A STOCKTONIA INVESTIGATION
When it was built in 1923, Stockton City Hall was meant to be a monument to lofty ideals. In the terra-cotta tiles of its northern facade, its builders had carved the words, “To inspire a nobler civic life, to fulfill justice, to serve the people.”
“They wanted people to come to City Hall and look at it and go, ‘Wow, look at this amazing place that they’ve built for us,’” Stockton City Clerk Katherine Roland told Stocktonia.
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A STOCKTONIA INVESTIGATION
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The concrete and brick Greco-Roman building stood through the days when the Stockton Police Department numbered 34 men and worked out of the basement, the elevators operated with an iron crank and large window-shaped vents cooled the building with the Delta breeze.
More than a century later, the city says the building is not fit for modern government. Only a fraction of the city workforce can fit inside. Air conditioning and electrical equipment are stuffed above false ceiling panels, because the building’s solid walls contain no spaces for ducts or wires. Employees get stuck in elevators. Asbestos makes renovations risky and expensive.
In 2007, the City Council decided it was time to find a new building for the city’s headquarters. For some workers, the decision was bittersweet.
“It has a lot of emotional connection, and I’m going to really miss just the history and the in-depth feeling,” Roland said. “This is a place with meaning.”
Ultimately, however, Roland supports the decision. “I recognize really easily that it’s not the best place to serve the public from anymore,” she said.
But in October 2007, when the City Council voted to buy a building for the new City Hall, no one could’ve guessed that nearly two decades later – and after two separate building purchases – the city would still be waiting to move.
The saga has raised questions about city leaders’ decision-making and how much Stocktonians really know about how those leaders spend public money.
At top: Inscriptions on the soaring facade of Stockton’s historic City Hall. Above: One of the murals inside the building. Despite the building’s artistic significance, public officials have long believed it’s too outdated to serve modern-day needs. (Photos by Annie Barker/Stocktonia/CatchLight Local/ Report for America)
October 2007
A Main Street office tower, sometimes known as the “WaMu building,” in Stockton in July 2025. Stockton once planned to make this tower its new City Hall. (Photo by Annie Barker/Stocktonia/CatchLight Local/ Report for America)
The city’s first attempt to find a new headquarters begins when the City Council votes unanimously to buy an office building at 400 E. Main St. in downtown Stockton.
Though the tower has served as a branch for multiple banks, including American Savings & Loan, Washington Mutual and Chase over the years, it is often known as the “WaMu building.”
November 2007
The city pays $35 million for the WaMu building using bonds — agreements in which investors lend cities money in exchange for tax-free returns. The City Council votes unanimously to issue the bonds in November 2007.
December 2007
In December 2007, the U.S. economy reaches the official end of a long period of growth, and enters a recession that will have effects for years to come. The collapse of the housing market helps drive a financial crisis that batters the overall economy amid what will become known as the Great Recession.
In Stockton, the economic downturn has an effect. The city has increased spending on public employee pensions and health care costs, as well as on downtown revitalization construction projects.
As local home values plummet and foreclosures rise, property-tax revenues that had helped fuel those investments begin to dry up.
July 2012
Stockton declares bankruptcy, becoming the largest city in U.S. history to do so.
2015
By 2015, the city workforce has occupied City Hall for nearly 90 years. Katherine Roland — now Stockton’s city clerk — begins her career in the building that year. Colleagues almost immediately begin warning Roland about City Hall’s dilapidated elevators, she says.
“I remember first coming here and just kind of being wowed by the building, and then walking into this office space and being like … where’d the ‘wow’ go?”
Katherine Roland, STOCKTON CITY CLERK
February 2015
Stockton exits bankruptcy after a federal judge approves a plan to settle more than $2 billion in debt.
As a part of that plan, creditor Assured Guaranty takes over the WaMu building at 400 E. Main St. Some city workers had already moved in, and the city continues to lease their space as well as additional offices where it plans to move more employees.
2016
Stockton renovates parts of its leased space at 400 E. Main St. The city’s Economic Development, Fire Administration, Administrative Services and Human Resources departments move in. Officials also plan to relocate the City Council chamber, as well as the Revenue Services, City Attorney, City Clerk, City Manager and mayor’s and councilmembers’ offices.
December 2016
Stockton renovates parts of its leased space at 400 E. Main St. The city’s Economic Development, Fire Administration, Administrative Services and Human Resources departments move in. Officials also plan to relocate the City Council chamber, as well as the Revenue Services, City Attorney, City Clerk, City Manager and mayor’s and councilmembers’ offices.
Jan. 12, 2017
Stockton receives just one bid for renovations, for about $5 million.
Jan. 24, 2017
Then-City Manager Kurt Wilson represents the city in closed-session negotiations with the City Council and three businesses, each of which owns part of the Waterfront Towers, two five-story buildings on Stockton’s waterfront. In city documents, the towers are buried on a list of 59 properties under negotiation that day. As the talks take place in closed session, the specifics are not publicly disclosed.
July and August 2017
Four more negotiations occur after the January meeting.
Sept. 19, 2017
A page from a staff presentation given to the City Council in 2017 shows estimated costs of renovating the old City Hall and buying the Waterfront Towers. At the time, the towers were estimated to require total spending of just over $25 million, whereas staying in the old City Hall would cost $60 million.
