 |
|
|
|
|
Glen asked to help visualize a citizen plan for City Hall
Civic Center design team to hold a March 8 meeting
By Cecily Barnes
The year is 2005. Y2K has long since raged through Silicon Valley, and its wrath has been patched and repaired. All computers now have rounded corners. Microsoft has been broken up, and San Jose's impressive, new civic center stands finished. A proud San Josean is writing a letter to her aunt in New York, bragging about her home town's new city hall. What nifty and impressive attractions does she crow about?
A lush picnic spot with sandbox? A sleek four-story escalator? A large color map of the city?
Rather than just fantasize, Willow Glen residents can help design their new city hall at an upcoming community meeting, to be held March 8 at Willow Glen High School. The city of San Jose's design team and architect Richard Meier will be at the meeting, eager to fill their notebooks with people's wishes and visions.
"This is [residents'] chance to tell the design team and the city staff working on the project, what they envision for a civic center, what City Hall means to them, how they use or don't use it as members of the community and what conceptually they would like to see," said Michelle McGurk, chief aide for Councilman Frank Fiscalini, chairman of the Civic Center Complex Relocation Task Force.
WGNA president Kris Cunningham, who sits on the Civic Center Relocation Task Force, says this is the first step in the design process.
"The architect, Richard Meier, wants to hear from the people before he goes to the drawing board," McGurk says. "It's important to us to get people involved before [Meier] starts to design. Than he'll come back with several suggested designs, and ask people again which of these do they like."
City Hall's new location has already been chosen, and was approved by the City Council on Sept. 22, 1998. The 4.6 acre project will stretch down Santa Clara Street for two blocks between 4th and 6th, and will include offices, council chambers, two parking structures and a reserve parcel for future expansion.
To make the most of the bulldozing and construction menace, a new symphony hall, church, school and possibly a supermarket will be built at the same time.
When the City Council approved the project location and the employment of Richard Meier & Partners, the condition stood that Meier would hold a series of community meetings with stakeholders, city staff and San Jose residents before beginning the conceptual design work.
According to McGurk, Meier will likely begin the meeting with a presentation of the other buildings that he has designed over the years. Attendees will then be broken into smaller groups and asked a series of questions to help the designers incorporate the community's suggestions.
According to McGurk, one of the questions goes something like this: "Let's say you're a resident of San Jose and the new civic center has been built and you're writing a letter to a friend in another state. What would you want to tell the friend about?"
The meeting will be held at Willow Glen High at 7 p.m. March 8 in the cafeteria.
|
|
|
|
Willow Glen, California Since 1992
