Let me offer some perspective from the other side of the table.

Earlier in my career, before I gravitated to residential design, I worked on many churches and synagogues. They all involved a building committee and of course within those, many types of personalities, most of which are mirrored on this very forum. Some let the architect be the architect and for others, the architect is the permit drafter, creativity aside.

To be honest, the words "My vision is...." and "explain my vision...." might very well be limiting in the long run. I know, because I've been there and seen it happen. I'm not saying your vision is not valid or at least a valid consideration (I actually like "simple building inspired by Texas farmhouses") but it's a slippery slope from that to a "this is it" approach to the exclusion of everything else. As I've already noted, we've all seen it on this forum and I've seen it happen on building committees, especially if the "vision" is one of a dominate personality.

I know you're a regular here and you've probably read this but I'll post it again. It's about, leaps of faith and trust when hiring an architect:

"A good architect, when given the chance, will provide a design that can give a client everything they want, but often in ways completely unexpected. But for that to happen it takes a critical element necessary on the part of the client in every successful project and that element is trust.

Often during our initial meeting, the client will reveal their ability or inability to trust others. If I feel the element of trust is not there they will likely be referred to a permit drafter. A creative person should explore other approaches with you in the spirit of "That's great but have you thought of this.......". But for that to be carried forward successfully it takes a trusting client to not only allow the architect to expand on alternative ideas but to objectively look at other approaches in a collaborative effort with the architect. And that's an intangible that all successful projects are born out of.

Just be ready to expect any preconceived ideas to be questioned. They may in fact turn out to be perfectly valid but at least they've been evaluated against alternates as any good architect should do.

Finally, regarding preconceived ideas, I've quoted on this board before these two quotes by two creative people.....

Henry Ford observed "If I had asked people what they wanted they would have told me "A faster horse".

And Steve Jobs mused “A lot of times, people don't know what they want until you show it to them. Everyone wanted an iPhone when they first appeared, but no one could have described what they wanted before seeing one".

So put trust in your architect to carry you through the process in the spirit of Mr. Ford and Mr. Jobs and you'll have a home that is the very best."

I would suggest talking to three architects who have done local civic buildings, hire one and then put trust in that person to get the town to where it wants to be.

I would also suggest you have a design session involving the entire building committee (not the whole town) akin to the charrette format I've described endlessly here.

Good luck with the project. You are to be commended for wanting to contribute. Sounds exciting!

That's a lot of building for three million dollars. Particularly jails and fire houses have very, very specialized needs that are best left to those specific design individuals, so there's going to be a lot of people involved. And don't forget all the federal and state compliance issues. I wish you luck; my first thought (were I on the committee), would be that as a former residential builder, I'd know I'm in over my head, and then try to find some kind of consultant to lead the whole process.

I had the same thought as Ichabod Crane, i.e., there's a lot of functional and highly technical, building code related requirements for a single building with so many diverse (and often separated) functions. A project like this has a wide variety of competing clients: mayor, city manager, police chief, fire chief, local newspaper editor, strong minded and willed citizens like yourself, etc. It's going to take a very participative process guided by a very experience hand, who has gone through similar previous projects, to identify and blend together all of the needs and wants of these folks, plus the ingredients required by the building code.

For success, the process probably cannot be a "I think"..."My scheme"..."My vision" approach, but rather a "we think"..."Our scheme"..."Our vision" approach. The challenge with such a participatory approach is to avoid the "designed by committee" result. This is where an experienced leader and design professional are needed. A $3MM budget is pretty minimal for such a process and building, IMO. It probably means a very straight forward economical approach.

Hope it works out successfully.

There should be a an architect selection committee as well as a design review committee and you should try to get on those committees. That effort might involve the city planner if there is one.

Thanks for the input. I'll try to address all of the concerns/advice if possible.

