(SA) Public Safety Headquarters Administrative Building | 6 floors
 

On the next HDRC agenda for conceptual approval (June 02, 2010):

San Antonio Public Safety Headquarters Building
303 S. Santa Rosa

Construction of a new 216,000 sq ft Public Safety Headquarters Administration building, and a new 646-space, 9-level parking garage.

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It's so...plain, color-wise. I hope they do something w/ the color of the building because it looks too boring. But it was nice to know the HDRC felt the same way and recommended that the COSA add some color variations to the buidling so it doesn't look so, as they put it, "dull"

I agree, but public buildings are often pretty monochromatic (the courthouse and Central Library of course being exceptions). Nice work on the garage facade, I wish all the downtown garages were so well disguised.

Not the most exciting building I guess, but it's way better than a disused k-mart!

To whoever is incharge of the color of this building.....PLEASE DONNOT, DON'T, NEVER PICK BROWN OR LIGHT BROWN...We need to stay away from those colors...

I rather keep it the way it is..... this light color theme it has makes it seem more contemporary (modern) and it would stand out from all the other BROWN BUILDINGS ....:slob:

I guess, as is with that color scheme, it makes the building less inviting. Some variations to the color would make it a more 'approachable' building. But glad to be seeing this going up soon.

I believe they want it to look like the Alamodome, Grand Hyatt, Hemisview Villgage, Holiday Inn on E. Commerce and what they want for the Pearl apartments; these buildings all have 5+ variations of color/material. If we can get a blue roof on there and a stone "chimney," on the side, it could be mistaken for a large IHOP.
The list usually includes (but is not limited to) stone, brick, stucco, tile, steel, glass, color panels, wood, etc.

For example:
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This Holiday Inn has brick,stucco, steel, glass, and blurple (a color which is also on the G. Hyatt, Alamodome, Convention Center.)
I'm almost sure that we will see a splash of color in the PS HQ's somewhere. Either that or some darker reddish brick in there.

The one good thing about this building is the use of space. It has has pretty good usage of land considering it is on the edge of DT which usually means more parking lots. 303 Santa Rosa is divided into 2 lots; the surface parking is on a seperate lot and could be built on later (like the Justice Center expansion.) More square footage in buildings and parking garages will get that area somewhat dense pretty quickly.

A few more details. Not sure when they are going to demo the Kmart, but if they do that this fall, then the plans for starting construction Feb. 2011 (I don't know where I got that date from, but I remember it from somewhere,) will seem likely. All I know is that they have to be done and moved in, and have the Police HQ site ready for the Fed Courthouse construction by Dec. 2012.

http://www.woai.com/news/local/story...rn_ZFOf3A.cspx

Looks like the old K-Mart's days are numbered. I noticed a few days ago the parking lot was closed off and now it's fenced over. Finally we can start seeing demo and work on the new PS HQ.

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so even though I'm not the biggest fan of the building, this updated rendering makes it look much better

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10,000 times better than the current HQ

Seems set back from the street a lot, but I approve :tup:

It does look better with the updated rendering, but it still looks like a prison, I think that's my main problem with it. There's no "life" to it.

After living in Phoenix for the last 3yrs, it kinda reminds me of some of their lame, boxed city buildings. However something is better than nothing.:rolleyes:

Yeah, hopefully the Fed Courthouse won't be too set back from Santa Rosa either.
We might be surprised by the impact that little bit of height will give to that area. I think we're just not used to having something taller than the trees on that lot.

Its progress. Better then an empty K-mart that was there for years on end doing nothing. But overall not to shabby. Now on to the Fed Court House...

Not only is this way better than the current headquarters, but it's replacing that awful KMART building and parking lot. This will look a million times better. Im excited! :tup:

It looks better, but it seriously looks like breadbox condos you find in most modern cities.

Well the old Kmart is getting torn down now. After a little bit of looking around, I found that our building looks similar and like a modified, flipped version of the Dallas Police HQ's

http://www.vestalbuilders.com/dallaspolice.jpg

Good to hear that they're finally tearing down the old K-mart. The new rendering looks much better than the original. It could use a little color though. Maybe it's still in the works.:)

Its coming down.....

