Main Street Plaza Round Rock, Texas a Family Entertainment Destination

By Brent Baker, ASLA, CLARB, Managing Principal, studio16:19, and David Buzzell, ASLA, CLARB, Park Development Manager, Round Rock Parks & Recreation Department

Two-inch wide Lumenfacade RGB LEDs (by Lumenpulse) wash the walls of the Nelson Building in a rainbow of colors as seen from atop the city-parking garage during the grand opening festivities for the Main Street Plaza in Round Rock, Texas.

The Round Rock, Texas downtown master plan was approved by the city council on June 24, 2010. During the parks and recreation master plan work, the number two priority identified by Round Rock residents was the development of three downtown plaza parks, each with their own theme and programmed spaces, with minimal overlapping offerings and connected with pedestrian-friendly streetscapes.

The LED light bars by the protective concrete curbs illuminate Larry Hullum?EUR??,,????'???s screen art panels. The horizontal, low-profile design of the lighting makes it easy to conceal and integrate into architectural fa??? 1/4 ades.

Municipal Office Complex (MOC) Plaza
The plaza will be a development off the green space behind the McConico Building and next to the Baca Center. The focus for this plaza is for community events, to host musical performances, street festivals and theater events in connection with the existing amphitheater, plus have the flexibility for daily use.

Downtown Green Plaza
This plaza is to be a development off the town green space near the iconic Round Rock Water Tower on Round Rock Avenue. This project would become the new town green, as Round Rock does not have this type of space in the downtown district.

A 1?EUR??,,????'??? x 4?EUR??,,????'??? steel sleeve in the plaza accommodates the annual Christmas tree. Tivoli lights are part of that celebration. LED light pucks (far left) are tucked under the limestone caps of the seat walls. Wider than usual capstones were required to place the lights and keep them away from view. About 125 l.f. of LED light pucks were used in the same manner around the plaza.
Photo: Oscar Amos

Main Street Plaza
In the fall of 2010, with the master plan in place, Round Rock?EUR??,,????'???s parks development team conducted open house meetings with residents and business leaders to gather input on the design and concepts for Main Street Plaza. The result was a ?EUR??,,????'??family focus with flexibility?EUR??,,????'?? theme within a relatively small 14,000 sq. ft. space that could host a variety of small to medium-size events. The plaza, directly across the street from the public library, would be the entrance to the Round Rock City Hall. The plaza needed to reflect the community?EUR??,,????'???s rich cultural and social diversity, and have a welcoming, family-friendly atmosphere with active spaces and amenities to draw people to it.

Once the dreams, ideas, and desires from the community were gathered and processed, the design teams for all three plaza parks descended on the Community Room at the Baca Center to develop the concepts and preliminary designs. There were three separate landscape architecture firms, plus a city park development staff totaling nine landscape architects.

City staff and the design consultants spent the day and evening drawing multiple ideas and design concepts for the three plazas, while the residents and local business owners sat at tables with design professionals to help them implement their ideas. Once the evening was complete, the design teams presented proposed design concepts in a jury-style format to gather feedback that was ultimately incorporated into the development of final design drawings presented to the Round Rock City Council.

The design team created special concrete curbs to help protect the Lumenfacade LED light bars from vandalism. Other site lighting measures included covering conduit with gravel beds, placing frequent utility boxes to hide LED controllers and relay switches, and placing light conduits inside the structural columns.

Main Street Plaza Realized
The first completed step in the revitalization of the downtown came on September of 2011 with the opening of Main Street Plaza. The resulting design for Main Street Plaza was just as the theme and program opportunities prescribed. The plaza is a multifunctional arts and entertainment destination with limited preprogrammed space. It was developed for a family-friendly audience based on the city?EUR??,,????'???s three credos: purpose, passion and prosperity.

Purpose is illustrated in the future Phase II Kugel Ball compass feature that will include a four-foot granite sphere to give the space an interactive art element. The Kugel ball will be lit, with a soft glow for the seat wall component.

Passion is illustrated by the almost 1,000 sq. ft. interactive water feature that is motion-activated. By day, the space is covered with a custom kit-of-parts shade structure, with an artistic quality that provides refuge from the central Texas sun. By night, the inground can lights shine bright on the streams of water.

