The Fair Oaks Ranch City Council on Feb. 15 settled on “community center” for the name of its planned facility but approved of little else prior to this week’s Town Hall meeting on the topic.
City Council gave Rocky Lopez, of Lopez Salas Architects, a lot to think about in the days leading up to the Feb. 27 Community Center Town Hall meeting, where Fair Oaks Ranch residents were expected to provide their opinions on the design of the structure.
The community center, which began in February 2020 as a 3,000-4,000 square-foot facility at a price tag of around $600,000, has grown to a 5,330 square-foot structure with an estimated cost of $2.25 million.
While approving of the interior layout and space use, council shredded the planned exterior that Lopez put before them at their Feb. 15 council meeting.
Lopez described the creation of added parking on the north side of the building, facing Dietz Elkhorn Road, while the front of the structure faces south, where three of the facility’s 14 parking spots will be located.
But council had other ideas — mainly, turning the front toward Dietz Elkhorn and the majority of the parking, rather than toward the rest of the city campus.
“When we add a parking lot on that (north) side of the building, that is essentially creating a front part of the building,” Councilwoman Emily Stroup said. “With all the other buildings, the front part of the building has parking.”
Councilman Scott Parker agreed, taking the “north is front” concept a step further.
“It is going to be a showcase. When you drive down Dietz Elkhorn, we don’t want it to look like it's a big flat wall,” Parker said. “That should be a takeaway from this meeting.
“Let’s ‘pretty up’ that side of the building because it is going to be one of the first things that people will see when they are entering the city,” Parker added.
Councilman Keith Rhoden voiced similar concern.
“The entrance needs to have an attractive view to Dietz Elkhorn,” Rhoden said. “We’re not designers but what we do know, is what we don’t like. This doesn’t feel good for us, to have the entrance on the back over here.”
Early in his presentation, Lopez pitched the design his firm brought to council that night as being something that needed tweaking — not twisting.
“Once I fully engage our consultants and we start spending money on design services, our engineers start doing what they do ... we want to get past the meeting before we get those guys moving quickly into the project,” Lopez said.
In reference to the scheduled town hall meeting, Lopez said some things “do come up in those meetings, usually minor things. It’s usually not a total redesign ... because going backward is a little difficult at this point.”
But council sent Lopez and his firm back to the drawing board. The council expressed its desire for a more “ranch-style” exterior than Lopez presented. Council also voiced displeasure with the roof style in the schematic as well.
Mayor Greg Maxton said a pencil rendering showing a more Hill Country-traditional style structure “gets us part-way there.”
“We were looking for additional designs for the exterior ... particularly, more of a ranch-style design exterior that would be put on this building,” Maxton said. “What you’ve provided in the pencil drawing gets us part-way there.”
Lopez opened his presentation by telling the council his team was progressing slowly but was anxious to get moving further into the design and development stage.
“We wanted to meet with you all first, because once we’ve completed this (Feb. 15) meeting, our schematic design phase will start,” Lopez said. “Whatever comments or suggestions we get this evening, we’ll incorporate into our project.”
But Mayor Pro Tem Laura Koerner told Lopez she was not in favor of approving of a design at that meeting, 12 days ahead of the Feb. 27 town hall.
“I do not feel comfortable giving any direction today ... because we have a Town Hall, where we’re supposed to get feedback from residents, which we haven’t had yet,” Koerner said. “I don’t feel comfortable giving anyone the go-ahead without getting feedback from the residents.”
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