Jack- how can a stone & brick building be "rickety"? Isn't "rickety" reserved for unstable wooden buildings?

The Multnomah County Courthouse is fine, in fact we could upgrade it a bit and run two shifts of clerks.

Invest in personnel, have the building used 16 hours a day.

Think about it.

Hugs- Mamacita

PS Tell your readers about the upcoming meetings re: comprehensive plan. The 5%
who bike as transportation and nag their car-owning neighbors will be out in full force. An intelligent face or two would be nice.

"that unless the state of Oregon agrees to step in as a least a full partner in the project, it will remain as dead a decade from now as it has for years past."

Funny how when it comes to streetcars, trams, bikelanes, no-car bridges, MAXlines, developer handouts you never hear such crude language from Mr Cogan.

Gee, I guess that's just the way it is with stuff WE want.

Wait another minute. Just a few months ago Cogan and Mult. Co. entered another Agreement to build a $19 Million dollar building in PSU's new URA for Department of County Human Services. On top of that, another $7.5 Million fo Mult. Co Research and Evaluation.

I thought Cogan said they (us) were broke? Doesn't make since, and Cogan should be called on it.

Mamacita -

The MulCo Courhouse is a pile of loosely piled rubble which sways when a bus goes by on 5h and which will fall over in a wind over 70 MPH.

It will kill hundreds of people in a moderate earthquake. "...[U]pgrade it a bit..." isn't remotely possible.

Having hung up my cleats as a trial lawyer after 30 years, I rest much better knowing that I never need to go in that building again.

I just hope that whatever they do and when, if ever, they do it, they don't build the thing on the east side of the river!

Isn't "rickety" reserved for unstable wooden buildings?

No, it means unstable and likely to collapse.

How bad could it be? I don't think Fireman Randy posted one of those "U" signs on it.

Two things:

One the county is going to build a new building for the health department next to the Bud Clark homeless shelter. Guess they have money for that.

Two, there is an empty courthouse on Broadway. The old federal courthouse is completely empty. Why wouldn't that work? Looks like it is in amazing shape.

Dave: Your suggestion is too sensible. By the way, I moved to Oregon back in 1987 and finally left in November 2009; a period of 22 years. And for most of that time, they have been talking about replacing the Multnomah County Courthouse. Yet it is STILL not replaced, yet the County seems to have money for all sorts of lower priority properties. I think it's time to hang some politicians out to dry on this topic next year.

I stand by my previous opinion: Sell off the Courthouse, the Portland Building, and a few other city/county owned downtown space.

Move all of it to the Convention Center.

The Convention Center is already well under-utilized, has a lot of open, flexible space that could EASILY be turned into office space or courtroom space. The loading dock area could easily be converted to a holding cell area for jail inmates awaiting trial. It has a secure parking lot (jurors would actually get to park!) It is centrally accessible with a lot of transit options, plus folks who don't want to deal with the downtown headaches would not need to.

The Convention Center is already "LEED Certified" so that part is already done. And it would make far better use of the building, that already sits empty 90% of the time. The very few events that happen at the Convention Center, can easily happen at the Expo Center; the Memorial Coliseum still has its underground Exhibit Hall as well.

Citizens have some good ideas. It is too bad many of the politicians stand in the way.
I won't throw them all in this category but the more I observe that those who have handlers who get these people elected but then when in office don't have what it takes to make wise decisions. . . heaven help us.
What are the plans for that Federal Courthouse?

The more the developer makes the more the " big brother bureaucrat " makes in kick backs. It's a win win for the children.

Let's not forget that the County had a crack at developing the block where the First and Main building sits -- directly across the street from the Justice Center.

Not only could they have had the land before everybody went broke, but it would have removed the need for all those Deputies driving inmates around the block.

Just think of the 100s of lawsuits pouring in from the individuals (injured and deceased, including inmates) once it finally does collapse during the next big one.
The building's deficiencies have been well documented over the last couple decades.
Those settlments/judgments will be more expensive than any renovation/rebuild you can imagine.
Keep putting it off, you think we are broke now, just wait...

How many decades of deferred maintenance?

How about:
1) Sell Mult Courthouse
2) Use proceeds to build new courthouse in cheaper place (like next door to the jail that never opened)?
3) Build secure passage from jail to new courthouse to be low-impact on the environment?

Nah, too much sense.

Why not set up a court house at Wapato? You'd have the jail facilities right there ready for use.

I don't know why we need a courthouse. Either have the police make a decision at the time of arrest (assuming they get that far) or do it online.

The concept of citizens getting a trial and having day in court is old-fashioned. The Supremes just eliminated the 4th ammendment, and the 2nd is sure under attack. Why not just get rid of them all? It would save a lot of time and money.

"I just hope that whatever they do and when, if ever, they do it, they don't build the thing on the east side of the river!"

Of course they will, right next to the Portland Streetcar, and call it a "lynchpin".

"How bad could it be? I don't think Fireman Randy posted one of those "U" signs on it."

I haven't seen any "U"s on any publicly owned building. To my knowledge, they've only shown up on private property, curiously in the vicinity of planned, future projects.

Don't forget the kickback the county gave Portland after it passed the library tax:

http://www.oregonlive.com/portland/index.ssf/2012/11/portland_and_multnomah_county_1.html