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Design team, owners' rep gather Urbandale residents to shape $50 million public-safety facility
Summary
OPN Architects and DCI Group led a community visioning workshop in Urbandale to prioritize design goals for a proposed $50,000,000 public-safety facility; attendees prioritized community integration, flexibility, staff wellness and economy, while raising safety concerns about large amounts of exterior glass and a too-small lobby.
Designers from OPN Architects and owners' representative DCI Group led a community visioning session in Urbandale to gather priorities for a proposed public-safety facility that the city has targeted at $50,000,000.
"The entire point of visioning for us is really just to establish project guiding principles," said Danielle Herman, principal with OPN Architects, as she described the team's plan to use interactive tools and a dot exercise to surface community priorities. The session introduced a design-excellence framework pared to five priority buckets for public-safety projects: community integration, flexibility for future change, wellness, economy and energy/integration.
Participants moved through images of exterior and interior design options, placing red or green dots to signal dislike or preference. Several attendees flagged the current lobby as too small and urged a larger, more welcoming public entry. One participant who spoke about façade materials warned about heavy exterior glazing: "I have a lot of glass because of the threats that could potentially... it does cost people's minds," a comment reflecting concern that large glass expanses might create vulnerabilities for some police operations (attributed to the participant identified in the transcript as an architect/agency staff role).
Attendees also prioritized sustainability elements such as green roofs and solar installations on some images; others preferred façades with depth and varied materials that provide a strong street presence without feeling overly industrial. On interior programming, participants supported multiuse public-facing space that could host trainings or small community events, staff wellness amenities such as daylighted work areas and fitness space, and confidential "soft interview" rooms for family interviews.
Project staff described the near-term schedule and budget process: the team plans an initial budget-check exercise in late April or early May, expects more developed renderings and a vetted floor plan by June, and intends to produce a final budget by August or September to support bond issuance. "Knowing that it's $50,000,000 is what has been approved, we'll make sure we're on a path that gets us there," the meeting moderator said.
Design and site issues remain under development: staff and the designers said they are continuing block-diagramming, refining adjacencies (patrol, investigations, garage and public circulation), and evaluating setbacks identified by community development. The team said weekly coordination with staff will continue and the broader group will reconvene with visuals and budget updates in the summer.
The workshop produced clear community direction on several priorities—community-facing design, flexibility, wellness and energy performance—while highlighting specific concerns (lobby size and exterior glazing) that the design team said it will address in upcoming iterations.
