New LEED Silver Juvenile Facility Is County’s Costliest Project Ever

SAN MATEO, Calif. — At $150 million, San Mateo County’s new 180-bed juvenile facility, which opened in mid-September on time and on budget, is the costliest construction project in county history.


The 300,000-square-foot Youth Services Center is also a dramatic departure from the county’s previous juvenile facility, Hillcrest Juvenile Hall, a 58-year-old cinderblock building that had been increasingly plagued by mold, bad plumbing and uncomfortable summer heat and winter cold.


The new 12-building campus, designed by KMD Architects and erected by McCarthy Building Companies, not only replaces the old detention facility but adds several services. They include a 30-bed girls’ camp where teens can learn useful skills as they prepare for release, three special needs group homes, and a receiving home for abandoned and abused children.


Other features include on-site juvenile courts and probation offices, a school, a cafeteria, mental health and substance abuse clinics, and medical and dental offices (approximately 80 percent of juvenile detainees have dental problems).


As well as being a one-stop facility for juvenile services, designers hope that the facility’s open, campus-like setting will give youths a sense of worth.


“The beauty of these buildings is that they are intended to give kids the idea that they have potential,” says juvenile court judge Marta Diaz.






The buildings surround a large central courtyard of artificial turf ringed by a five-lane running track made primarily of recycled rubber. The track’s recycled materials, along with low-CFC paints, low-emission carpeting, high-efficiency mechanical systems, reduced water usage and extensive natural daylighting helped earn Youth Services Center a LEED Silver rating.


“It’s very difficult to get a LEED rating for detention-oriented facilities,” says John McAllister, senior planner for KMD Justice. “What made it a little easier for this facility was that so much of this campus is not pure detention. There’s a lot of administration, a lot of courts, a lot more standard building types that help you build up more points. When you’re just building a secure facility out of concrete block, you’ll have a real hard time getting the LEED points you want, in terms of light, natural light and insulation.”


One place where KMD was able to accrue LEED points, he says, was to take into consideration every aspect of water usage and plants. “The whole reason we put in the artificial field was to reduce water usage.”


McAllister says there were also several siting issues, including concerns about endangered species, that caused KMD to move the building a couple of times early in the planning stages.






“Then there was the sheer complexity of the program itself: All juvenile facilities are programmatically complex because they require five or six buildings tied into one facility,” McAllister says.


Since the county wanted a new facility that will do more than simply hold or detain juveniles, KMD designed light, airy structures painted on the interior with warm earth tones and soothing pastels. Other touches include easily accessible recreation areas directly adjacent to housing units and a minimal use of razor wire and other overt physical barriers.


However, despite humanizing the facility as much as possible, one of the biggest challenges was trying to balance its actual design with security requirements.


“Security is always very difficult to design around, because you have to take into account sight lines, and places to hide and climb,” says Tom Wornson, a senior designer at KMD.


Because the bar-less new facility is equipped with security cameras and staffed by correctional officers who can remotely control access from locked control rooms, juveniles are free to walk around by themselves, unaccompanied. At the old juvenile hall, youths had to be escorted everywhere.


In a final nod to sustainable use, the county intends to raze the old juvenile hall and use the land it now stands on as a produce garden. Youths will tend the truck farm and sell its vegetables at local farmers’ markets.


The county first began planning the Youth Services Center in 1998 after a poll revealed citizens’ concerns over the deteriorating state of the old juvenile hall. A committee created to investigate potential components in a new facility eventually visited nine cutting-edge juvenile facilities in three states to gather design ideas.


The facility’s opening ceremonies, conducted on the great central lawn, drew 450 citizens, police, court and county officials, juvenile counselors and workers. County Supervisor Jerry Hill, who emceed the event, lauded the new structures. “The new youth center is where youths that have made wrong decisions can get a makeover. It’s not a business-as-usual fortress, but a gem of a campus, dedicated to changing lives.”