Cost:

I agree that there's a very good chance that it will cost more than the bond package. The mayor had an opportunity to finance the bond and refinance the small amount of debt the city has at 2% before the rate goes up on the debt we already have by several percentage points. Since the city council was able to work the budget to finance both debts without raising taxes they took advantage of the opportunity. Ordinarily I would not be in favor of this since I'm very cautious but previous mayors have tried to do something about the city hall without success because of the old timers who hate change and the possibility of raising our insanely low tax rate. By doing this she's forced the issue which I applaud.

Architect:

I agree that an architect is not a draftsman and should not be hamstrung creatively. I am concerned about the city hall fitting in with the town though. The current mayor has floated a potential rendering that's horribly ill suited to our modest town and a previous mayor hired an architect to come up with plans that would be super cheap but would leave us with one that looks like a cheaply built strip mall. I thought that already having ideas might help prevent either travesty.

My town

It's hard to imagine how small my town really is. We are so small that our DPS chief is in charge of fire and police. We have only 2 fire trucks. If we have a fire that requires more (very rarely happens) we have to call out the fire departments from the surrounding towns to help out. Our city manager scans in all of the permit applications. We don't have a library, city pool or rec center nor will we ever have one. If we wish to have those services our residents pay for membership to the ones at the city that surrounds us. The closest thing our town has to a newspaper is a Xeroxed double sided, single sheet city newsletter mailed to all of the homes once a month. Basically if you want to know what's really going on you join the town's Nextdoor group. There's one for the entire town and it's how we were able to finally organize to boot out our previous corrupt mayor. There isn't a city planner either because there isn't much to plan. We only recently got a gas station within city limits across the street from a gas station located in the big city.

What we do have is civic pride. We are the only town established by Eleanor Roosevelt still in existence and we all love the peace and quiet we enjoy within the heart of a big city. The city surrounding us has tried more than once to annex us and we've successfully fought it each time.

Design Process

As for the design process, it hasn't been decided yet. I suspect that there will be a design committee along with multiple town hall meetings for resident input.

I thought that already having ideas might help prevent either travesty.

What I would suggest then is to take a proactive approach and start researching architects. I wouldn't sit around and wait for events to overtake your concerns. And, as a concerned citizen that obviously cares about your town you have every right to do so. You don't need anybody's permission to makes some calls to architects. Otherwise it might be "We're in a hurry, so in the interest of time we hired the guy who did this rendering".

You can't hire anybody of course but you can make some calls, looks at portfolios, go to their office and meet with them, etc. so when the time comes to select an architect you have a list of design oriented candidates ready for any committee to review and you can say "It won't take any more time. Here's two architects I know are willing to meet with us." even though you actually met them just a month before!

The right architect will be the point person in preventing a travesty from being built. Start focusing on getting a list of candidates today.

No matter how well you define the problem, the final design will be the outcome of a series of interlocking committees and agency meetings. The product will necessarily be a compromise-- dozens, if not hundreds, of people will have input.

In my experience, you want to hire a consensus building leader, somebody who can herd cats effectively, somebody who can control his ego, and get the major stakeholders to sign off on something halfway decent.

You also want somebody who is very "on time and on budget" oriented. If your budget is 3 million, then get someone who can do that, someone with killer project management skills. A screwed up project, especially if there is even an appearance of corruption or cronyism in the contracting, is incredibly damaging, and lawsuits, or a damaged credit rating, do the town no favors. Of course, there will be controversy and grumbling no matter what you do, so damage control is especially important.

You do not necessarily want a "genius" with a unique vision, if he can't work with the process, or who polarizes the community. Aesthetics can be divisive. Getting into long drawn out quarrels about the public buildings can be incredibly draining, and tends to leave bitterness that shows up in local politics for years afterwards. So first and foremost, find someone with great practical skills on the people management side, as well as decent architectural chops.

Finally, you need to determine whether you might have any personal legal liability if the project goes pear shaped. That sounds paranoid, but depositions and hearings are very stressful, a real time suck, and socially awkward.

A very important question is where is the new Town Hall going to be built?

If you plan on putting it where the existing town hall is currently located you will be without a municipal space for at least a year. Where do you put everyone in the existing Town Hall for that time? Or do you keep the existing building and build next door or in the existing parking lot or somewhere else in town?

