve AdBlock issue? 
