Los Angeles has one of the largest federal court operations in the nation, processing more than 16,000 cases per year and serving an area with more than 11 million people. In downtown Los Angeles, the District Court operations are split between two buildings—the Spring Street Courthouse and the Roybal Federal Building—that are approximately one-quarter mile apart. The Spring Street building, considered by the court to be the main courthouse in Los Angeles, is more than 65 years old and, according to judiciary and GSA officials, requires major renovations and does not currently meet the security or space needs of the judiciary. By contrast, the Roybal building was constructed in the early 1990s and, according to GSA officials, complied with design and security specifications that were in place at the time it was built. However, inefficiencies occur because the court’s operations are split between these two buildings. Federal courthouse construction projects are prioritized based on urgency scores assigned by the judiciary—the higher the score, the more urgent the project is considered (see table 1). The Los Angeles court has the highest urgency score of any project in the 5- year plan due to the space, security, and operational inefficiencies presented by the Spring Street Courthouse. To address these concerns, GSA and the judiciary prepared a series of feasibility studies looking at different options for accommodating the court’s long-term needs. One option involved constructing a stand-alone building that would consolidate all of the court operations into a single building. GSA and the judiciary also considered constructing a companion building physically connected to the Roybal building. A third alternative that was studied involved the partial or complete demolition of an existing federal building to provide a site for a new courthouse. According to judiciary and GSA officials, after years of study and debate, these options were not selected because of cost or space limitations. For example, AOUSC noted that a consolidated courthouse would cost approximately $480 million. Currently, GSA is proposing the construction of a new 41-courtroom building, as shown in figure 1, to house district court judges and related operations at a location approximately 6/10 of a mile from the Roybal building. Under this proposal, the judiciary would expand its use of the Roybal building for magistrate and bankruptcy judges and related operations. GSA’s plan also involves consolidating the U.S. Attorneys Office in the Spring Street building, along with other federal agencies and grand jury suites. The briefing slides in appendix I also contain a map showing the locations of these sites. GSA estimates that constructing the new courthouse will cost approximately $400 million. Funding for this project is contingent on multiple appropriations. In fiscal year 2000, the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works and the House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure authorized site acquisition and design of the proposed courthouse, and in the following fiscal year Congress appropriated $35 million for this purpose. In fiscal year 2004, the House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure authorized additional design and construction of the proposed courthouse in Los Angeles. In that same fiscal year, Congress appropriated $50 million for the project and appropriated $314 million in fiscal year 2005. On November 17, 2004, the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works also authorized the construction of the new courthouse in Los Angeles. The current project proposal would address the judiciary’s need for more space and alleviate some security concerns, but the operational and security concerns related to a split court that contributed to the L.A. Courthouse’s high urgency score would remain. More specifically, while Los Angeles’s Spring Street Courthouse received a total score of 85 out of a possible 100 points, making it the most urgent project in the judiciary’s 5- year plan, 50 of these points were related to the trial court being split into two buildings, a situation that the new project would not resolve. The L.A. Courthouse on Spring Street received high scores in all four criteria that the judiciary considers in assigning an urgency score (see fig. 2). Because the L.A. Courthouse ran out of space in 1995, the judiciary assigned the courthouse a score of 19.5 points using its urgency scoring methodology. In addition, court officials projected that seven judges would not have their own courtrooms within 10 years, resulting in 10.5 points for number of judges without courtrooms. The Spring Street building also received the maximum possible scores for security concerns and operational inefficiencies (30 and 25 points, respectively) because the trial court is split between two separate buildings and, according to the judiciary, the Spring Street building lacks a sufficient number of holding cells for prisoners. According to judiciary officials, it is also difficult to keep prisoners separate from judges and the public in the hallways. To address this last problem, the courthouse has colored, numbered lines designed to guide the U.S. Marshals as they lead prisoners from the detention cells to the courtrooms (see fig. 3). However, court officials said that this system is too confusing and difficult to follow through the narrow halls. Furthermore, many of the building’s courtrooms are less than half the size required under the U.S. Courts Design Guide or have major visual obstructions. The current proposal—constructing a new courthouse and expanding the judiciary’s use of the Roybal building—addresses some of the conditions that led to the high urgency score. For example, it addresses the judiciary’s space constraints by providing additional courtrooms—sized to meet the Design Guide standards—to accommodate the 47 current district and magistrate judges and the 14 additional judges expected by 2011. According to GSA officials, there is also room to build an additional district judge courtroom in the new building and additional magistrate judge courtrooms in the Roybal building to address the judiciary’s projected 30-year needs. In addition, the proposal addresses some of the more serious security and operational inefficiencies associated with the Spring Street building, such as providing additional prisoner holding cells, secure prisoner elevators, and separate, secured hallways for prisoners, judges, and the public. Marshals Service officials also told us that a split court would be acceptable from a security standpoint, provided the Marshals Service security standards are followed. In addition, the court would receive the operational benefits of a new building, and under the current proposal, avoid the major structural deficiencies of using the 66-year-old Spring Street building as a courthouse. For example, according to the judiciary and GSA, the Spring Street building has outdated electrical and plumbing systems and requires a seismic retrofit to meet GSA’s standards. In contrast, the Roybal Federal Building, which was constructed in the early 1990s, was designed to meet modern operational and security requirements. For example, it is connected to the Metropolitan Detention Center, which houses federal prisoners prior to arraignment and trial, via a secure underground passageway, so that prisoners do not have to be led through public areas on their way to and from the Roybal building cell block. The current proposal’s major limitation is that it would still result in a split court, even though consolidating the district court into a single building was one of the main priorities in the judiciary’s most recent long-range plan for Los Angeles, published in 1996. Operational and security concerns stemming from a split court led to 50 of the 85 points in the Spring Street Courthouse’s urgency score. For example, the building received the maximum possible security score (30 points) because the trial court was split between two buildings—the Roybal building and Spring Street Courthouse. With the court still split between buildings under the current proposal, related operational inefficiencies and security concerns would remain. According to AOUSC and Marshals Service officials, operational inefficiencies would include the need to continue to transport judges, prisoners, and evidence between buildings; confusion among jurors and attorneys over which facility they should report to; and possible delays, misrouting, and loss of time-sensitive documents (such as restraining orders) as they flow between buildings. A split court would also require duplication of several offices and activities. For example, Marshals Service officials said that a split court would require them to replicate much of their security equipment and contract guards to operate the equipment and protect each building. We noted during our review that the judiciary refined its urgency scoring methodology in March 2002 and gave less weight to split court factors. In the judiciary’s current 5-year plan, 26 projects are scored under the original methodology and 31 are scored under the refined methodology. The L.A. Courthouse was scored under the original methodology and has not officially been rescored. As a result, we use the original methodology to discuss the L.A. Courthouse’s urgency score in this report. In September 2004, the Judicial Conference adopted a 2-year moratorium on 42 courthouse construction projects currently listed on the judiciary's 5-year plan. During this moratorium period, AOUSC officials said that they plan to re-evaluate the urgency scoring methodology as part of a larger review of the design guide standards and the courthouse construction planning process. To meet the long-term judiciary and related needs in Los Angeles, the federal government will likely incur additional construction and operational costs beyond the estimated $400 million for the new courthouse. These funds are designated for costs associated with the proposed courthouse, including the site acquisition and the design and construction costs. However, GSA recognizes that in recent years other courthouse construction projects have had cost escalations. Cost escalations may occur because of planning or design problems, such as changes in the scope or specific design elements in a project, or they may be the result of changes outside of the control of the planners, such as increases in the cost of labor or particular construction materials, such as steel.