BRW Architects faced a huge challenge when it received the contract to design and build a public safety facility for Lewisville, Texas, but it managed to rise to the occasion.
The Tittle McFadden Public Safety Center includes the city’s fire administration, Central Fire Station No. 1, Emergency Operations Center (EOC), 911 dispatch, police station, property and evidence storage, a crime lab, integrated training facilities, and a new parking garage.
The dayroom has stadium-style seating.
Stephen Hilt, principal at BRW Architects, says Lewisville’s municipal campus site includes a recreation center, municipal library, courts and municipal offices annex building, and a jail, all of which BRW kept operational during construction of the public safety center. He says the new 103,900-square-foot building includes 7,600 square feet for fire administration, 22,465 square feet for Central Fire Station No. 1, 11,000 square feet for training and the EOC, an area that also comprises the overall facility’s shared tornado shelter, and a 1,200-square-foot physical training room.
“The fire administration and police also share the facility’s main breakroom, a second floor patio, and an outdoor courtyard with seating and outdoor cooking,” he says. In addition, a 20,000-square-foot support building includes quartermaster and resources storage shared by fire and police, a 170,000-square-foot parking garage for large and special use vehicles for fire and police on the first level, and a total of 355 parking spaces on five levels.
One of the locker areas in the new firehouse.
Chief Mark McNeal says the new station area “feels like a firehouse even though it’s connected to the public safety building. We wanted a separate space for the fire department, and built enough space into the structure to be able to grow and add on in the future without doing much remodeling.”
McNeal points out, “One of the highlights of the fire station is the kitchen/dining/dayroom area that’s one very