Evidently none of these facades will appear on the Jessamine St. entrance of the new police and municipal court building planned for Bellaire’s Town Square. The latest design, as presented at last week’s town hall meeting, appears to be a blend of several of the choices above. Architect PGAL put together a set of possibilities earlier this spring for both a new police building and a planned city hall redo; a committee spent the last few months choosing the parts they liked.
The approximate sites of the police station and the new city hall appear in gold on the conceptual site plan below, showing the S. Rice Ave. land bounded by Jessamine, 5th St., and the houses south of Linden St.:
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The new police building would sit in about the same spot as the existing station (whose smaller footprint is shown as a dotted black line). Plans for the new city hall and civic center show the facility scooted to the north of its current spot, to occupy that discontinuous stretch of Laurel St. that currently dead-ends into the city’s aquatic center.Â
Here’s the more detailed rendering of the possible police building design presented last week, from southwest and southeast on Jessamine:
Here was the original set of options for the city hall redo:
Below is the rendering of how that design has shaped up so far, as shown from S. Rice (first from slightly to the south, then looking due west):Â
Here’s what the whole complex could eventually look like, from up in the air over S. Rice looking toward 5th St. — existing structures like the recreation center and water tower are depicted featureless and white, and parking lots (existing or planned) are shown in light grey plaid:
- May 16, 2016 City Council Meeting Packet [City of Bellaire]
Images: PGAL
Headline game, on point as always.
‘Design by Committee’… Awesome H-town! You never cease to amaze me… I know, let’s try an International Design Competition, or even a local/state one featuring offices capable of a design ethic along with may maybe; I dunno, Rice, UofH and Prarieview Schools of Architecture? To progressive for our little ‘ole-west’ bayou town? Maybe.
Not faulting PGAL, as they do great work and this looks promising. I just would have left it up to the professionals instead of the ‘Committee’. But then again with DIY and HGTV so popular, I guess everybody is a ‘Designer’ these days… Just saying maybe those limestone pillars at the front with the steel post are not the most balanced of proportions, eh?
Option 4 & 6 are tolerable. All the others look like a Ponderosa Fire Station.
Option 4…