SF administrator wants to clear dilapidated Hall of Justice by 2019

San Francisco City Administrator Naomi Kelly says conditions are so bad at the Hall of Justice that she wants to empty most of the building by 2019, several years earlier than planned.

That means employees of the district attorney’s office, the police and sheriff’s departments and about 350 inmates in the jail at 850 Bryant St. would move out. The building is seismically unsafe and has had recent problems with raw sewage seeping between its floors.

“I would like to move everyone out of that building in two years ... so they don’t have sewage dropping on them,” Kelly said this week.

That’s bad, but the inmates have it worse, she added. “At least the (prosecutors) can go home. The inmates are there 24-7, and they are locked in.”

Kelly is among many people in city government who want to see the building shuttered, including Mayor Ed Lee and the employees who work there. But the idea has been talked about for years, and one of the biggest obstacles is the question of what to do with the inmates at the jail.

Still, pressure is growing on city officials to do something. A coalition of city employee labor unions sent Mayor Ed Lee a letter Monday demanding he move employees out of the Hall of Justice. The unions also sent a letter to City Attorney Dennis Herrera asking him to examine the city’s liability if people in the building die during an earthquake.

In their letter to the mayor, the unions noted that the building “suffers from asbestos, lead paint, pests, rodents, sewage leaks, power outages, flooding, consistently broken elevators.” The unions claim the city has known for 25 years that the building is seismically unsafe.

San Francisco’s 10-year capital plan calls for closing the dilapidated Hall of Justice at 850 Bryant St. by 2023. San Francisco’s 10-year capital plan calls for closing the dilapidated Hall of Justice at 850 Bryant St. by 2023. Photo: Michael Short / Michael Short / Special To The Chronicle 2015 Buy photo Photo: Michael Short / Michael Short / Special To The Chronicle 2015 Image 1 of / 9 Caption Close SF administrator wants to clear dilapidated Hall of Justice by 2019 1 / 9 Back to Gallery

“Given the fact that thousands of individuals continue to be subjected to these hazards 2½ decades later, it’s evident that the current strategy employed by the Department of Real Estate is inadequate, inappropriate and highly irresponsible,” the letter said.

It was signed by International Federation of Professional & Technical Engineers Local 21, the San Francisco Labor Council, San Francisco Municipal Employees Association, the San Francisco Police Officers Association, the San Francisco Building and Construction Trades Council, and the San Francisco Municipal Attorneys Association.

Deirdre Hussey, the mayor’s spokeswoman, said Lee believes it is a “moral imperative to remove everyone from the Hall of Justice, including existing inmates.”

She said that before the mayor leaves office in three years, he expects to see efforts under way to get city employees, members of the public and inmates “out of this terrible building.”

Prosecutor Supriya Perry has no shortage of stories about the working conditions at the Hall of Justice. Like the toilets overflowing. Or the elevators not working. But the one that stands out is when sewage seeped into her office in January. She secured plastic bags around her feet with rubber bands and then went into her office and grabbed the case files that were on the floor.

“That was one incident that hit me very personally because I waded through sewage. But there are so many things,” Perry said.

Katie Womack, a courtroom clerk, said she likes the physical structure of the building but doesn’t like the overflowing toilets or the leftover asbestos. She said if the building is seismically unsafe, it should be condemned.

“Sometimes when I go down to the basement I imagine all that concrete crumbling down on me,” she said.

The city’s 10-year capital plan calls for closing the Hall of Justice by 2023. In the meantime, it recommends that the city do the bare minimum to maintain the building. “Its renewal needs have been de-prioritized,” the capital plan states, although “some repairs, such as water intrusion and waste management system issues, cannot be ignored completely for health/safety reasons.”

Kelly said she didn’t have advance notice of the unions’ letter and that her decision was made based solely on the building’s dilapidated and worsening condition. And Kelly’s plan isn’t final: The city’s Capital Planning Committee has to agree to expedite withdrawal from the Hall of Justice and lease nearby buildings to house employees.

The plan would not account for the criminal courts that are also housed at the Hall of Justice, as they are funded by the state. Ann Donlan, spokeswoman for San Francisco Superior Court, said court officials are unaware of any imminent proposal to move court staff and judges out of the Hall of Justice.

The looming question is where the city will house the inmates of County Jail No. 4, given that there is no political will to build a new facility to house them, and reducing the jail population to a level where a new jail isn’t needed could take years.

In late 2015, the Board of Supervisors rejected an $80 million state grant that would have gone toward the $240 million cost of building a new jail. The mayor and Sheriff Vicki Hennessy supported the project, but a majority of the supervisors said it was too expensive.

And a proposal floated last year to build a “behavioral health justice center” failed to gain traction. District Attorney George Gascón, who supported it, described the center as a place that combined public safety and mental health services, but opponents criticized it as another locked facility.

The current plan, agreed upon by Hennessy, Department of Public Health Director Barbara Garcia and community activist Roma Guy, head of Taxpayers for Improving Public Safety, focuses on reducing the jail population, not replacing the facility.

The recommendations include processing inmates more quickly so they don’t linger in jail, expanding electronic monitoring of defendants, adding more mental health beds around the city and investing more in criminal justice programs aimed at diverting defendants into programs.

Additionally, the working group says the sheriff’s department should apply for another $70 million grant from the state to retrofit a nearby jail so that it could house some of the more dangerous inmates housed at the Hall of Justice.

Hennessy said she welcomed continued efforts to reduce the jail population, although what she really wants to see is a replacement jail built.

“I’m invested in trying to do what we can to get more people out of jail as long as we are still balancing it with public safety,” she said.

But Supervisor Mark Farrell said there still isn’t a clear path forward for shutting down the jail in the Hall of Justice.

“It’s disappointing that after rejecting a new jail, little to no progress has been made,” Farrell said. “There was a ton of rhetoric about alternatives, but we have little to show for it today. In the meantime, we gave up $80 million in state funding and kicked a gift horse in the mouth.”

Emily Green is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: egreen@sfchronicle.com

Twitter: @emilytgreen