The Old Courthouse - County Records Show Very Little Documentation to Support Demolition Decision
SHASTA COUNTY, Calif. — More than 18 months after the Shasta County Board of Supervisors voted (4-1) to demolish the Old Courthouse complex and replace it with a parking lot, a public records request has turned up no formal independent assessments, internal emails, meeting notes, or cost estimates supporting the options presented to the board in March 2025.
District 5 Supervisor Chris Kelstrom was the sole “no” vote.
On March 18, 2025, the Shasta County Board of Supervisors voted 4-1 to move forward with demolishing the vacant old courthouse at 1500 Court Street (while directing staff to explore future development options for the site). Kelstrom was the only dissenter, saying, “I’m sorry, I can’t vote to tear the building down.”
At that March 2025 meeting, then-Public Works Director C. Troy Bartolomei outlined four options for the vacant buildings at 1500 Court Street. Full demolition and a surface parking lot were estimated at $7 million. Demolishing the Annex and Old Jail while retaining the Old Courthouse (described as containing 48,000 square feet) plus 34 parking spaces was estimated at $17.5 million. Complete demolition, with a park and a smaller parking lot, was estimated at $6.2 million. Ongoing maintenance was estimated at $15,000 to $20,000 per month.
A Public Records Act request filed June 30, 2026 (PRA #26-1340), sought documents related to assessments of those options, including repurposing studies, asbestos remediation estimates or bids, remodeling bids, and any supporting analysis. The county closed the request on October 15, 2026, after producing roughly 50 documents. Those records covered routine maintenance, the 1993 remodel, and an environmental impact report mapping asbestos locations. None included the cost analyses, feasibility studies, or internal deliberations behind the figures Bartolomei presented.
No emails, staff memos, or meeting notes documenting consultations within Public Works, County Administration, or other departments were provided. The documents included no bids or formal independent estimates for hazardous materials abatement. No records showed outreach to real estate brokers, developers, or preservation groups about the building’s potential market value or adaptive reuse.
Among the documents produced was a single page labeled “Old Courthouse Presentation Notes.” One line read: “Selling - suspect the building would have no value to a developer.” The notes offer no indication of whether that conclusion was based on market inquiries, an appraisal, or simply one official’s judgment. It is difficult to believe the building and parcel have "no value."
A 2019 Health and Human Services Agency report listed the Old Courthouse complex at 77,718 square feet and included project cost tables on page 19 that also lacked supporting documentation. One calculation estimated the cost to repurpose 71,027 square feet of the Old Courthouse at $375 per square foot, applying a 42-month escalation factor of 0.42 percent per month, a 10 percent construction contingency, and soft costs of $9,400,068, for a total of $43,866,985. The report provided no explanation for the assumptions. The same document listed a 300-space parking structure at a total cost of $18,157,734, again without backup. Residents and observers have asked why a building that an experienced structural engineer described as sound would cost more to repurpose than to replace. No one explained why 90%+ of the building would need to undergo costly renovations.
Structural engineer John Dunlap, who worked on the 1993 remodel of the courthouse and annex, has written to the county CEO asserting that the buildings remain structurally sound. Dunlap recently obtained a phone estimate from a local firm that places the cost of removing toxic materials at about $486,000—substantially below the costs implied by the County’s higher renovation figures. Dunlap is seeking meetings with the Board of Supervisors to discuss the options and ask them to pause the demolition.
The records provided under the PRA also do not explore designating the 1955–1956 courthouse as a historic structure under the California Register or the National Register of Historic Places. Such a designation can open access to federal and state historic rehabilitation tax credits—typically 20 percent federal and 20 percent state—for qualified private purchasers or public-private partnerships. The Annex was constructed later, around 1966. The materials provided include no analysis of grant opportunities for preservation or adaptive reuse.
At the March 2025 presentation, Bartolomei said he was comparing his cost estimates to the cost of purchasing a similarly sized building or leasing space in the area. Shasta County continues to lease substantial private office space. Recent consolidations, including relocating HHSA Eligibility and Employment Services from leased downtown space on California Street to the County’s existing building at 2600 Park Marina Drive, are projected to save roughly $200,000 this fiscal year and $400,000 annually thereafter. Before those consolidations, county leasing costs for various departments were estimated at nearly $2 million per year.
City of Redding parking standards require one space per 350 square feet of gross floor area for professional office uses outside the core downtown area. For a building the scale of the Old Courthouse, that standard would generate substantial parking space requirements if the structure were reused privately—an issue the materials provided to the board do not appear to have analyzed. Under California law, however, a mutual exemption generally shields a county from a city’s zoning requirements, including parking standards, when the county owns the property and uses it for its own governmental purposes. Government Code sections 53090–53091 require most local agencies to comply with the zoning and building ordinances of the jurisdiction where their property is located, but the definition of “local agency” expressly excludes both cities and counties. As a result, Shasta County is not bound by the City of Redding’s Zoning Ordinance Chapter 18.41 parking rules for a county-owned building inside the city that the county is remodeling or repurposing for county office use. The exemption does not automatically extend to private tenants, and state building standards still apply.
Bartolomei retired in May 2026 after more than 30 years with the County. Standard practice for a capital decision of this magnitude would normally include independent engineering assessments, formal hazardous materials surveys with competitive bids, life-cycle cost comparisons, outreach to the development community, and documented internal review before options are presented to elected officials. The records produced under PRA #26-1340 do not show that process occurred.
The Board has directed staff to proceed with demolition and parking lot construction following environmental review. Whether the missing documentation reflects an incomplete County search or a lack of contemporaneous analysis remains unanswered. Additional document production under the public records request or further inquiry by the Board could clarify how the $7 million, $17.5 million, and $6.2 million figures were developed and why alternatives such as historic designation, developer interest, or more targeted abatement were not pursued—or, if they were pursued, why no record of that work was produced. Shasta County residents may reasonably ask whether the decision rested on one official’s assessment without documented due diligence, and whether the Board should pause the project until those questions are answered. The buildings are a public asset; once reduced to rubble (at a substantial cost), the opportunity for further examination will be gone.
