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Before Salt Lake County officials get too deep into designing a headquarters building for the district attorney's office, they wanted to ensure their approach was OK with the County Council.
After all, an earlier plan for a 5½-story building at 600 South and State had caused considerable heartburn for the council's Republican majority when the structure's projected price tag skyrocketed from $33 million to $50.8 million.
Reeling from that sticker shock, several council members attempted to ease the financial pain by looking to cut whatever wasn't essential — starting with a plan by the administration of former Mayor Peter Corroon to make the building the ultimate example of environmental efficiency, "net zero." Led by now Council Chairman Richard Snelgrove and GOP colleague, Steve DeBry, the skeptics also challenged the need to decorate it with perhaps hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of art.
But before a final showdown took place on the design, everything changed. The original site was abandoned in favor of a larger parcel at 465 S. Main St., and planning started anew.
In January, the council concurred with a consultant's recommendation to drop the idea of one big headquarters' building downtown and to go with a pared-back structure there and a second, smaller building in West Jordan, closer to where the valley's future growth will occur.
Then, late last month, the County Council made two decisions that will help guide Democratic Mayor Ben McAdams' staff through the design process. The council:
• Unanimously endorsed the evaluation and decision-making process being followed.
• Said it expects the downtown building to be environmentally advanced enough to be certified LEED Gold by the U.S. Green Building Council.
"Certainly in an urban setting, LEED Gold is the beginning point anymore," said GOP Councilman Max Burdick, a real-estate professional who represents the southeastern portion of the county. "Having Gold as a minimum is the right place to be."
Democratic Councilwoman Jenny Wilson agreed.
"As a government, we are one of the bigger builders of buildings," she said, noting that when a structure can be erected to the Gold standard, "we realize the savings in energy expenses. That's why LEED is embraced so much internationally. It sends a message to builders that this is the way to go."
But going LEED Gold stops short of being a "net zero" building — one that generates as much energy on-site as it uses — as proposed by McAdams' predecessor and endorsed by Democratic District Attorney Sim Gill.
Snelgrove wants to make sure it stays that way, pointing out that "LEED Gold and net zero are not the same thing." He said the administration will be in for a fight if it comes back with a costlier net-zero plan.
GOP Councilman Michael Jensen reinforced that position. "I'm not going to give you any more money above [LEED] Gold," he said.
Snelgrove also said he would not look favorably on a request to spend much money for public art in the building. The law allows for up to 1 percent of a building's cost to be set aside for art, but Snelgrove said he wants to clarify that the law "allows anything from zero to 1 percent. So we'd comply with the ordinance even if we allocated zero."
The issue of how much money to allocate for art is likely to be debated again when building designs are more complete.
David Hart, former Utah Capitol architect and now a private consultant with MOCA Systems, projected the new building could be completed by the end of 2017.
He said an 86,000-square-foot building downtown and a 35,000-square-foot office in West Jordan would give the county 21 percent more space for only a little more money than the originally planned 101,000-square-foot structure.
McAdams hopes to make the downtown facility a mixed-use project, with other government agencies and retail outlets as tenants, to take advantage of its location at the Courthouse TRAX Station.
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