City Hall design taking shape

The architectural firm charged with designing a new City Hall continues to gather city and public input.

Mosaic Architecture of Helena led a discussion last week with the city hall steering committee after presenting some early design concepts for the interior layout of city hall based upon recent input sessions.

“Right now we’re looking at the big picture,” architect Ben Tintinger told the committee. “There’s no doubt we will continue to refine.”

Tintinger said the conceptual design for the exterior that Mosaic presented during the design competition has been well received by the public.

“Everyone seems to gravitate to it and felt pretty good about it,” he said. “We want to make sure the building is something that people can point to 50 years from now and be proud of.”

In December, Mosaic was one of four architectural firms to present conceptual design ideas as part of a competition used to assist in selecting a firm to create a new City Hall at the corner of Baker Avenue and Second Street.

Mosaic’s design features brick accented with large timber. The building is set back from the corner of Second and Baker to allow for a landscaped courtyard wrapping the corner of the building.

The design plays off of the arched brick design in the original City Hall building that was present until 1958. The firm also chose to recreate a siren tower that resembles the original tower.

Ian Collins, who serves on the city hall committee, said most people see the design as being traditional, while it actually leans toward more modern.

“One of the strengths of the design is tying to the icon of the original City Hall with the arched window and the brick,” he said.

Mosaic is proposing the new City Hall at about 25,000 square feet. This is broken into about 4,000 square feet in the basement and 20,000 for three floors above ground.

“This is based upon city department input,” Tintinger said. “One thing that was asked for was to have more open with less walls and centralized circulation between departments.”

The basement would be used for storage and also possible future expansion. Preliminary concepts place public works, planning and building, parks and recreation on the first floor because those departments have the highest traffic volume.

The second floor is proposed to house city council chambers, the administration/city clerk, city attorney and conference rooms. The third floor would include the staff break room and a community room, as well as access to outdoor balconies.

Two basic designs for the layout of the building were presented to the committee. While both remain very much conceptual, the architects last week wanted to get input on general preferences from staff and committee members.

One showed a layout that had the main lobby space cutting directly through the center of the building. Departments were set along the east and west of that center lobby running through the middle.

The second option showed a main lobby on the first floor running along length of the west side of the building. In that design, departments on the first floor were all in one central area of the building with an open floor plan in the center and individual offices along the outside walls.

A parking garage on the north portion of the property is expected to be attached to City Hall. One of the questions posed by Mosaic asked if there should be direct public access from the parking garage to City Hall, and should that access be on every level of the building.

Most felt at minimum access should be available on the first floor of the garage to City Hall.

While, City Manager Chuck Stearns pointed out that because the city council chambers would be located on the second floor, it might be a good idea to have access from the garage on that level, also.

“We don’t want to ask people to leave the garage, go out on the street, and go back into City Hall to get to the council chambers,” he said. “Not when there might be 75 people attending a council meeting.”

Combining a parking structure with a new City Hall is estimated to cost about $11.5 million. Tax-increment finance funds are suggested for the project. A new City Hall has been part of Whitefish’s long-range plans since 1987 and the need for a new facility was included in the 2005 downtown master plan.

Mosaic is expected to continue refining designs based off of committee input and return with updates. A public open house to gather input on designs is set for Thursday, Aug. 21 at 7 p.m. at City Hall.