Lake Elsinore Civic Center Design Competition

The City of Lake Elsinore is seeking architects and related design professionals to register their interest in the Lake Elsinore Civic Center Design Competition. The City has completed the Competition Brief and it will be available on the Competition website on May 1, 2007. For more information, and to register, please visit http://www.lakeelsinore.org/designcompetition.asp

On February 22, 2007, the City Council of the City of Lake Elsinore announced their support for a design competition to solicit ideas for the development of a new civic center, which could include a new city hall, council chambers, post office, public library, business incubator, and other government offices or mixed uses in a campus setting.

The City Council selected two sites to further explore in the design competition. While the two sites differ in size and surrounding environment, they both possess the opportunity to honor Lake Elsinore’s historic roots, catalyze development throughout the City’s historic downtown area, present a model for Lake Elsinore’s future development, and provide a source of pride and inspiration for all Elsinoreans.

The City of Lake Elsinore is inviting teams of architects and other design professionals to submit design proposals for the civic center development on both of the two proposed sites. Design professionals will have the opportunity to elucidate the strengths, and weaknesses, of the two different, but promising, locations.

A well-balanced jury has been proposed to judge submissions and select the winning design in a two-stage competition. The Competition Jury includes prominent architects and academics, design/land use professionals (William Fain, FAIA, Principal, Johnson Fain, Los Angeles, CA; James Mary O’Connor, AIA, Principal, Moore Ruble Yudell, Santa Monica, CA; Ming Fung, AIA, Principal, Hodgetts + Fung, Culver City, CA; Teddy Cruz (alternate), Estudio Teddy Cruz, San Diego, CA; and Carl Johnson, Engineer/President, NEAR-CAL Corp.), a City Council member, the chair of the Redevelopment Agency, and a community representative (selected by application).

To register and check for more information about the design competition, please check the regularly updated website at http://www.lakeelsinore.org/designcompetition.asp

Background Information:
The City of Lake Elsinore is a General Law city founded in 1883, and incorporated on April 23, 1888 in San Diego County. In 1893 the Elsinore Valley, previously in San Diego County, became a part of the new County of Riverside. Presently, the city is one of twenty-four cities in Riverside County and one of the oldest cities in California. Similar to most cities, the city is led by a five-member City Council, which appoints the City Manager and City Attorney. The city encompasses approximately thirty-nine square miles, with over ten miles of lakeshore. The city is located approximately seventy miles southeast of Los Angeles and seventy-five miles north of San Diego.

The City of Lake Elsinore’s first and only City Hall was constructed in 1934 with the initiative of local residents and a grant from the federal government. With various expansions and renovations over the decades, the existing City Hall has withstood the turbulences of nearly three quarters of a century. Given the City’s track record, it is expected that the next City Hall will establish itself as a longstanding symbol of the City’s hope for the future and a monument of its remarkable past.

The Need for a New Civic Center:
With a population that has grown by an average of 6.5% a year since 2000 for a total growth of 45% over the last seven years, the City has outgrown many of its existing public facilities. A new and larger civic center located in the historic downtown area will increase efficiency in city hall, provide additional jobs, and enable the city to provide more services to the public. By strategically locating the City’s civic center development downtown, the project is expected to give impetus to the broader economic development of the downtown corridor from Interstate 15 to the lake. The new civic center will be the first large scale development in the downtown area in nearly a decade, but will be designed to preserve the historic culture and architecture of downtown. Acting as a trailblazer and model for new developments in historic downtown, the civic center will showcase the latest in green-building technologies, sustainable development practices, and historical preservation standards.

According to a recent space needs analysis, City Hall is currently 11,000 square feet short of meeting current needs, and 29,000 square feet short of projected needs. The local library, which was built about a decade ago, is currently over 20,000 square feet short of meeting typical library space standards of 0.6 square feet per capita. The local post office is in need of an additional 3,900 square feet of space at a minimum. Evidently, the City’s public facilities are in need of expansion and the downtown area is in need of revitalization.

The business incubator proposed to be included in the project would help increase jobs, entrepreneurial business, and economic activity in the economically depressed region where over 15% of families fall below the poverty line; in fact, nearly 30% of people within downtown’s census tract are below the federal poverty level. People in the tract commute an average of 37 minutes to work, further demonstrating the need for additional business in the area. The business incubator would support businesses as part of a cluster-based economic development strategy to build a distinct local economic infrastructure with a positive regional impact. The business incubator could also empower traditionally underrepresented entrepreneurs by providing them with access to facilities with below market rate rents, and training, professional services, and equipment free of charge.

The new civic center will promote sustainable, responsible, and directed growth that will benefit the people of the City of Lake Elsinore and the region as a whole. The project will provide more jobs and opportunities for residents, while preserving and capitalizing on the natural beauty, diverse culture, and historic assets of the community.

