The unraveling of the city’s relationship with a vaunted architect who was to design the centerpiece of Denver’s new downtown Justice Center is a monumental disappointment.
The breakup ended with each party claiming the other made unrealistic demands that ultimately broke the budget and the collaborative process.
With the construction clock ticking and a fixed budget, Mayor John Hickenlooper must act quickly to maintain public confidence in the project and ensure that Denver taxpayers get what they voted for when they approved the facility last year.
It has been less than a year since the mayor announced the selection of Steven Holl, who was to be entrusted to create a landmark building befitting its location at the edge of Civic Center.
The mayor invested a goodly amount of his political capital in 2005 to coax voters to approve a $378 million bond issue for the justice center. (A previous proposal for a different location had been defeated by voters.)
After the 2005 plan was approved, in a series of public presentations at the Colorado Convention Center, an all-star cast of architects, each hoping to get the job, shared their design vision with hundreds of citizens.
Hickenlooper was ebullient about the selection of New York-based Holl as courthouse architect and Hartman- Cox Architects, a Washington, D.C., firm, as designers of the jail.
“We are inspired by the caliber of signature architects who competed for this opportunity, and we are understandably excited about the selected firms,” he said at the time.
James Mejia, city manager for the project, said that the city had selected a “designer and not a design,” and that the decision was based on the past body of work.
The selection of Holl, who Time magazine named in 2001 as America’s best architect, was heralded as visionary. But the warning signs were there.
Holl was chosen in 1999 for an $80 million expansion of an art museum in Kansas City. His design was hailed as experimental and one-of-a-kind. But the budget grew over the years, hitting $140 million in 2002. And a private client earlier this year told The New York Times Magazine that a Holl project was double the original budget.
City Councilmember Jeanne Robb, who was on the architect selection committee, told The Denver Post that she “had concerns in terms of just what I read about Kansas City,” but said Holl’s presentation was so powerful it “blew the committee away.”
With Holl as the design star, local architectural firm Klipp signed a $9.6 million contract with the city in May for the courthouse design.
The relationship turned acrimonious quickly, as city representatives rebuked Holl on a number of points in his emerging plans, including the architect’s questioning whether 35 courtrooms needed to be built in the first phase. The city’s construction manager also said the initial design could be as much as $34 million over budget.
Holl says he didn’t have ready access to the mayor about problems with the project. He contends projected budget overages were more like $4 million, and blamed city representatives – at least in part – for demanding the use of more expensive materials.
Then, in an awkward announcement last week by Klipp, Holl was history. There was little public explanation, and the mayor’s voice was notably absent. The city will pay Holl about $700,000 for work he did before his departure.
Councilmembers are meeting Monday to figure out how to proceed.
It is apparent that the city made a mistake in choosing an architect it ultimately couldn’t work with. Since there is neither the time nor the money to reopen the selection process, the city will have to engage in hard-nosed oversight to make sure that the sole surviving architect, Klipp, can singlehandedly develop a worthwhile design, within budget and without unnecessary delay.
The last thing anyone wants to see erected in Civic Center is a bland building without enough courtrooms.