Integral-colored concrete (L.M. Scofield) patterns the ground. The flexibility of the plaza spaces allows for viewing of events or performances from a variety of angles, with sitting opportunities on the Bermudagrass berm and grass lounge areas on either side of the plaza hardscape, or on the limestone capped seat walls. The shade structures (KoolSpot Shade) and an interactive water feature are welcomed additions to the plaza during the hot Texas summers.

Prosperity comes from the council ring-like limestone-seating wall near the entrance, which glows with under-the-cap light strips. Here truths and wisdom from one generation to the next are passed. This space is also the home for the city?EUR??,,????'???s annual Christmas tree with a 12?EUR??,,????'?? x 4?EUR??,,????'??? steel sleeve to receive the yule tree trunk.The plaza has an interactive water feature, public art, an attractive native and adaptive landscape, festival area spaces and welcoming green spaces that lead to City Hall and the Art?EUR??,,????'???s Council/ArtSpace offices.Unique night lighting and imaginative play elements draw families and provide entertainment for children. There are educational opportunities and space for outdoor learning. Events space accommodates a wide variety of smaller performances and events. There are permanent and temporary artistic displays. There?EUR??,,????'???s connectivity between municipal facilities and the parking garage.

Integral-colored concrete patterns the ground plain, with a grass berm and grass lounge areas on either side of the plaza hardscape. A state-of-the-art multifunctional lighting system provides projection of light on the historic structures surrounding the plaza, and there are custom art screen panels.

This close up shows one of the limestone art pieces affixed to the art panels in the Round Rock Main Plaza.

Challenges in Implementing Lighting
A thorough survey was made on the underground utilities for this redevelopment site, which looked like a giant bowl of spaghetti. Still, there were multiple surprises during the construction as to the depth and location of some of the lines. The design team and the contractor were joined at the hip from day one of construction to ensure city services remained operational throughout the construction. The design team and contractor had to be flexible and creative in rerouting large amounts of conduit and infrastructure.

While the Kugel ball element must wait for future funding, the base bid called for all the conduit and connections to be in place, obviating the need to construct, remove or repair existing materials when the ball eventually is placed. So although none of the Kugel ball lighting components were installed in phase one, the design team had to ensure a complete functioning system. Also, there were extra conduit runs placed to accommodate future technology and plaza needs. The electrical contractor used a detailed labeling system to keep all this straight, so that future expansion or modifications won?EUR??,,????'???t be so onerous.

Existing & Historic Buildings
The Lumen Pulse light bars were designed to wash the walls of the historic Nelson Building, and the parking garages. The result is impressive, but many trial and error placement dry runs at night had to be performed because of the limestone fa??? 1/4 ade?EUR??,,????'???s rough texture that covered the 1900 constructed building, as well as the 1980?EUR??,,????'???s parking garage built to match the Nelson.

Lighting and Public Facilities
One of the constant and forefront considerations in every lighting design is how ?EUR??,,????'??bullet proof?EUR??,,????'?? it is, and to keep the conduits and needed mechanical pieces out of public view and away from curious eyes. The design team had to be innovative by creating special concrete curbs to protect the Lumen Pulse light bars, cover conduit with gravel beds so they did not remain exposed, providing frequent utility boxes to hide LED controllers and relay switches, specify thicker than usual limestone seat caps to accommodate for the light pucks to fit up and under the lip away from view and hide light conduits inside the structural columns.

Mechanical Room
How big does the mechanical building really room need to be? Although the layout on paper provided for the proper spacing, once the units arrived on site, it was like a giant puzzle to figure out the maze of conduits and gutter boxes to handle and contain all the wires, conduit, and additional mechanical equipment needed to provide power to a system of this complexity.

Plantings
The plant palette for the Main Street Plaza was a drought resistant and native landscape in a central Texas vernacular. With the severe drought and the extreme summer heat during the planting, the city would not bend their own rules on stage III water restrictions for the establishment of the proposed landscape. The beds were constructed and drip irrigation installed, with shredded mulch from the city?EUR??,,????'???s own Brush Recycling Center applied to cover the future bed areas. The landscape is scheduled for installation later in spring 2012, now that the region has experienced some ?EUR??,,????'??catch-up?EUR??,,????'?? in its local reservoirs.