Why a Design Competition?:
The City Council envisioned a design competition in order to promote public involvement in the design of a public facility. Additionally, the City hopes to engage the design community in a unique project with the potential to become a lasting symbol for an entire City and a testament of things to come.

Budget Framework:
Conservative staff estimates project the total cost of the entire civic center campus development project, including all buildings and onsite and offsite improvements, contingency, site prep, land purchase, relocation, demolition, and all other aspects of the project at no more than $80 million, but it is expected that creative design professionals would be able to design an outstanding civic center and campus setting for much less. City Council has set aside $700,000 for the project at this time and future funding will be provided by a combination of potential sources, including a future bond allocation, New Markets Tax Credits, the City’s General Fund, impact fees, other government contributions, and any other grants or contributions available from external funding sources.

Competition Brief:
The City has completed the Competition Brief and will release it on May 1, 2007. The competition brief includes additional information on the guiding principles for the design of the new civic center campus and the design competition, the competition process, submission requirements, site information and studies, design guidelines, assessment criteria, rules, and other relevant information.

Competition Process:
The competition is structured as a two-stage process:
• Stage I is composed of a Stage I.a pre-screening and a Stage 1.b conceptual design. In Stage I.a, all eligible professionals are invited to submit a statement of experience and qualifications by May 30, 2007.

• Entrants selected to compete in Stage I.b will be required to submit a maximum of two boards for one of the two sites selected for this Design Competition; the entrants should submit a picture of a massing model/computer model, site plan, and a narrative description for the other site. Selected professionals will submit their conceptual designs by July 5, 2007.

• After public exhibit of the Stage I.b submissions, the Competition Jury will select a short-list of not more than three submissions to proceed to Stage II. An announcement of the short-listed design teams is planned for July 17, 2007. The City Council will consider selecting one of the two sites for Stage II, depending on the results of the Stage I conceptual design submissions and public input.

• In July, 2007, the selected competitors will begin preparing detailed design submissions that must be submitted by September 4, 2007, followed by a presentation and public exhibition of final submissions.

• Final design submissions will then be evaluated by the Competition Jury in September 2007 to select the winning design submission and team.

• The City Council will confirm a winning submission and team, as well as announce the runners-up, in September, 2007.

Eligibility:
Stage I of the competition is open to all design professionals with offices located in the United States of America, including professional architects, landscape architects, urban planners, and engineers who register with the competition and meet one of the following requirements:

• are registered or accredited by a formal registration or accreditation body in one of the above disciplines in the entrant’s country of origin; or

• where registration and accreditation are not available in a particular jurisdiction, the entrant is a member of the relevant professional institute in their country of origin.

All entering teams are required to provide evidence of relevant professional registration, accreditation, or membership with their Stage I.a prescreening submittal. Where an entry is made by a joint venture, consortium, or team of professionals, the team must be led by a person meeting the above criteria. This team member must be identified in the submittal as the team leader. The formation of multi-disciplinary teams comprised of specialists in a variety of relevant areas is encouraged. Stage I.a’s statements of experience and qualifications will be evaluated by the City to ensure the entrants’ understanding of the design challenge and capability to provide a practical and innovative design solution. There is no minimum or maximum amount of teams permitted to move forward to Stage I.b. Rather than charge a registration fee, Stage I.a serves mainly to screen out teams who are not committed to the process.

Students and recent graduates are able to work on the multi-disciplinary teams mentioned above, so long as they do so with a team that meets one of the aforementioned eligibility requirements.

In order to be eligible for Stage I.b of the Lake Elsinore Civic Center Design Competition, the qualifications of the teams must include experience and training demonstrating their ability to design for medium to large-scale projects. Although past project experiences need not be near the size of this particular project, due to the size, restraints, and complexity of this design, it is imperative that the teams selected to submit conceptual designs in Stage I.b have experience and training with other projects that demonstrate the team’s capability to meet the needs of this project within budget and schedule.

In order to be eligible for Stage II of the Design Competition, all of the short-listed teams must include at least one member registered in good standing with the California Architect’s Board. This condition does not apply to submissions to Stage I, but competitors who are short-listed must add these members to the team, prior to the commencement of Stage II. Stage II competitors will also be required to include an independent construction cost consultant on the team.

City of Lake Elsinore employees, Lake Elsinore Redevelopment Agency employees, Redevelopment Committee members, the competition advisors, competition jurors and employees of the above are precluded from entering the competition. Technical advisors and consultants who have been engaged in the preparation of the competition or during the competition period are ineligible to enter the competition or to assist an entrant. Any person, who, in the opinion of the competition manager, would have an unfair advantage through access to information concerning the competition, may be declared by the competition manager to be ineligible to enter the competition.