Desert Hot Springs Downtown Facade Meeting

This was an exciting and very well attended meeting. I think we ran out of chairs. City Manager Rick Daniels said that after the RDA upgrades these buildings that it owns they will be returned to the private sector. The city does not plan to become a permanent landlord.

Jerry Ogburn was there with VA Consulting including a landscape architect to show some updates to the overall vortex plan, including some specifics on the streetscape. Their area of responsibility is streets, medians, lighting, plants and establishing overall guidelines for design that would guide the facade designs.

Then there were three architectural firms: Pearson Architects, Inc. (or PAI), Escalante Architects, Inc. and WWCOT. Each of them presented their concepts of a facade rehab for the RDA-owned block of buildings from Playoffs (at Acoma and Palm) around the corner of Palm and Pierson (Glossy) to the barber shop on Pierson. Their designs were all supposed to be do-able at under $650 per lineal foot.

The crowd broke up into three roughly equal groups and rotated through the three architectural firms, getting a 15 minute presentation from each. We were encouraged to fill out questionnaires and leave written comments for each presentation. Rudy Acosta said that staff would bring their recommendation to the city council in May. Construction is expected to begin in August and be completed before the end of the year.

VA Consulting

Here are photos of some of the info presented by VA Consulting:

The lower image is a proposal for Pierson and Palm. Palm is running left to right. The blue graphic in the pavement is meant to represent the four ancient elements: earth, air, fire and water.

A plan showing a median and sidewalk plants. The median would have low desert plants like cacti and yucca along with large boulders and chunks of recycled glass that could be lighted from underneath at night. The glass is supposed to represent water. Along the sidewalk the plants would be palms plus lower trees to provide shade, such as blue palo verde and Chinese pistache (which is deciduous).

Cross section of the sidewalk canopy showing signage and lighting, along with a plan for the sidewalk. All the canopy designs include a misting system.

Escalante Architects

The first presentation I went to was Escalante's. The two very distinctive elements of their design were (1) the great shade canopy and (2) that they really open up the facades at pedestrian level with LOTS of glass. The shade structure, if I understood correctly, is two layers of perforated steel separated and aligned so that more sun would penetrate in the winter than in the summer. It would extend all the way out to the trees. The canopy supports its own weight and actually does not touch the front walls of the buildings themselves. Attaching the canopy to the buildings would require structural improvements that would then require a full seismic retrofit, which would put the whole thing out of the price range they were limited to. Escalante emphasized that the shade canopy would be vandal proof, maintenance free, would last for years, and provides a lot of design flexibility.

Palm and Pierson showing the entrance to Glossy.

The facades along Palm shown from the same point of view that Robert Altman used in 3 Women. They do not actually propose to replace the second story that exists now with this design. Just look at all that glass!

The street from Glossy south along Palm.

Looking west on Pierson from Glossy. Notice that in the streets we have cool, rich, eclectic people driving classic VW Beetles!

Pearson Architects

Did these people really want the job? One of the requirements was that the designs be something unique to Desert Hot Springs. We didn't want Orange County or El Paseo or Palm Canyon. All three firms said their designs did that, including Pearson. But when I look at Pearson's concepts I see El Paseo, or maybe a sausage made from El Paseo and other recent retail developments. Haven't I seen all this in Rancho Cucamonga or somewhere? This didn't look distinctive to me at all. It did look guaranteed not to offend anyone.

OTOH, Planning Commissioner King said that this design was flexible enough to allow for individual property owners to differentiate their properties without going to great expense - and there's a lot to be said for that.

The shade structures would be copper-colored, perforated steel awnings. Like the Escalante plan, the canopies would NOT require structural upgrades to the buildings. The glass areas seem to be about the same as, or maybe even less than what is there now.

The facades on Palm at night. Those raised grills that you see on about every third business would be lighted from behind. Terry Scheurer almost tripped them up by asking if the clock that would be installed on the existing second story structure would actually be a functioning clock. After some discussion, it was agreed that it would indeed function.

A little closer view of the Playoffs end of the block (Acoma and Palm).

Cross section of the sidewalk scene.

WWCOT

Both Escalante and Pearson conformed to the overall requirement that they limit themselves to a palette of desert colors, which Charles Edmondson would not necessarily be pleased with. WWCOT stuck with the desert palette too, but proposed putting in some touches of brilliant colors. They also propose moving the fronts of Playoffs and Glossy back some feet to give more space to the public sidewalk area. They said that this would require structural seismic upgrades to the buildings. I didn't ask how they squeezed that into the same budget as the others and still got good facades too.

A sample of materials considered in the WWCOT designs.

You can find all my photos of the meeting here.