(SA) Public Safety Headquarters Administrative Building | 6 floors

[miaht82]

Its coming down.....

[necropolis]

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.

[kornbread]

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.

[necropolis]

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.

[kornbread]

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.

[miaht82]

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.

[STLtoSA]

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.

[Complex01]

Woo Hoo. I love cranes.

[ooo0mercury0ooo]

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

[miaht82]

...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.

[necropolis]

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

[Complex01]

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

[Keep-SA-Lame]

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

[adtobias]

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

[sirkingwilliam]

Valero!

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

[Keep-SA-Lame]

Valero was downtown not too long ago.

[miaht82]

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.

[oldmanshirt]

Originally Posted by miaht82

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?

[The Model]

Originally Posted by miaht82

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

I like Dallas version better.

[wwmiv]

Originally Posted by oldmanshirt

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?

No. Cleveland's problems are awful.