Creating a Municipal Complex Vision

"Tell me and I'll forget. Show me and I might remember. Involve me and I'll understand."

That quote is often attributed to Benjamin Franklin but according to sources, it actually originated with Confucian philosopher Xunzi (Xun Kuang), making it an old Chinese proverb.

Whomever said it, the Saturday, September 28th special city council meeting was a good example of its truth. It turned out to be worth carving the time out of a weekend morning. The meeting was labeled in the agenda as a charette - a French term that originated in the architectural and art fields. It's generally used to describe an intense, creative, collaborative planning process that involves decision-makers, implementers from all disciplines, and stakeholders, often related to community development planning and design.

Some might argue that a two-hour workshop doesn't qualify as a charette, but our Saturday morning meeting about the layout/massing of the Herfurth Park municipal complex was certainly structured as such - and I believe more was accomplished in the second, interactive, hands-on hour than could have been done in 8 hours of a traditional council work session.

Since the decision to incorporate the new public safety building, animal shelter facility, and city hall into the park space on Main Street, the challenge has been how to do so while preserving the park ambiance and park amenities. The objective of this mini-charette was to get a council consensus on the general placement and arrangement of the important components: buildings, parking lots, roads, park active elements (dog parks, tennis and pickleball courts, playgrounds, etc.), large aesthetic elements (landscaping, water features, etc.) and security components (security fencing, berms, secure entrances, etc.).

The players

The session was led by James Beers, principal architect with Hoefer Welker, the design firm the council selected for the municipal complex project. The public safety facility (police station plus fire administration and Emergency Operations Center) is arguably the most important part of this project, and Don Wertzberger, the director of public safety architecture with 720 Designs who is handling that part of the project, was also present.

Our recently appointed CMAR (Construction Manager at Risk), Chris Dencklau with Swinerton, was in attendance, as were our police and fire chiefs and assistant chiefs, five members of the city council (Mayor Margolis, councilmembers Schupp, Britton, Bowers, and myself), the city manager and assistant city manager, the interim city secretary, and other interested parties. The meeting - like all council meetings - was open to the public and there were a few citizens there.

The playbook

The first half of the meeting consisted of a presentation by Mr. Beers of four options for the general layout/massing, which differed in the aspects of building/element placement, building footprints (number of stories), combined functions and proximity of functional components, locations of parking, etc. In the second half, councilmembers and architects/designers gathered around a big table with a 2-dimensional model and discussed pros and cons of different locations for different elements and ultimately came up with a very general vision for the design of this space.

The resultant design didn't strictly follow any of the four presented options but was a variation on one of them (the second presented). Important changes included separating city hall and the courts function, providing secured parking for city hall employees, and providing spaces that can be used as additional open spaces now but will be available for easy expansion of the city hall and/or public safety facilities if needed in the future.

I feel good about the outcome, and I think the other councilmembers present do, as well.

The whats and the whys

The City of Rowlett has been in need of new facilities for many years. Most city buildings are decades old were acquired "second hand," and many were originally built for private sector purposes. They have not all been properly maintained, and renovations have been of the "band aid" type.

The current police station, which was built in 1984 as a private office building, is figuratively bursting at the seams as the police staffing has grown far beyond its capacity and officers are crowded into a much-too-small space that was not originally designed to be a law enforcement facility. When the PD moved into the building in 1994, there were 39 officers; we now have over 100, plus 30something civilian employees. It is long past time to get our police department the modern, purpose-built facility it needs.

As part of the Herfurth Park municipal complex, the plan is for the police department to have around 50,000 total square feet housed in several buildings (main Public Safety building, jail, evidence and property room, assets storage space). The municipal court will be in separate, additional space nearby and convenient to the police facilities with its own entry, parking, etc.

Fire administration currently operates out of a building that is in bad physical condition and is in a less-than-desirable location. It, too, was built in the 1980s as an office building. Parking is very limited, security is an issue, and the building is in need of extensive, expensive repairs which would only bring it up to a usable standard and would not allow for future growth.

Incorporating Fire Admin into the Public Safety facility just makes sense. The public safety departments work closely together on many different things, from working traffic accidents to planning protection and response at city events. Locating them together will allow for cost savings through shared meeting and classroom space, better communication and collaboration between the departments, and proximity of both to the new EOC that would enable faster and better coordinated response in disaster situations.

