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Architects weave visions for complex

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By LAURA KINSLER

lkinsler@tampatrib.com

Published: September 26, 2009

DADE CITY - City Manager Billy Poe and his top staff have visions of buildings dancing in their heads after spending most of Thursday listening to architects pitch concepts for a City Hall and police complex.

"It's exciting," police Chief Ray Velboom said. "If we can pull this off, it will really be something special."

The project would be financed through a combination of grants and loans from the U.S. Department of Agriculture. The city's selection team will rank the four finalists and make a recommendation to the City Commission in October.

Dade City's 2010 budget includes $25,000 for a space needs study and $100,000 for design fees for the complex, but Poe said those costs could be reimbursed from the grant.

More than a dozen architects bid for the project. Poe and other department heads met with their top four choices Thursday. Each presented multiple options to the group.

Fawley/Bryant Architects, based in Bradenton, suggested that the city go through a three-month master planning process to develop a concept before embarking on the design work. They estimated the project would cost around $3.45 million.

"We will meet with you no less than eight times, so that's our commitment to be attentive," owner Mike Bryant said.

"Dade City has some wonderful architecture that we can draw from, but we don't need to mimic it," he said.

He suggested that the new building pick up on some of the features of the old City Hall building, such as brickwork, awnings and large windows.

The team developed two concepts for staff to consider. The less expensive of the two would combine the police station, municipal offices and commission chambers into a single building. The downside of this concept is that the existing City Hall would have to be demolished before construction could begin.

The other option would create a municipal campus with three separate buildings connected by covered walkways. With this concept, construction could be done in phases, so the new City Hall could be completed before the existing building had to be demolished.

"When you look at them side by side, there's some pretty neat things going on with both concepts," Bryant said.

Timing is right

Tampa-based Harvard Jolly Architecture has been around since 1938 and is designing a pair of schools in Pasco County. It's the largest of the firms, but Vice President Ward Friszolowski said Dade City's project "would be very important in our office."

Friszolowski said the firm recently completed a project in Gulfport that mirrored many of Dade City's needs. The team presented three concepts that involved construction around the existing City Hall building.

When pressed, Friszolowski declined to estimate a cost, saying there are too many variables, such as whether the building is designed to survive a Category 3 hurricane or higher. He recommended the city pursue grant funding from FEMA, because U.S. Department of Agriculture grants would cover 55 percent of the project costs.

"We have people on staff who can assist you with grants," he said.

He also said the city could lower costs through competitive bids for construction: "It's a good time to be publicly bidding right now."

St. Petersburg architect Lisa Wannemacher brought in a specialist from Kansas to help the Dade City police design a station that would help the department achieve state and national accreditation.

"He's consulting on police station projects all over the country," she said.

Accreditation is a high priority for the chief, who said his department is crammed into such tight quarters "my detectives don't even have an interview room to question suspects."

Wannemacher Jensen Architects was named firm of the year in 2008 by the Tampa Bay chapter of the American Institute of Architects. Wannemacher said 15 of the company's last 16 projects came in at or below budget. The other was over budget by 1 percent.

She also presented several options, but recommended closing Fourth Street and developing a campus immediately to the east of the existing City Hall. She was the only architect who proposed keeping and renovating the City Hall annex.

"That idea of renovating the annex is very thought-provoking," City Attorney Karla Owens said. "The commission has been saying for years they want some sort of youth center, and it would play right into that."

Maintaining character

Henry Woodroffe said his Tampa-based firm, Woodroffe Corporation Architects, would focus on multi-use rooms, outdoor spaces and pocket parks, and designing a building that fits with the character of the downtown historic district.

"Some of your design guidelines call for strong roof lines and shade elements," he said.

Woodroffe uses state-of-the-art, digital 3-D modeling. "That's important when you're doing public presentations," Woodroffe said. "The first thing people ask is, how much is it going to cost. Then the next thing they want to know is what is it going to look like."

All three of his concepts protect a pair of mature oaks on the site, but only one could be built around the existing City Hall. He estimated the project would cost between $3.4 million and $4.4 million, depending on the square footage.

Woodroffe said the city might get lower bids using competitive bids, but that doesn't guarantee the best quality product. "The problem with the lowest bid is that the guy who made it is the one who made the biggest mistake," he said.

He wouldn't recommend using a low-bid process unless the city vacated the existing building and cleared the site before starting construction.

"Any one of them could do the job," said Lennie Naeyaert, city engineer. "The question is who do we want to work with for the next two years?"

Reporter Laura Kinsler can be reached at (813) 259-8109.

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