Preliminary Concept Plan
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April 8, 2021
Community Zoom Meeting Recording
After four months of community feedback and idea generation that exceeded 2,500+ people through online surveys, one-on-one meetings, community Zoom conversations, The Jones Center and CIVITAS recently presented the draft of the preferred plan for The Jones Center Campus!
How BOLD?
The Design Alternatives gave the community a chance to tell us how bold and transformative the Campus Vision should be. Each of the designs created an active and vibrant center, while showing different changes to the existing facilities and features throughout the Jones Center Campus. The question was “How BOLD do you want to be?”
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A. The Living Room
The Living Room design focuses on changes around the center of the Jones Center Campus just west of the main building. A central lawn is surrounded by a variety of flexible spaces, and large community gathering areas, such as shade pavilions and flexible plazas. The campus becomes better connected by adding a walk-friendly plaza space between the Education Building and Center for Nonprofits, creating a direct connection to Emma Avenue, Luther George Park, and Downtown Springdale. To the east of the main building, the parking and existing spaces remain, with new features added to the main entry landscape to create an enhanced arrival area.
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B. The Quad
The Quad Design adds the possibility of relocating some existing facilities and their users (Camp War Eagle and a Senior Center) into the campus in a new building adjacent to the main central lawn. This design also explores the addition of a sustainable rain garden landscape to enable the campus to treat the stormwater collected from the parking lots and enhance the overall environmental benefits of the Campus. To the east of the main building, additional parking has been added closer to the front entry of The Jones Center, where the southern wing of the building would house expanded recreational facilities, plus adding some indoor-outdoor recreation areas with a new fitness loop and flexible soccer fields at the northeast edge of the campus.
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C. The Hub
The most bold of all three designs, The Hub explores similar features to The Quad design, plus relocated facilities west of the main building, while east of the main building the deign proposes a complete transformation. By relocating all of the parking to the north along Huntsville Avenue, this design introduces new community gathering spaces to the south of the main entry and a larger action sports facility with a large skate park, dirt bike track, a new shade pavilion, and restroom to serve the many current and future users of the action sports area along the eastern edge.
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Programming Comparison
As the designs offered increasingly bold transformations, they allowed a wider variety of potential park programs and uses to be introduced. The enhanced amenities and expanded programming would draw more users, and increase the overall cost of the project, which could mean breaking the project into phases that are completed as funds become available.
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