These are the kind of questions that need to be addressed first.

I suggest that you start with a small committee and your first priority is to find a consulting firm that does Master Planning, Strategic Planning and Programming before you hire the Architect to do the design. Most Planning firms also have Architects on board who can help you with the Preliminary Design and some wonderful renderings of the potential project. These renderings are great for fundraising events and sales tools for potential grants, etc.

The Master Plan and Strategy will give you a plan for where to build and how to go about it.

The Program is a document that lists everything that will be included in your project as well as all of the influencing factors including zoning and building codes, site influences, etc. This document will also help determine the exact size and requirements for the project and will be useful in doing some preliminary cost estimates.

You should be able to find some very capable firms in the Dallas area who can help. (You are in the Dallas area, right?)

You might start with the local chapter of the American Institute of Architects to see what firms they have as members who fit the requirements.

I believe you. Our small town is about 500 people and there is no jail or police chief. We have a volunteer fire department and a one room town hall. And there's no way we could afford a 3 million dollar bond.

Have you looked at other small town hall buildings? There are several small towns in eastern Washington (larger than our own) with similar needs to your area. I'm sure there are many in Texas, too. I would be more concerned with the layout and structure, before the facade.

Does the plan give the town what then need from the building? Can you house everything in one place? Should the firehouse be in the same building as the jail? I don't know....I'm just asking you some questions you might want to consider.

Also, if you've been almost annexed several times, then you might want to reconsider putting 3 million dollars into a building that may be converted to something else in a few years if annexation happens. Not trying to be the bad guy....I like being a separate town, too. But with the new sewer costs, the aging population in our town and lack of new businesses, we are very close to being annexed into the county.

Since I live just outside of town, I have no say and no ability to be on the town council. The older group, who has resisted any change, have decided to leave for warmer climates in the past few years.

My vision is a simple building inspired by Texas farmhouses with a large covered porch with rocking chairs and maybe even some porch swings.

Sounds like a nice façade for a one room town hall. Can you contract with that metro area to take over police and fire? That would allow you to focus on the farmer's markets and other community events.

And I'm guessing that building would be a lot less than $3,000,000. Does your small town really need that much debt right now? Even if you can sell that much in bonds, what about your expected cost overruns?

These are all excellent questions. I agree that this will be a complicated process but since the town is so small there are fewer competing interests to contend with. Knowing how our town has operated in the past I suspect that the decision making process will be fairly streamlined compared with a much larger city. I do agree that finding someone who can help us make sense of the latest codes is crucial. One of the many problems with the current city hall is that it isn't ADA compliant and making it so would be extremely difficult.

As for land, we have a large amount of empty land behind the current city hall. The hope is that we can build on that land and relocate the DPS vehicles currently parked there but we won't know if that's feasible until we hire an architect and engineer. If we do have to relocate we will unfortunately have to operate outside of the city. Figuring out whether the land we have will work for the new city hall will have to be one of the first steps. If it's won't we'll have to develop a plan B and figure out what that is.

As for annexation, I used to be quite concerned about that but I'm much less concerned about that with our new mayor and aldermen. They are making much smarter and forward thinking decisions than the previous group were making. Before we allowed ourselves to be taken over by the big city I could see us pursuing the merger of our city with a similar city right next door to us. We have wealthier residents than they do but they have a much stronger commercial tax base. They're also more suburban than we are. Despite those differences it would still be a better choice than merging with the larger city.

I can start with the local AIA office but I'm not totally sure what to ask. When I started interviewing builders and architects for the house we hope to build (we can't seem to sell our current house) I felt well prepared for the interviews. I had a general design brief to present and a well research 2 page list of questions to ask. The list was so thorough that some I interviewed asked for copies of it. This time I feel completely at sea. Does anyone have advice regarding what I should ask? I have a few ideas but I feel like I've just scratched the surface. Are there any specific credentials I should look for?

