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  • From: "Steve Wright" <swright AT townofchapelhill.org>
  • To: <chpac-staff AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: [Chpac-staff] CHPAC in the news : 9-11-07
  • Date: Tue, 11 Sep 2007 10:04:12 -0400

Dear CHPAC,

 

Linked and printed below are three articles from today' paper about the TOC opening.

 

-Steve

                                                                            

 

- Center combines class, conservation

By Beth Velliquette : The Herald-Sun

CHAPEL HILL -- As transit worker Annie Edwards scurried past a long marble bench outside the new Chapel Hill Transit center, she admitted she had never stopped to sit and relax there.

But she loves the interior of the building, where bus drivers and others have a place to relax, eat and exercise between driving assignments.

http://www.heraldsun.com/orange/10-879922.cfm

 

- Sculpture puzzles bus drivers it honors

One calls the price tag 'a lot excessive'

Jesse James DeConto, Staff Writer

CHAPEL HILL - Bus driver David Demming and his friend John O'Leary stood in front of a bench Monday, pondering its meaning.

Forty feet long, carved from Carrara marble, it sits outside the new Chapel Hill Transit building on Millhouse Road. The bench and a nearby semicircular stone wall inset with bronze models of hand tools cost the town $420,000.

http://www.newsobserver.com/news/story/699912.html

 

- Opening celebrates transit

Town Operations Center is spacious

By: Alex Kowalski, Staff Writer

The dedication and grand opening of the new Chapel Hill Town Operations Center on Millhouse Road took place Monday morning.

Though employees have worked there since July, the ceremony officially marked the opening of the $52 million facility that houses the town's transit system and public works department.

http://media.www.dailytarheel.com/media/storage/paper885/news/2007/09/11/City/Opening.Celebrates.Transit-2960404.shtml

 

 

Herald Sun:

 

Center combines class, conservation

 

By Beth Velliquette, The Herald-Sun

September 10, 2007   10:30 pm

 

CHAPEL HILL -- As transit worker Annie Edwards scurried past a long marble bench outside the new Chapel Hill Transit center, she admitted she had never stopped to sit and relax there.

 

But she loves the interior of the building, where bus drivers and others have a place to relax, eat and exercise between driving assignments.

 

On Monday, the Town of Chapel Hill held a formal dedication of its new Town Operations Center, which includes a new transit center as well as offices and space for other public works offices and equipment.

 

The complex located on Millhouse Road north of Eubanks Road cost $52 million and includes two pieces of public art, including the marble bench and a rock wall with bronze images, that cost a total of $420,000.

 

Edwards said the transit center was a lot roomier than their old facility off of Martin Luther King Jr., Blvd., where everyone was jammed in together.

 

"It's a very nice facility, very nice. We all love the exercise facility," she said. "That's the best thing ever, and we're taking advantage of it because on the bus you just sit and sit and sit and you don't have a chance to do much."

 

The lounge area has a bank of windows that overlooks a covered patio and the woods beyond.

 

During the dedication ceremony, Town Manager Roger Stancil said some features in the building were meant to show respect for the more than 300 employees who work in the transit and public works areas.

 

Down the hallway are a couple of mid-sized rooms that can be used for training sessions, as well as for community meetings, and beyond that is the cavernous bus maintenance area, which has natural light from windows in the roof and garage doors.

 

The building is designed to take advantage of natural light to conserve energy and to save and reuse water, said Ken Redfoot, of Corley Redfoot Zack, the architectural firm that designed the buildings.

 

Windows in the bay doors and windows in the ceiling allow natural light to flood the area, and the gray floor is also covered with a special glaze that reflects light, Redfoot said.

 

"I think you can feel it's a lot different than most maintenance garages," he said.

 

The slope of the roof is designed to catch and collect rain water, which flows through gutters into underground storage tanks, Redfoot said. That water then can be used for flushing toilets, washing buses and for landscaping.

