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Home > Archive > Mar 27, 2008

‘Back to the Future’ for Santa Clara Town Hall
By Matt Brower
The dust is finally settling in historic downtown Santa Clara. What began in January 2005 with reconstruction of the city following the devastating floods, continued with the historic downtown streetscape project, extended into the building of Santa Clara’s Town Hall and covered a total of 42 continuous months of unrelenting construction work is now ending with a grand performance.
On May 16, Santa Clara will dedicate its new Town Hall. Officially known as the Santa Clara Town Hall, it is designed to be a large modern building that embraces its past through meaningful architectural design elements, yet provides for future growth with modern technology and appropriate sizing. It is intended to keep the building relevant to serve the city and its residents for the next 100 years, and its construction brings to a close the largest capital investment campaign in Santa Clara’s history. 
Early in the Town Hall’s design process, project architects Naylor Wentworth and Lund worked closely with city officials on programming the building’s size, which was a product of projecting the city’s growth and forecasting the staffing needs of the city for 10, 20 and 50 years into the future. In addition to meeting the city’s space needs long term, oversizing the building was done to save costs for the long term. 
Santa Clara Town Hall will facilitate the provision of all Santa Clara City services at one location and ensure that our service levels continue to meet our customers’ expectations. Prior to occupation of the new building, the city’s 73 employees and volunteer firefighters have been spread between four different buildings, taking advantage of limited space wherever available. No longer will the provision of services be done from multiple buildings, and no longer will large groups at public meetings have to stand.
In addition to the enhanced service levels, the Town Hall will afford Santa Clara residents and visitors several modern amenities. It contains a large banquet room for hosting small and large events such as receptions, reunions, conferences, seminars, chamber luncheons, and more. The room is situated on the east side of the Town Hall and is adjacent to a new passive park permitting a natural and convenient overflow of events from the banquet room into the beautiful park.
The architecture of the Town Hall was influenced significantly by the two-story Santa Clara schoolhouse that stood in the center of town, serving Santa Clara students for nearly seven decades prior to its demolition in the early 1970s. Those familiar with the old schoolhouse may readily notice some of the design elements incorporated into our new building. The exterior of the old school, for example, was built using a new technique of that era, known as a concrete masonry unit (CMU). A CMU was a concrete block made by pouring concrete into identical molds. By alternating the CMUs as they were put into place for the exterior wall, a random pattern was created using the same molds. The block used on the Town Hall is nearly identical in size to the CMUs used on the old schoolhouse. Other design elements include the spacing and massing of the building’s windows and doors. The building’s rectangle shape and roof pitch are also similar to those previously found on the old schoolhouse building.
Other unique design elements worth mentioning include a cupola that houses four bells or chimes. The cupola is oversized to permit the retrofitting of a glockenspiel sometime in the future. The glockenspiel is not only a unique symbol of the community’s history, but will provide another important economic incentive to attract people to Santa Clara’s historic downtown.
The city has eagerly worked to ensure that downtown Santa Clara retains the small-town charm and magic that it has historically been known for. To this end, the Town Hall building provides another exciting and important landmark for both Santa Clara residents and visitors. If you have not driven through historic downtown Santa Clara lately, please accept my personal invitation to do so soon. You’ll be touched by a sense of nostalgia as you travel back through time.

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