SAN FRANCISCO -- As part of their campaign for a new death row in the state, California prison officials opened up San Quentin prison's death row to journalists for the first time in years on Tuesday.

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Among the exclusive group given access was KTVU reporter Rob Roth and photojournalist John MacKenzie.

Tuesday's tour was part of a campaign by Gov. Gray Davis and state prison officials to convince Californians it is time to replace the aging facility on the shores of San Francisco Bay.

The state budget Davis has proposed includes $220 million to build a new, state-of-the-art death row at San Quentin prison. The new facility would hold up to 1,000 men awaiting execution, allowing for a big expansion from the state's current death row of 615, officials said.

Davis' proposal for a costly new death row comes amid the worst financial crisis in state history.

Faced with a multi-billion-dollar budget shortfall, Davis suggested the San Quentin expansion -- if approved by the state Legislature -- be funded with bonds.

"When individuals are convicted by a jury of their peers and sentenced to death, the public expects that these individuals will be kept in a secure lcoation," said Davis aide Hilary McLean.

"The governor has no control over the number of individuals who are sentenced to death, but it is his responsibility to ensure that those individuals are kept in a secure location and the public is kept safe from them."

California's current death row is a hodge-podge of prison facilities, some of which previously were used to house inmates with lesser sentences, said Bob Martinez, a spokesman for the state Department of Corrections. Additional cells were switched to death-row status as more and more men were sentenced to die.

The state averages more than 20 death sentences a year, but only about one execution, Martinez said.

"It doesn't take a rocket scientist to see that the reality is, it will continue to grow," Martinez said of the state's death row population.

The aging facility is difficult to use, he said, and results in higher overtime and workers compensation costs for the state. "You just cannot continue to convert old buildings there without incurring substantial increase in costs," he said.

For decades, all of California's condemned male prisoners have been held at San Quentin, which sits at the edge of San Francisco Bay in pricey Marin County. The state also has 14 women awaiting execution, but they are held elsewhere.