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February 19, 2022
Designs For New MSWD HQ Considered
At the February 17, 2022, study session the MSWD Board of Directors was presented with some design concepts for the proposed new headquarters for the district. The developer showed a lengthy Powerpoint to the board. Images from the Powerpoint were not included in the agenda packet. I'll include a few screen shots here, but if you really want to see what was presented, you should watch the YouTube video of the meeting starting at 14:57.
Roger Clarke from Ruhnau Clarke Architects led the presentation.
Over the past several months the board has discussed the new headquarters, but as far as I could determine, they never specified the exact location to the public, referring only to a site on Two Bunch Palms Trail. Now that has been cleared up. It's a parcel of land where the district already has a well, just east of one of the cultivation facilities.
Moving in a little closer, the first slide in the Powerpoint shows the general layout of the site.
As you can see this location will combine administrative and operations functions, unlike the current setup where administration is on Second Street and operations are mostly down around the Horton wastewater treatment plant.
Perhaps you are asking yourself the same questions about the location that I am. This land is zoned industrial and is immediately adjacent to several cannabis cultivation facilities. At one time the price of land there went sky high. Is it still sky high, or has that market softened? What's the market like for land in commercial zones elsewhere in the city? I don't recall hearing any discussion of it during any board meeting, but I hope someone did an analysis on the property value. Would the district be ahead by selling this site (minus the land necessary for the well, of course) for some sky high price and then using that money to buy land in a commercial zone in the city that would be closer to bus lines? Besides benefiting the customers who need to visit MSWD, the district might end up with a bigger site or a less expensive site. I know nothing of commercial land prices in DHS, nor whether there is a chunk of commercial land available of the size that would suit MSWD for its purposes.
Here's the conceptual diagram of how things will be laid out in the administrative building.
More detail is provided in this slide:
Three options were presented for the shape of the dais: slightly curved, deeply curved or just flat. There were also three options as to exterior appearance.
Option 1:
Option 2:
Option 3:
The cost of the three options are all within $250,000 of each other. Option 2 would be the least expensive. The overall site is 450,443 square feet in all three options. They could go with a smaller site (417,420 s.f.) that would reduce the available parking and save $1-million to $1.5-million.
Director Grasha suggested staff parking should be behind a secure wall or fence. I agree, and would have thought any architect would make secure staff parking a standard feature at any government building, but Rhunau Clarke had not. They said they could, of course, make that change.
President Martin said he preferred Option 2. Director Sewell preferred either Option 2 or 3. Director Duncan preferred Option 1 or 3. Mr. Clarke said Option 1 had the most glass, but the amount of glass in all three options could be adjusted.
Filed under Architecture,Coachella Valley,Desert Hot Springs | permalink | February 19, 2022 at 03:07 PM
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