Safety center design a big task

Neighborhood, church, Foothill Club among the interested parties

By Oakley Brooks

Architect Frances Chan spent most of his energy during his first meeting with a public safety center committee telling interested citizens and public agency representatives that their needs and would be satisfied as the Village center's first planning stage evolved over the next couple of months.

But as Chan steadily followed the conversation around a city hall meeting table Dec. 17 and the list of requests and complicating factors grew, his assuring responses seemed as much an exercise in convincing himself and his design colleagues that they were up to the difficult task ahead.

As the safety center design leader, Chan must bring together disparate groups to compose a general plan for the proposed fire, sheriff's and postal complex on the corner of Highway 9 and Saratoga Avenue.

Within the planning committee, there are Park Place neighbors, Saratoga Federated Church representatives and Saratoga Foothill Club members concerned about the facility changing the landscape of the old Village Green area. And there are citizens and Saratoga Fire District officials who've spent the last year trading jabs.

Those same fire officials are currently suing the city over a stalled new fire station. Safety center talks also bring fire officials back together with representatives of the U.S. Postal Service--the two sides could not agree on terms several years ago when the fire district attempted to buy the neighboring Saratoga Avenue postal property in the midst of similar public safety center discussions.

"I won't try to kid you--that there won't be some unhappy groups," said Chan, the architecture manager at Danville-based ATI Architects and Engineers. "It's all part of the process; we will find some common ground."

To keep things cordial, Chan says he'll draw on his past expertise in developing civic buildings throughout the Bay Area--he's used to working with more than a dozen interest groups on one project, and identifies six or seven primary groups involved in the Saratoga safety center.

Chan will also have City Manager Dave Anderson at his side; Anderson has so far deftly headed off conflict boil-overs within safety center meetings by emphasizing that participants "leave the politics at the door."

Beyond maintaining civility during the three-month design process, the ATI team will have to tackle what Anderson and others have described as the "800-pound gorilla": parking.

Sheriff's employees already overflow their own lot and use 30 spaces of the neighboring Saratoga Federated Church parking lot. Best estimates are that all three public service agencies would need 145 spaces in any new combined facility.

"The driving force [behind the new center] will be how to best handle parking and traffic issues," Chan said.

Citizens and public agency representatives selected Chan and ATI based on the firm's expertise in designing public facilities from both an architectural and engineering perspective. Chan has been the project leader throughout the different design phases for combined safety and civic facilities in Ridgecrest, Cathedral City and Coalinga.

He also said that members of his firm have experience in designing fire stations. But he doubted that the small details of a new station--which have been the subject of much debate between citizens and fire officials through the summer and fall--would dominate the preliminary design phase of the safety center.

"At this level, we're more concerned with the general impacts of the station on the uses of the entire facility," Chan said.

Chan and his team will be without the services of former partner Davis Curley, an architect who recently resigned from ATI. Curley, who once lived in Saratoga, made the firm's original pitch to citizens and agency representatives in November as the prospective project manager. Locals said Curley sold them on ATI in part because of his feel for the West Valley.

Despite regrets from both community members and Chan during some initial discussions Dec. 17, both parties agreed to push on with design planning.

Chan has committed to meeting the same timetable that Curley laid out in November for finishing the preliminary drawings of the center.

Chan and Anderson are hoping to take a rough sketch to the city council and the public in mid-February before they present a final drawing for public comment at a council meeting in mid-March.

As the design phase progresses, Anderson said he will be working to resolve some key questions--the U.S. Postal Service's willingness to sell or lease their land on Saratoga Avenue and Santa Clara County's ability to spread the costs of improved sheriff's facilities among several West Valley communities that the Saratoga station serves.

Fire Chief Ernie Kraule was concerned recently that U.S. Postal Service San Jose District Manager Daryl Ishizaki's November letter committing his agency to the safety center design process was not a strong enough demonstration of involvement.

On the cost of sheriff's facilities, resident Don Whetstone said Saratogans alone could not subsidize a new West Valley station.

Although cost estimates have not been discussed in recent weeks, figures from safety center discussions earlier in the year set the costs at between $8 million and $18 million.

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