San Diego County Administration Center

San Diego County Administration Center
The San Diego County Administration Center, with the statue The Guardian of Water in the foreground
Location within California
Former names	San Diego Civic Center; City and County Administration Building
General information
Architectural style	Beaux-Arts, Spanish Revival, Streamline Moderne, Mission Revival
Address	1600 Pacific Hwy., San Diego, California
Coordinates	32°43′18″N 117°10′19″W / 32.721792°N 117.1720153°W / 32.721792; -117.1720153
Groundbreaking	December 5, 1935
Construction started	January 4, 1936
Completed	December 23, 1938
Inaugurated	July 16, 1938
Height	150 feet (46 m)
Technical details
Floor count	7 (incl. 2 basement floors)
Floor area	200,000 square feet (19,000 m2)
Design and construction
Architect	Samuel Wood Hamill, William Templeton Johnson, Richard Requa, Louis John Gill
Website
http://www.sdcounty.ca.gov/cob/cacs/
San Diego Civic Center
U.S. National Register of Historic Places
U.S. Historic district
Area	16.7 acres (6.8 ha)
NRHP Reference #	88000554
Added to NRHP	May 16, 1988

The San Diego County Administration Center is a historic Beaux-Arts/Spanish Revival-style building in San Diego, California. It houses the offices of the Government of San Diego County. It was completed in 1938 and was primarily funded by the Works Progress Administration. It was previously known as the San Diego Civic Center and as the City and County Administration Building. Because of its notable architecture and its location fronting San Diego Bay, it is nicknamed the Jewel on the Bay. Architects were Samuel Wood Hamill, William Templeton Johnson, Richard Requa and Louis John Gill. The building used innovative construction techniques to guard against earthquakes, and the project was considered to be "a prototype of American civic center architecture". The building was listed on the National Register of Historic Places on May 16, 1988.

In order to consolidate city and county government offices which were scattered across downtown San Diego, city planner John Nolen was engaged to plan a civic center. Voters rejected the first draft plan (1908) which would have placed the civic center downtown. In 1926 Nolen completed a plan which placed the civic center on newly dredged tidelands. This plan was approved in a March 1927 election. There was considerable opposition to building on the tidelands, in part because it was felt such a building would be unstable in an earthquake, but it was stabilized by 30-foot-long steel pilings driven in the ground and other measures. Some of the steel pilings were alternated in a manner designed to bear lateral stress; this was a novel design and was considered to be "on the cutting edge of engineering developments." Engineering issues and the Great Depression delayed the start of construction until 1935, when $1 million of Works Progress Administration funds were assigned to the project (combined with $750,000 of local funds). President Franklin Delano Roosevelt dedicated the building on July 16, 1938 before a crowd estimated as 25,000 people.