Los Angeles County, New Santa Clarita Courthouse

The Superior Court of California, County of Los Angeles - New Santa Clarita Courthouse project provides a new 24-courtroom courthouse of 278,000 square feet in the city of Santa Clarita. It includes secured parking for judicial officers. The project will require acquisition of a site of approximately 4.53 acres. It will consolidate the court’s operations/courtrooms currently in the Santa Clarita Courthouse, Santa Clarita Administrative Center, and Sylmar Juvenile Courthouse, and it will replace courtrooms in the Stanley Mosk Courthouse. The project will use the Design-build delivery method.

Gross Square Footage: 278,186
Total Courtrooms: 24
Current Authorized Project Budget: $519,561,000
Criteria Architect : CannonDesign
Design-Build Entity: TBD
Construction Manager Agency: TBD
Fund: General Fund

Los Angeles County is served by numerous superior court facilities located throughout the county. To provide service countywide, the Superior Court of Los Angeles County is divided into 12 geographic service districts: Central, East, West, North, North Central, North Valley, Northeast, Northwest, South, South Central, Southeast, and Southwest. It uses a decentralized service model for all case types, except for juvenile dependency, probate, and mental health matters. Administrative functions are centralized and headquartered in downtown Los Angeles in the Central District’s Stanley Mosk Courthouse.

The North Valley District is one of two northernmost districts of the Superior Court of Los Angeles County, extending up and out of the city’s urban core into the rural areas north of the San Fernando Valley near Ventura and Kern counties. This district includes parts of Los Padres National Forest, Angeles National Forest, and Vasquez Rocks Natural Area Park. Santa Clarita is the largest city in the North Valley District and the third largest in Los Angeles County. Much smaller are the city of San Fernando and the city of Los Angeles’ suburban neighborhoods of Chatsworth and Sylmar. The North Valley District provides service as follows: Santa Clarita (criminal and traffic matters), Sylmar (juvenile delinquency matters), San Fernando (criminal matters), and Chatsworth (civil, family law, traffic, unlawful detainers, and small claims matters).

The new courthouse project will consolidate North Valley District court operations/courtrooms currently in the county-owned Santa Clarita Courthouse, Santa Clarita Administrative Center, and Sylmar Juvenile Courthouse. It will also replace courtrooms in the Central District in the state-owned Stanley Mosk Courthouse. The facilities are substantially out of compliance with regulatory safety, seismic, accessibility codes, and Judicial Council space standards. Among their significant functional issues are their space shortfall, overcrowding, security deficiencies, lack of holding facilities, and no path of circulation for in-custodies separate from the public and judicial officers and staff.

For this project, acquisition will be required of site of approximately 4.53 acres in the city of Santa Clarita.

The New Santa Clarita Courthouse will accomplish the following immediately needed improvements to the superior court and enhance its ability to serve the public:

• Provide an accessible, safe, efficient, and modern courthouse in the city of in Santa Clarita.
• Improve security, relieve overcrowding, and improve operational efficiency and customer service through consolidation.
• Enhance the public’s access to justice by providing the number of courtrooms to adequately serve the North Valley District—the fastest-growing region of Los Angeles County.
• Provide court operations in a facility with adequate space for greater functionality than in current conditions in multiple locations.
• Improve public safety by replacing inadequate and obsolete buildings and courtrooms:

• Consolidate North Valley District court operations/courtrooms currently in the county-owned Santa Clarita Courthouse, Santa Clarita Administrative Center, and the Sylmar Juvenile Courthouse; and
• Replace courtrooms in the Central District in the state-owned Stanley Mosk Courthouse, assisting the court’s goal of decentralizing civil and small claims caseloads and operations from the Central District.

• Remove the existing Santa Clarita Courthouse from service, which is rated as a Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) P-154 High-Risk seismically deficient building.
• Provide operational flexibility to correct significant facility deficiencies in the Stanley Mosk Courthouse, which is rated as a FEMA P-154 Very High-Risk, seismically deficient building.
• Avoid substantial deferred maintenance and security system refresh expenditures.

This project is in the Immediate Need priority group and consequently is one of the highest priority trial court capital-outlay projects for the judicial branch.

This project is currently in the Acquisition phase.

The Performance Criteria phase is estimated to begin in June 2025 and complete in March 2026.

The Design-Build phase—including Construction—is estimated to begin in June 2026 and complete in October 2030.
 

Images pending development of project design.