Downtown Modesto courthouse land deal set for final approval Friday

The next step in the state’s plan to build a new courthouse in downtown Modesto is expected to be approved Friday.

The State Public Works Board will vote on whether to buy the 2.75-acre block between G and H streets and Ninth and 10th streets for $5.45 million.

The action is recommended for approval by the board’s staff, and it is listed as a consent item on the agenda. That means no discussion is planned before the board votes. The meeting is in Sacramento.

“The project will provide a new 26-courtroom, 301,500-square-foot facility with secure parking for judicial officers and staff, and surface parking for visitors,” the project’s analysis states.

According to the state court system’s website, the Modesto project is expected to cost about $262.5 million and be finished by 2019. But the website warns: “All facts are subject to change.”

The land purchase deal has been working its way through the state’s review process since spring, which was when Modesto’s City Council approved the agreement.

Once the public works board gives its approval, local and state officials will have to hustle to complete the sale by Dec. 31.

It’s a complicated deal, involving six private landowners, plus 53,500 square feet of land and an alley owned by the city of Modesto.

Modesto’s council agreed to buy all the privately owned properties for about $4.5 million and then to resell the entire block – including the city’s lots and alley – to the state Administrative Office of the Courts for $5.45 million.

The agreement also requires the city to remove and relocate all the utilities running through the block’s alley. The state will withhold $367,000 of its purchase price until that work is complete, which must be by April 1, 2016.

The block’s current tenants will have to move out by the end of 2015, and they will be given $685,000 to cover their relocation costs.

Until then, the city of Modesto will be responsible “for all costs related to such occupancy of the subleased premises, including but not limited to maintenance, utilities, repair, risk management, insurance and security,” the state report explains.

The agreement also “requires the city to indemnify the state from third-party claims resulting from the city’s performance of any alterations, as well as from any claims in connection with the presence of hazardous materials deposited by the city or the subtenants.”

The public works board agenda does not provide details about what the courthouse will look like, but there are some details about parking.

The plan is for the courthouse to provide “32 secured underground parking spaces, 45 on-site unsecured parking spaces, and a parking lease with the city of Modesto for 123 nonexclusive parking spaces in a public parking garage nearby.”

That block includes a city-owned parking lot, which will disappear when the courthouse is built.

Most of the other buildings on that block are old and in poor condition.

Here’s what the city has agreed to purchase and for how much:

▪  $2.5 million for 900 H St., a 28,000-square-foot parcel owned by Greg Reed’s G & K Enterprises

▪  $625,000 for 711 10th St., a 7,000-square-foot parcel owned by Greg Reed’s G & K Enterprises

▪ $492,000 for 712 and 706 Ninth St., a 10,500-square-foot parcel owned by Gary and Myrna Gervasoni

▪ $325,000 for 716 Ninth St., a 3,500-square-foot parcel owned by Curtis Motel

▪ $270,000 for 701 10th St., a 14,000-square-foot parcel owned by Charles W. Noble, Dorothy M. Noble, Von Deen Bubeck and Jerry Bubeck

▪ $341,000 for 713 10th St., a 3,500-square-foot parcel owned by Gina Rugani, Michael Gene Rugani and Sandra Ann Heffernan

This story was originally published November 13, 2014 at 4:34 PM with the headline "Downtown Modesto courthouse land deal set for final approval Friday."