Sanders seeks approval for City Hall developer

Mayor Jerry Sanders on Monday sought the City Council’s authority to enter into exclusive negotiations with a Portland-based developer to possibly construct a new San Diego City Hall complex. The agreement with Gerding Edlen would result in a concrete estimate of how much the proposed project would cost and also finalize the design.

Sanders said redeveloping the downtown City Hall complex should happen only if it saves the city money.

“Let me be clear, for me, this is a business decision and nothing else,” Sanders said at a morning news conference.

Gerding Edlen has proposed replacing San Diego’s aging, 1960s-era City Hall building with a 33-story, 964,000-square-foot glass-and-steel tower. The proposal will be considered by the Rules, Open Government and Intergovernmental Relations Committee on Wednesday, before it is taken up by the full City Council in July.

“I call on the City Council to take this opportunity to negotiate for the lowest cost, lowest risk and most environmentally friendly redevelopment possible,” Sanders said.

The mayor said ultimately it will be up to the voters to decide whether San Diego gets a new City Hall. He said the project could be on the ballot as soon as next June.

Given the city’s precarious financial condition, Councilman Carl DeMaio, the proposal’s most fierce critic, has said San Diego should instead pursue what has been coined the “hold steady” approach. That idea, which has been estimated to cost $40 million, would keep the existing City Hall, but upgrade it so that workers can stay in the building for the next 10 years.

Others argue that San Diego shouldn’t wait to replace City Hall, pointing out that the building is deteriorating, has inadequate fire suppression systems, lacks necessary seismic retrofitting and contains asbestos. City Council President Ben Hueso has even gone so far as to recently describe City Hall as a “blight.”

Sanders said millions of dollars would also be saved by redeveloping the City Hall complex rather than continuing to lease office space at locations around San Diego at an annual cost of about $13 million.

“I can’t justify spending the taxpayers’ money on costly downtown leases if there is a cheaper option available,” he said. “I want to spend the people’s money on city services, not on rent to other landlords.”

According to a recent analysis by the consulting firm Jones Laing LaSalle, redeveloping City Hall would cost San Diego more in the short term, but would save the city significant money down the road.

Tags: SDNN

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