The Vista Civic Center, completed in 2010 for more than $50 million, is adorned with cream and beige travertine marble tiles. On the inside, deep-cherry walls complement the bronze city seal embedded in the floor.
The building cost $530 a square foot, in today’s dollars.
That makes it the second most expensive in the county out of 18 built since 1958, according to a review by The Watchdog. The survey shows a jagged upward trend over time for more architecturally and visually ornate — and more expensive — city halls.
Vista’s Civic Center was approved during headier times, and its financing structure is now projected to come up short.
Voters approved the project in 2006 as part of Proposition L, a $100 million building campaign. The half-percent sales tax, which expires in 2037, was supposed to cover the cost of the money borrowed for the building.
Because of flagging sales-tax revenue, the city now estimates that by 2016 it will have to start taking money from its general fund — which pays for basic city services – to meet bond obligations.
Vista has already had to make cuts from its operating budget in the form of layoffs, reduced park hours and recreation programs and reduced City Hall hours. The city even considered switching off streetlights to save money.
In the past decade, city halls have opened in Coronado, Poway, Chula Vista and Vista, all costing more than $400 a square foot.
Vista’s cost of $530 a square foot also happens to be the same rate that San Diego is proposing with its dormant proposal for a new city hall.
Over the years, officials have expanded civic centers to include more than just government buildings. Vista’s includes a two-story community center and a walking park. Three-fourths of Coronado’s 2004 project was a community center that included two swimming pools, a gym, a community playhouse, a rock-climbing wall and fitness rooms.
Additionally, officials said, increased regulations such as earthquake codes — which weren’t as stringent in older buildings — have driven up costs.
In some cases, like Oceanside and Escondido, the centers were catalysts of development in flagging downtown districts. Escondido’s City Hall was part of a civic-center project that the community felt was vital to keep downtown from becoming a ghost town after the North County Fair opened in the city’s southern edge.
Oceanside officials point out that the civic center’s completion in 1990 started a surge in development in downtown that includes an adjacent movie theater, 250 homes and condominium units, restaurants and a time-share resort.
“Downtown has been transformed since the completion of the civic center,” economic development analyst Maryanne Bruce said.
Two of the cities that have had the lowest cost per square foot for opening a new city hall were Carlsbad and Santee. Both purchased existing buildings and came in at less than $200 per square foot.
Carlsbad spent $10 million to first lease, and then buy an office building on Faraday Avenue that houses the majority of its city functions. Santee spent $3 million to purchase a commercial center on Magnolia Avenue.
One government expert said that it is important for cities to have space to centralize their services and it can be visually pleasing. Those needs, however, should be balanced with the cost to taxpayers, said Glen Sparrow, a retired professor at San Diego State University’s School of Public Affairs.
With redevelopment’s end taking away an effective tool for officials to finance civic expansion and the economy still stagnant, Sparrow said he doesn’t think many more large scale civic centers will be on the horizon.
“At this time voters really have a lot of pressure on their elected officials,” Sparrow said. “There is not going to be building anything sensational anymore, especially with redevelopment on its way out.”
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