The L.A. courthouse operations currently are split between two buildings—the Spring Street Courthouse built in 1938 and the Roybal Federal Building built in 1992. The Spring Street building currently consists of 32 courtrooms—11 of which do not meet the judiciary’s minimum design standards for size. It also does not meet the security needs of the judiciary. The Roybal Federal Building, on the other hand, consists of 34 courtrooms (10 district, 6 magistrate, and 18 bankruptcy). The space within the L.A. Court’s buildings, like most courthouses, are divided into courtroom space with associated jury and public spaces, chamber space where the judge and staff office space is located, cell blocks and other USMS spaces, and other support spaces, such as administrative offices. Since 2000, the construction of a new L.A. courthouse has been a top priority for the judiciary because of the current buildings’ space, security, and operational problems. Since fiscal year 2001, Congress has made three appropriations totaling about $400 million for a new L.A. courthouse. In fiscal year 2001, Congress provided $35.25 million to acquire a site for and design a 41-courtroom building, and in fiscal year 2004, Congress appropriated $50 million for construction of the new L.A. Courthouse. In fiscal year 2005, Congress appropriated $314.4 million for the construction of a new 41-courtroom building in Los Angeles, which Congress designated to remain available until expended for construction of the previously authorized L.A. Courthouse. Since 2000 when GSA originally proposed building a new courthouse in downtown Los Angeles, the project has experienced repeated delays in its schedule. In 2000, GSA projected occupancy of a new L.A. courthouse by fiscal year 2006. However, after proposing several changes in project scope and design and repeated delays, GSA projected in 2008 the completion of a new courthouse by fiscal year 2014—a delay of 8 years as of now (see table 1). GSA has spent $16.3 million designing a new courthouse and $16.9 million acquiring and preparing a new site for it in downtown Los Angeles. Since no construction has occurred, about $366.45 million remains in GSA’s Federal Building Fund for the construction of a 41-courtroom L.A. Courthouse. The delays were initially caused by GSA’s decision to design a courthouse much larger than what was authorized by Congress. In fiscal year 2001, Congress appropriated funds for project design for a 1,016,300-square-foot courthouse that corresponded with plans for a 41-courtroom courthouse. In November 2001, however, GSA designed a 1,279,650-square-foot courthouse that contained 54-courtrooms. GSA officials said that GSA increased the scope of the project to accommodate the judiciary’s stated need. Judiciary officials stated that the decision was made jointly with GSA and that changes to GSA’s planning criteria contributed to the increased scope. GSA officials disagreed and stated that GSA’s planning criteria did not contribute to the increase in the scope of the project. A year and a half later, after it had conducted the environmental assessments and purchased the site for the new courthouse, GSA informed Congress that it had designed a 54-courtroom courthouse in a May 2003 proposal. However, OMB did not include the 54-courtroom building plan in the President’s fiscal year 2005 budget, which caused GSA to revise its plans and reduce the number of courtrooms in the plans for the new L.A. courthouse to 41. According to GSA, the 54-courtroom courthouse plan was designed to be readily adaptable to a reduced scope, if a larger scope was not approved. Nonetheless, a senior GSA official estimated that the initial decision to design a 54-courtroom courthouse delayed the project 2 years due to redesign and re-procurement requirements. This delay caused the project as initially planned to go over budget due to inflationary cost escalations, and GSA needed to make further reductions to the courthouse in order to procure it within authorized and appropriated amounts. However, GSA and L.A. Court officials were slow to reduce scope, which caused additional delays and led to the need to make additional reductions. For example, GSA did not simplify the building-high atrium and associated curtain wall that were initially envisioned for the new courthouse until January 2006 even though the judiciary had expressed repeated concerns about the construction and maintenance costs of the atrium since 2002. In July 2005, GSA advised the judiciary that the project could not be constructed for the appropriated amounts because of material shortages and other market factors, and in January 2006, GSA completed a redesigned plan with a simplified atrium and curtain wall. In addition, it took 18 months for GSA to formally propose reducing the number of courtrooms in an attempt to