At the September 18, 2023, Richardson City Council meeting, the Council heard an update on the Public Library design and the Civic Center Campus site plan. I'm a big fan of what I saw for the Library. (I say "saw" because of the recorded video, a neat feature the City Council should consider for all City Council meetings.) Still, I think the preferred campus site plan (Option A2) has a problem with traffic flow that could be easily and significantly improved, as I'll diagram later.
The three big changes to the Library are 1) the east facade glass walls, 2) moving the entry to the southeast corner, and 3) a third public elevator, but not a fourth. I'm a big fan of the new facade. It preserves the brutalist look of the building, while adding lightness and light. I'm in favor of moving the entrance to the southeast corner. It re-orients the building to Fountain Plaza and ties it better to the new City Hall. I'm neutral on an additional public elevator. Make the stairwells more visible and welcoming and you give the public an alternative to using elevators at all.
Council feedback:
Ken Hutchenrider, asking about the new stairwell in the Library: "When you get down to the first floor, do you exit back into the library itself? ("That is correct.") And then the emergency exit would be alarmed. ("That is correct.") Okay. That was my question."
Curtis Dorian, asking about the same stairwell: "I don't want to go into the weeds on this, but do you know about what this riser and the tread height is?" Too late. If you have to say, "I don't want to go into the weeds, but..." you should know you're already there.
Mayor Pro Tem Arefin: "Is there any reason that you could not or did not put any covered drop off area?" (Because "you all asked us to add very, very minimal to no additional square footage.")
Mayor Dubey: "So basically what we're saying here is we're good with this without the fourth elevator. That's the question. I'm good with it. Without the elevator, save a million dollars."
The Council was good with it. On to the site plan for the campus.
The designers offered the Council two options for a campus site plan. Option A1 has a road next to the fountain, splitting the plaza. Option A2 doesn't introduce a road on Fountain Plaza. Jumping right to the decision, I'll say City Council rightly decided to go with Option A2. No road. Good decision.
Don Magner and the consultants seemed to prefer the road through Fountain Plaza. Even the choice of calling it Option A1 perhaps could have been a subconscious tell. They continued to act as if the objection to a road was out of safety concerns that could be mitigated by bollards and curves and "pillow tops". Even after it was clear that support for a road was slim, some couldn't let go. Ken Hutchenrider was concerned it might be needed for fire department access. Mayor Pro Tem Arefin argued that the plaza should be designed to support a road, even if it's not built immediately. He called for the two planned sidewalks from Arapaho Rd. to the library and city hall to be wide enough to carry cars, or at least a throng of people. ("Can you make them wider so that it's like more prominent walking. It's not just a trail.") Add that to Arefin's question about adding a canopy for cars to the drop-off at the library entrance, and I'm beginning to think Arefin is the Council's biggest advocate for cars.
The question that drew the most attention was whether the new site plan has enough entrances. The current site has four. The new site plan has only two. I'm with the Councilmembers who think two is too few.
My first choice would be three. Besides the existing west entrance from Civic Center Dr., preserve the two existing entrances off Belle Grove Dr. One could provide access to city hall from the southeast. The other could provide better access to the library from the southwest.
I'm neutral on the idea of adding an entrance from the US75 access road. There's a good argument that adding an entrance there would have a negative consequence. It would create an east-west drive across campus, making it an attractive cut-through when there's a traffic backup going east at the Arapaho/US75 intersection. To solve that, I would suggest cutting the cut-through at Fountain Plaza. Not only does that make cutting through the campus less attractive, but replacing the cut-through with green space makes Fountain Plaza even bigger and grander. There's still a route to parking at City Hall from the west. What's not to like? This option wasn't even discussed. If any Councilmember reads this and thinks my suggestion is worth considering, please pass it on. There's slim to no chance of it getting any consideration otherwise.
A second entrance on Belle Grove offers another opportunity. The curved drop-off lanes at the Library and City Hall really need better connections to the rest of the campus road network, especially the campus entrances. Clear signage at each entrance for either "Library" or "City Hall" would eliminate confusion on the part of drivers. Experienced drivers would still be able to get to any building on campus from any entrance. My preferred road network is below. Again, if any Councilmember reads this and thinks my suggestion is worth considering, please pass it on. There's slim to no chance of it getting any consideration otherwise.
Council feedback:
Jennifer Justice: "I appreciate the survey results saying we want the entrance from Arapaho. But I think it's in direct conflict to the feedback that we got that we want this wonderful plaza around the fountain and the interplay of the two buildings, and so I lean towards the newer option that doesn't have the drive down the middle." Justice has been the most consistent in opposition to a road on Fountain Plaza. Kudos for that. As for that survey, I think it's been misrepresented by the consultants. The question asked was, "How should access to the Municipal Campus be improved?" Not, does access need to be improved at all? As worded, the question assumes another entrance is needed. The public, knowing that there are already entrances on the west and south sides, predictably chose, 52% to 36%, adding an entrance from Arapaho. And even then, just barely half the public was in support of that. Assuming the designers didn't deliberately word the survey to get the answer they wanted, there's still a lesson here. Be careful what you ask. You just might get it.
Dan Barrios: "Is there a way to say okay, we're designating this as a park so that in the future it'd be a place that people do have the ability to gather?" If I understood the City Manager's answer, designating Fountain Plaza a park wouldn't do anything to protect it. As we've seen in Point North Park, the City can pave over and build on parkland as willfully as any other land. Barrios didn't pursue the point.
Mayor Pro Tem Arefin: "As an engineer, I can tell you that when you designate some area as a park, if you want to do anything like you need to put underground utilities somewhere, you have to go [through] a huge long process. So it's like you're creating your own problem for the future." Sorry, Arefin, making it hard to pave over a park is not a problem, it's the point, to make it hard.
Joe Corcoran: "Thank you guys for coming back with a plan that preserves some of the green space for now and reduces the parking. I appreciate you listening to my comments there. It means a lot." Yes, Corcoran was the Councilmember who asked for less land dedicated to parking lots. And even though he was just one person, he got it. It shows that you don't need to have a majority in your corner. Sometimes to get the right thing done, all you need to rely on is the reluctance of a majority to oppose your own firmly stated position.
Ken Hutchenrider: "I'm kind of, I'm kind of right in the neutral category." Don't be a hamlet, Ken. Work things out in your head, not aloud on an open mic. Then explain the answer you arrive at and take a stand.
City Manager Don Magner: "What I'd like to just offer up as well is, you know, we can design this as a pedestrian mall and we can bid the thicker concrete, the curves, all those kinds of alternatives, and then we can see what the cost is to do that." Like I said, Magner continued to push an Arapaho Rd. entrance long after it was obvious that support for it was slim.
Curtis Dorian: "My opinion is if we were to add a third entrance, it would be one of the existing ones that we have off of Belle Grove." Yes. And change the road pattern to make the Belle Grove entrances connect cleanly to the drive-up entrances to the Library and City Hall. Like I showed in my own diagram. But like I say in my blog's tagline: "Not being listened to since 2006."
"Fountain Plaza test.
A debate of space and roads.
Council seeks the best."
—h/t ChatGPT
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