The animal shelter that we have now, built 27 years ago, can't accommodate the growth of the city and its animal population and does not present an attractive and functional space for potential adopters to view and interact with the animals nor for employees to work with them. The limited square footage means the shelter is at Code Red (completely full) almost all the time. There are only 24 dog kennels and 4 quarantine kennels, and one small cat room in the 3499 square feet (smaller than some of Rowlett's private homes).

The new shelter will meet Animal Services' dire need of a larger facility with public meet-and-greet space, better outdoor and indoor kennels for the animals, a nicer exercise yard, more effective quarantining of animals that may have contagious disease, better employee working conditions and morale, all resulting in healthier and happier animals that are more likely to be adopted. Located in Herfurth Park, the shelter will be adjacent to the dog parks, and there will be trails where volunteers can walk the dogs instead of around the grounds and parking lot on Industrial Street as they do now.

Funding for the two facilities above was approved by the voters in the 2023 bond election. Also included on that ballot and approved was funding for Herfurth Park itself. The current park was established in the 1970’s and in 2018, Scentral Bark Dog Park was constructed and pickleball lines were added to the existing tennis courts. The different elements are not well tied together with minimal landscaping, and it doesn't present an appealing view from Main Street.

The new design we discussed at this meeting includes such elements as new pickleball and tennis courts, two equally sized dog parks (to separate large and small dogs and allow for switching between the two), a retention pond with an overlook, a children's playground, and walking trails throughout both the park and the municipal complex areas. The plan is to keep the great lawn across from the current city hall for large outdoor city events and seamlessly blend Herfurth Park into a beautiful, welcoming municipal campus where residents can not only attend to city business but also gather and spend time together.

City hall was not included as part of the 2023 bond propositions. Like other city facilities, it was a repurposed building, formerly a school. Even with the two annexes, the square footage is under 20,000 sf. The city-wide facilities needs assessment that was done in 2020 by 720 Design and Brinkley Sargent Wiginton projected that the city would need city hall space (to include Economic Development and Community Development, which are currently housed separately in a 7764 sf space at 5702 Rowlett Road) of over 60,000 sf.

Lack of space is not the only problem at city hall. The original building was built in 1939 and renovated in 1997 and has structural issues, is energy inefficient, and has high maintenance costs that accompany the outdated systems and materials. There is not enough office space, the council chambers overflows when there are items of high community interest on the meeting agendas, the conference room is far too small for public attendance at council work sessions, and there are other potential issues due to the building's age and condition.

City staff has been working to find cost savings and additional funding options that would allow for building a new city hall as part of this municipal complex project. Including it in this design and build would save taxpayer money vs. doing it a few years later and would enable an easier workflow and transition. City hall employees deserve better working conditions and citizens deserve a more welcoming, functional, sustainable, accessible space for conducting city business and attending city council meetings. As part of the Herfurth Park municipal complex, a new city hall would be designed with flexibility, citizen engagement, workplace satisfaction, and future planning in mind.

Summing it up

The bonds for this project passed in May 2023, and there have been questions from citizens regarding why it's taking so long to get started. I've asked those same questions of city staff. We're all anxious to see progress made, and at a practical level, to see construction begin before inflation eats into the budget.

But I also understand that this is one of the biggest projects our city has undertaken and it's very important to take the time to get it right. That meant getting the right design firms and the right CMAR and getting the design vision and principles right before we can begin to implement those designs. I'm happy that we do now have a scheduled groundbreaking date of April 2025, even if it's tentative (as such deadlines always are).

This is an exciting time to be on the council in this city. We still have many challenges ahead, but we also have good things in the works. With this project, we have the opportunity to raise the bar in Rowlett. These new facilities are not just for the employees and officials who will work in them on a daily basis; they're also for the citizens who will benefit from them in many ways.

To get more people involved in city government in different roles, we need to attract them to council meetings and provide a place where they can mingle with and get to know their councilmembers, city staff members, and each other in an environment that makes them want to keep coming back.

To attract new businesses and diversify our tax base, we need to present a professional, organized, well-kept, successful face of the city to the public, including those companies and individuals who are looking to come to our city.

First impressions are based on appearance, and an attractive but not overly elaborate municipal campus that is conveniently located and tucked into a beautiful park setting can be a big first step in showing Rowlett residents and businesses, as well as potential investors that we really are a city that's not just on the water but is also on the move.