reduce costs. In March 2006, GSA cancelled the procurement of the new courthouse due to insufficient competition when one of the two construction contractors bidding on the 41 courtroom project withdrew. Yet, it was not until the following year in May 2007 that the judiciary proposed reducing the number of courtrooms in a new building to 36, and another 4 months before GSA delivered a revised 36-courtroom proposal to Congress. Additionally, an unforeseen, rapid increase in construction costs contributed to delays in the L.A. courthouse project. According to GSA officials, construction costs escalated in the L.A. market at more than twice the inflation factor used by GSA, necessitating scope reductions and redesigns and causing more delays. GSA officials stated that the escalations in construction costs, which went as high as 16 percent in 2006, were unprecedented and unpredictable. According to information provided by GSA, construction costs escalated nationwide and also affected the construction of a California State courthouse in Long Beach, California, which is near Los Angeles. Other issues related to the procurement process for the new courthouse also contributed to the delays in the L.A. courthouse project by diminishing contractor interest in the project or diverting contractors to other projects. For example, GSA solicited bids for the construction of the neighboring San Diego and L.A. courthouses around the same time. According to GSA officials, in hindsight, this may have limited the number of potential bidders for the construction of the L.A. courthouse as contractors with limited regional capacity chose to bid on the smaller San Diego project instead of the L.A. project. Furthermore, the L.A. courthouse project was competing with other public works construction in the Los Angeles area. GSA officials estimated that $50 billion worth of public construction projects in the L.A. market, which includes increased spending to renovate local schools, further limited the number of potential bidders for the L.A. courthouse project. GSA officials also stated that they chose a procurement approach designed to provide contractors with flexibility in meeting budgeted construction costs, but this approach may in actuality have lowered contractor interest by making the contractor responsible for more of the risk of cost overruns. Over 8 years of delay in GSA’s estimated occupancy of the new L.A. courthouse, estimates have nearly tripled, rendering GSA’s currently authorized 41-courtroom courthouse unachievable. In May 2004, GSA estimated the 41-courtroom courthouse project would cost about $400 million, but current estimates for building a new federal courthouse of similar scope now exceed $1.1 billion. At this rate, each day of additional delay costs about $54,000, assuming current escalation rates, according to GSA. Consequently, every 44 days of additional delay cost as much as one 2,400-square-foot district courtroom. GSA is currently at a standstill because current cost estimates for a 41- courtroom courthouse exceed authorized and appropriated amounts and the President’s fiscal year 2009 budget request did not include any funds for the L.A. courthouse project. Consequently, GSA will need to obtain congressional approval to move forward on any plan. Specifically, all options currently under consideration would require approval of a new prospectus and an estimated appropriation of from $282.1 million to $733.6 million if cost estimates are still viable. Because of the delays in the courthouse project, the operational, space, and security issues that made the new courthouse a top priority have persisted and in some cases worsened. The L.A. Court’s operational problems continue. Housing district and magistrate judges in both the Spring Street and the Roybal buildings causes operational inefficiencies, according to judiciary officials. For example, judges, prisoners, juries, and evidence must be transported between buildings, and many judicial offices need to be duplicated. In addition, a high-level L.A. Court official said that the judiciary has stopped investing in the parts of the Spring Street Courthouse for which it is responsible because it expects the judiciary to move into a new building. The L.A. Court’s space needs persist. L.A. Court officials said that the court does not have chamber or courtroom space for four pending district judgeships and that it currently faces growing deficits in a number of support areas (see table 2). Severe security problems at Spring Street remain. According to USMS officials, the Roybal building has strong security, but security at the Spring Street building is poor and cannot be improved due to the age and design of the building. The Spring Street building lacks a secure parking area and secure prisoner corridors for 20 of its 32 courtrooms.