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Tuesday night the Wake Forest
commissioners chose the alternate plan
for the future town hall which saves two
landmark trees and saves $347,500 in
construction cost. On the other side of
the ledger, there are 27 fewer parking
spaces in the alternate plan and the
town green between the new town hall and
H.L. Miller Park may be reduced by two
acres.
Earlier this year architects
Steven L. Hawley and Renee Scott with
Little Diversified Architectural
Consulting in Durham presented a site
plan showing a two-level parking garage
next to the new town hall. The garage
would be about where the Green & Wooten
Insurance Company office has been on
Brooks Street and would have required
removing two specimen willow oaks. (The
office building still stands, and the
Wake Forest Police Department has used
it several times for training.)
The commissioners were very
concerned about losing the trees and
about other features including building
materials trucked in from other parts of
the nation and an irrigation system.
The alternate plan deletes
the parking structure but adds angled
parking along the future Taylor Street
behind town hall and adds 33 parking
spaces next to Miller Park. That parking
area will be about where the present
town hall stands – the plan calls for it
to be demolished – and its parking lot.
The new parking lot will be regarded and
reconfigured.
“Do you want to save those
trees or not?” Town Manager Mark
Williams asked. The board needed to
decide, he said, before the architects
send the site plan on to the planning
department for review and comment. “We
do not want to have the site plan come
to you and you say we want to save those
trees.”
It will save more than a
quarter of million, Commissioner Frank
Drake said, and the other four
commissioners agreed with him on the
alternate plan.
The current schedule is to
have the site plan ready for planning
board and town board review in
September.
Hawley recently responded to
a question about energy efficiency and
water conservation measures in the
building.
“We had initially suggested
there would be 10 to 20 percent savings
in energy use and about a 20 percent
reduction in water use. We are currently
examining additional methods to increase
savings in both of these areas,” Hawley
wrote.
Those measures include:
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Water efficient (Energy Star)
plumbing fixtures
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A rainwater collection system for
reuse in a drip irrigation system
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Day-lighting strategies
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An under-floor air distribution
system
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An efficient mechanical system
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The use of local materials, those
manufactured or harvested within 500
miles of Wake Forest
The reduction of indoor air contaminants
by using low-VOC content in paints,
carpets, adhesives and other furnishings |
