City Centre Opportunity Site – South (the area in and around the former police station and NHS site)

The City Centre Opportunity Site South architectural public competition was a great success. All three new designs were regarded by both the Project Team, and interested St. Albans District community and city groups, as considerably improved than the planning application that was withdrawn last November.

The Project team are pleased to announce that Design 2 was the successful design, following the public consultation.

Results

Please find two documents which provide evidence of the results.

Document 1 shows the results from Survey Monkey. In addition to providing a preference, the comments received, and collated on Survey Monkey, will be considered by SADC in the next stage of the design process, when producing the Planning Application documentation.

Document 2 is the evaluation sheet that the Project Team used to assess the submissions to reach a decision on the winning design.

Summary of Comments on Survey Monkey
Design 1
Design 1
Pros	Cons
Modern, interesting, good quality, exciting development, reflects classic style of the Town Hall. Light, airy buildings and open design.	Design does not fit in with St Albans, too blocky, too glass heavy and not inspirational.
Design 2
Design 2
Pros	Cons
Modern approach with a strong building identity and soft edges throughout. Most sympathetic out of 3 designs. Use of curves softens massing effect of the block. Variety of shapes and treatments in public spaces. Use of Greenery is a great positive.	Design does not fit in with St Albans, too blocky. Concerns over maintenance of green walls.
Design 3
Design 3
Pros	Cons
Well suited for St Albans, design is sympathetic to existing surrounding buildings.	Design has a factory feel, pavilion seems an odd design.
General comments
General comments
Appreciate engagement of public. Quakers need to be respected. Exciting and important addition to STA. The scheme needs to be accessible for all, as few steps as possible throughout. Landscaping and greening of scheme is important. Much improved designs compared to previous designs.

St Albans City and District Council would like to thank the architects that took the time to produce the designs for this competition, and also to all those that took park in the consultation.

Old Information

Design 1

Design 2

Design 3

Update to architects presentation & cancellation of presentation evening Wednesday 25th March 2020

In light of the guidance given by Central Government, it has been decided to change the format of the final presentations to be given by the architectural firms from a physical meeting in the chamber to a virtual presentation.

The architects are currently preparing a presentation, accompanied by a written narrative, which we hope to have uploaded to the CCOS South Design Competition webpage by 5:30pm on Tuesday 24th March.

Questions on the schemes will need to be submitted by e-mail to the following address CCOSSouth@stalbans.gov.uk, by noon Thursday 26th March. The project team will be forwarding these onto the architects for a response, both questions and responses will be uploaded to the website by the end of Friday 27th March.

In light of the new arrangements, the public consultation has been extended slightly and will now close at 1pm on Tuesday 31st March.

Whilst these arrangements are not a direct substitute for a more normal presentation, we trust that you understand the need to complete the final element of this consultation process in this way.

Presentations by Architects

Questions for Architects

Once you have viewed the presentations above, please submit any questions you may have to CCOSSouth@stalbans.gov.uk, by noon Thursday 26th March 2020.

These questions will be forwarded to the architects for their responses.

Both the questions and responses will be uploaded to this page by the end of Friday 27th March 2020.

Architects Questions and Answers Document

To view the document please click here