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So a contract to build the PS HQ has been approved. Also, with a new firm selected to design it maybe we can get a different look to the building, more forward thinking and less like a prison in appearance. One can hope.

http://www.mysanantonio.com/news/loc...ers-903866.php

The City Council today approved a contract with Colorado-based Hensel Phelps Construction Co. to build the city's new Public Safety Headquarters...The company has partnered with Fentress Architects, also based in Colorado, to design the structure.

Fentress has done some interesting work, but low-bid gets you a low-bid building. Look at their government portfolio for Oakland Administration. That's about what you can expect.

These guys are not going to give the city anything. Phelps will probably try to squeeze some savings out of the subcontractors. Faulkner all over again.

I would have prefered that they stay local, especially with the current economic conditions.

true, but with what we were given before, I'm hoping we can get a building with a bit more life in it. It would have been nice to have a local firm selected but it's about competition and they just couldn't this time. It's no different if say a local firm here was selected to do work in California instead of a local firm there doing the work. But hey, isn't getting the lowest bidder usually the way it goes? I mean the lowest bid isn't necessarily the worst.

In this case they weren't the lowest (second lowest), but the rest were all about the same (which is probably real world). So the design could change some, but it will still be very basic.

At the very least they could have partnered with a local architectural firm.

Kornbread, I think you misread, they were the lowest.

According to the attachment on the agenda, the numbers looked like this:

Bartlett Cocke/RVK/DHR - $57,124,268
Skansa USA/Perkins/Will - $56,428,903
Turner Cons/Kell Munoz - $55,429,986
Zachry / Jacobs - $54,235,615
Hensel Phelps / Fentress - $47,175,000

The reason they were chosen was because they were $7 million lower than the next (second-lowest) bidder. Cheapest (almost) always wins.

They did some dorms on Fort Sam..... boring and I expect this building to be the same. The city will expect them to use 5 or so building materials (I'm sure:) stucco, stone, brick, metal or something in an attempt to make it "interesting" but instead they are creating monotony by having every building contain the same materials. I'm more concerned about that than I am about design; I'd prefer it to have better land use and build it to scale, and would like for them to surprise everyone on the exterior materials used.
Good thing is that we are trading in an old building and parking lot for a new building and a parking garage. Pretty good trade off as long as we can continue to make the lots disappear.
When you expect too much and ask to much in terms of design, you end up with crap like the Central Library; awesome building architecturally (as a model or sketch) but to humans it is 3 walls of nothing and an entrance that is awkward and hard to find.

The base of the crane has been in place for a couple of days and some of the pieces of the crane are staged at the construction site.

It should not be long until the crane rises.

Woo Hoo. I love cranes.

:cheers:

Crane is up as of sunday april 10. Saw it on my way trough Downtown.:banana:

...and the base of the second one is set in place; shouldn't be long before the 2nd goes up. That'll be 5 for the western edge of DT.

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Just from this pic I can really get a sense of the impact this building will have to the skyline. It may not be tall but it sure will fill in that spot and stand out

It will stand out well from the highway. Very Nice...

5 cranes and all of them from public sector projects....

Now just to get a single 50 story building......Frost USAA anyone

Valero!

Valero should sell its HQ/land to UTSA then build a downtown HQ. One can only dream.

Valero was downtown not too long ago.

50-story? For what? We can't even fill a 13 story right now (Whitacre Tower.)

Let's just keep adding those rental units, and the rest will follow.

Over 700 units under construction now near DT; thats like building a 275-tract subdivision near DT, although the impact of the units near DT is greater.

Well said. Fun fact: downtown Cleveland has a 950ft tall Cesar Pelli-designed skyscraper called the Key Tower. It has 1.5 million square feet of office space and is mostly occupied by the headquarters of Key Bank. For almost twenty years it was the tallest building between Chicago and New York.

Now show of hands, who would rather trade SA's problems for Cleveland's?? Anyone?

I like Dallas version better.

No. Cleveland's problems are awful.

Someone, anyone post some pics please!

Why is it that the facade of the building faces the highway and not downtown? Unless I'm mistaken but it seems like a waste to have a building with civic presence to have its back side to all of downtown.

I think the entrance is facing Santa Rosa, between the garage and main building.

Okay. Just curious since the side facing the highway seems to have a larger entrance but must be for other purposes. But in between the garage and the building, would have been nice to actually face the street. Well hopefully the public art that is supposed to go in has a strong presence along the building, maybe something iconic and serve as a local landmark.

Some Updates:

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