After a final negotiating session, city staff and the City Council go to public session to vote on a new set of proposals: rejecting the $5 million bid to renovate the WaMu building, and instead buying the Waterfront Towers for $13.6 million.
2017
A decade into the expensive work to complete the city’s move to 400 E. Main St., a path toward a permanent City Hall was still unclear.
Then, in September 2017, then-City Manager Kurt Wilson and city staff presented a new option: The city could buy another property for $13.6 million — and be done with the Main Street building and its ongoing rent payments once the lease ended.
That property was the Waterfront Towers complex: two five-story, 1980s-era office towers overlooking the Stockton Marina.
Buying the towers was the cheapest and most financially responsible option, Wilson said before the purchase vote at the Sept. 19 meeting. The proposal would cost an estimated $25.5 million total: $13.6 million for the buildings and $11.9 million for “everything else it would take to get it ready to go,” Wilson said.
In contrast, renovating historic City Hall and rebuilding the dated Permit Center annex would cost an estimated $60 million, he said.
In Stockton’s century-old City Hall, there is sometimes no good place for modern technology. (Photos by Annie Barker/Stocktonia/CatchLight Local/ Report for America)
As for the earlier plan to buy 400 E. Main, it would have cost $40 million — but after losing the building in bankruptcy, the likelihood of getting its new owners to sell back to the city was slim.
“This is one of the rare instances where we’re presenting you with an option to make a purchase that would actually save money, rather than cost you money,” Wilson said of the Waterfront Towers proposal.
“This is essentially the culmination of solid financial planning on behalf of the city.”
Wilson’s presentation provided no detailed information about what city staff knew about the condition of the towers, which were about 40 years old. The former city manager sent no response to a request for an interview for this report.
At least one councilmember believed parts of the buildings could be in disrepair. “I’ve heard from different public members that they have problems there with the windows leaking, and the heating and air conditioning system,” then-Councilmember Susan Lenz said.
“I mean, those would be items that we would have inspectors go in, to know what the full extent of those repairs would be?”
Former Economic Development Director Micah Runner assured the council that officials would find any major problems with the towers before committing to the purchase.
“(Just) like when you buy a house, (when you) buy a house you do the inspection, and you find out what the issues might be. Same process for this acquisition,” Runner said. “We agree on a purchase price, but then we go in and really do the necessary due diligence.”
Runner didn’t return a request for an interview.
Many Stocktonians showed up to voice their opinions on the deal. A few were optimistic. “I’m ecstatic over the marina towers,” Kathleen Gapusan, a Stockton Marina boat resident, said at the time.
But more were skeptical of the purchase — and the perceived lack of transparency surrounding the deal.
“It is time for the city of Stockton to stop shopping at garage sales for their city facilities,” Mark Stebbins, a former city councilmember and business owner, said.
The City Council approved the purchase in a 6-1 vote. Mayor Christina Fugazi — then a councilmember — voted yes, along with former councilmembers Elbert Holman, Lenz, Susan Lofthus, Dan Wright and former Mayor Michael Tubbs.
Former Councilmember Jesus Andrade voted no. “I didn’t like the idea that we were just going to discard (a) beautiful building that represents civic engagement — the civic light of the city — and we were going to replace that with two corporate towers,” he told Stocktonia.
Andrade also suspected the cost of renovating the Waterfront Towers would be higher than officials had estimated, he said. He turned out to be right.
July 16, 2019
December 2019
The City Council hires architecture firm Indigo Hammond + Playle to design the renovations for the Waterfront Towers for about $1.4 million. It’s the first of three main building contracts the city will sign for the project.
November 2021
The council hires Griffin Structures for $722,000 to manage the project.
May 2022
After soliciting proposals for construction work, which the city estimated would cost about $33.5 million, officials find that every bid far exceeds their cost estimate. In a presentation to the City Council, then-Public Works Director Jodi Almassy attributes the higher bids to the expensive nature of repairs, especially for the outdated heating and air conditioning system. The council agrees to hire Roebbelen Contracting Inc. to do the construction on the Waterfront Towers for about $42.3 million.
May 2023
As the Waterfront Towers project wears on, some people grow frustrated about the cost and delay. “When we ask for help with any issue, we are continually told that because of the bankruptcy, the city cannot afford it — whatever it happens to be, whether parks, trees, Pixie Woods, police, everything Stockton citizens want done has to be done by volunteers,” midtown resident Julie Devincenzi says at a May 23 meeting. “The city could, however, in 2017 afford to buy a shell of a building for a new City Hall, to the tune of $13.6 million,” Devincenzi said. “And then have to completely refurbish that $13.6 million building, (the) cost of which, as of last May, was projected to increase to $62 million. Another year has gone by since that. … What’s the cost per year of this building that hasn’t housed anyone yet?”
Aaron Leathley is a government accountability reporter for Stocktonia.
Read next: Contracts started at more than $40 million. Here’s how they kept growing, mostly unseen.
A STOCKTONIA INVESTIGATION
Reporting: Aaron Leathley
Photojournalism: Annie Barker
Multimedia: Daniel Garza
Research: Hope Muñoz
Editing: Scott Linesburgh, Cassie Dickman, B.J. Terhune, Josh Susong
Graphics and design: Jim Sergent, Josh Susong
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