@homebuilder32

I just noticed your post after I wrote my previously lengthy post. I hope you're right about the cost. I chose that style because I felt it reflected the community it would be in and because if it's well designed we could easily add onto it using land we already own and have it still make sense aesthetically and functionally.

As for fire and police, the town has no desire for the larger city to take that over because our town does a much better job than the larger city does. Our fire department's response time is shorter and our crime rate is lower than it is for the surrounding big city neighborhoods. Our DPS monitors local alarm systems for residents and businesses for free which cuts down on response times. Recently, someone was casing homes in our town and the larger city for robbery using camouflaged hunting cameras. When my neighbor spotted one of the cameras he alerted our DPS who alerted the larger city. Even though around the same time a camera was spotted in a tree in the larger city my town's police caught the robber because our town's were much more aggressive in working the case than the larger city's police were. It turns out it was a very large robbery ring with multiple cameras in many neighborhoods in both cities. This is one of the many reasons we are determined to avoid annexation.

As for the amount of debt, our town may not like it but we can handle it. Right now we pay a tax rate that's 50 cents less than the adjoining big city. We wouldn't have to raise the tax rate by a lot to raise a lot of money. MY family and many other families in town aren't wealthy but there are quite a few wealthy residents who have extremely expensive homes. We also have gas revenue that the city has been avoiding using. If the cost overruns we big than it would be much more difficult to afford.

You can start your research by going on line and searching the internet for examples of "Town Hall Request for Proposal"

None of them will be exactly what you need, but they will give you the information that you need to start your own customized RFP ( Request for Proposal ) for your town.

You can also contact two or three of the firms that you find through the AIA to ask them for advice on structuring an RFP. They may charge to help you write one and they may also give you some free advice.....

Once you have an RFP you can ask the AIA office for help in distributing your Request for Proposal.

As a former Texas County Auditor, may I recommend that you consider paying the County to house any City prisoners on a per prisoner/per day basis, it would probably be cheaper in the long run. most small cities (ours was a population of 15,000 in the City and 30,000 in the County) find that having to meet Texas Jail Standard requirements was too costly and it also took up too much valuable space.

Good advice above, I particularly like the formation of an architect selection committee. The right architect will help the process immensely.

I wonder how they came up with the estimated (guessed) cost of the building at about $3,000,000.00?

$3MM divided by $300/SF = 10,000 SF! SWAG factor...old soldiers will know what that means.

I'm curious, now, after seeing all the posts, what you currently have (as in; do you have a jail and a fire hall). The reason I ask is that as soon as you add those functions, you also affect a lot of other things. You jail will have to (as mentioned above), meet certain standards, and that will most certainly include staffing. How will that be paid for? There are several NEW schools here that cost literally millions and millions to build that are empty because things like staffing and maintenance were not accounted for, and the voters won't fund more for them.

It's not just this building, but it's upkeep, staffing, maintenance, etc., that have to be accounted for. And make sure your insurance company is part of these preliminary discussions; as a builder, I've seen people build houses they had trouble insuring because of things like pools or location.

Ichabod,it looks like they already have a jail and fire hall, and maintenance workers -- so I'd expect those functions to continue to be staffed as in the past?

Homebuilder: In the town I am moving to, we have a population of under 600. Our town hall once was a small building now turned into a (rather cramped) senior center, and is now housed in a re-purposed school (as all the kids are now bussed to neighboring towns). The town hall contains a meeting room, a library (of sorts -- one old classroom converted, and *I* own a more extensive library than do they!), all the town function rooms -- a couple might be shared spaces -- and a kitchen re-done with the minimum needed, from the old school cafeteria. Would it be possible to find a building already existing in the town to renovate to fill your needs? (Although at least this school was already ADA for the most part.) PS, I think we lack a jail or holding cell, but I've never had need to ask...

The fire house in my town is a separate building about a mile away -- would your fire house be in the SAME building as your town hall? I haven't seen that arrangement in any of the towns where I have noticed either their fire station or their town hall. Hopefully it already is, so you won't have to build that function in! (You may have mentioned this in a previous post, but there's a lot of info in this thread!)