 

Congressman David Price attended the dedication and commended Chapel Hill officials for creating buildings that show good environmental stewardship. The buildings may cost more initially but they will save money in the long run, he said.

 

Price joked about the water saving features of the buildings. "This assumes that one day we'll have rain again," he said.

 

The complex construction includes four large buildings on 54 acres in a 96-acre area.

 

A "sustainablity trail," more commonly known as a sidewalk, links the transit building to the public works buildings.

 

At the transit center, artist Larry Kirkland created a 14-piece sculpture with 12 pieces of white marble from the same quarry where Michelangelo obtained the marble for his statues, and two pieces of black African marble.

 

The sculpture, which doubles as a bench, is entitled "Around the Town." From a distance, the white marble bench looks a bit like a model of a long submarine. Up close it features black engravings of various symbols of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, Carrboro and the transit center, including a cardinal, a dogwood flower, a brake pad, (yes, a brake pad because good brakes are the most important feature of the buses, according to Kirkland), a big dipper, a church steeple, an ice cream cone and a coffee cup.

 

The other piece of public art, called "In our Hands," is located behind one of the public works building. It also was designed by Kirkland, but crafted by Judson Daniel, a stone mason from South Boston, Va. A special color of stone that would harmonize with bronze was selected for the semi-circular wall, which has a number of bronze features that symbolize the tools of the trade of the public works employees.

 

The bronze items include a garbage can lid, a paint bucket, a penny, a broom, a hard hat, a gas pump, a cone (as in the orange cones that line streets when they're under construction), a light bulb, a water cooler with paper cups, a clipboard with statistics from Hurricane Fran and a pair of rubber boots, among others.

 

Sections of polished basalt provide seating.

 

The marble sculpture cost $180,300, and the rock wall with the bronze images cost $240,300.

 

Sculpture puzzles bus drivers it honors

One calls the price tag 'a lot excessive'

Jesse James DeConto, Staff Writer

CHAPEL HILL - Bus driver David Demming and his friend John O'Leary stood in front of a bench Monday, pondering its meaning.

Forty feet long, carved from Carrara marble, it sits outside the new Chapel Hill Transit building on Millhouse Road. The bench and a nearby semicircular stone wall inset with bronze models of hand tools cost the town $420,000.

The bench was meant to honor the bus system's employees, most of whom make between $25,000 and $40,000 a year.

"Well, I've never sat on a half-million-dollar chair before," said O'Leary, who serves on an advisory board for the bus system.

"Try it out," O'Leary told driver Jessie Cameron as he passed. "Get your money's worth."

Cameron kept walking.

The bench and wall by sculptor Larry Kirkland were paid for with 1 percent of the projected cost of the new $52 million home of the public works and transit departments, which the town dedicated Monday. The town allots 1 percent of new projects' budgets to public art.

Overall, the bus system employees like their new 50,000-square-foot operations and maintenance building, complete with a kitchen, dining room, sleeping area and exercise room.

"We came from a hog pen to the White House," said Akalema Pherribo, a driver of three years.

"All that's missing is the swimming pool," driver Lionel Utley added.

The marble bench, though, had just about everyone puzzled.

"Along the length of the bench, the back shifts sides, suggesting that a participant, like a bus passenger, can look out into nature when facing one direction, or to the populated community from the other," according to the city's description of the work. "The top of the seat back is a sculpted undulating elevation that references the rolling topography of the Piedmont and the communities of Chapel Hill and Carrboro."

There are pieces of black granite on the ends meant to recall big bus tires, and images of "objects that confirm the work of Chapel Hill Transit such as mechanical parts of a bus."

Employees said that at the least it needs a shade to protect people from the sun.

"That's art?" veteran bus driver Barbara Doakes asked, shaking her head. "I wouldn't have imagined somebody spending that much money for something like that. That's a little excessive. No, that's a lot excessive."

Demming, a bus driver of 28 years, said most employees feel the same way, but not he.

"It's neat that you can put modern art down in the midst of blue collar workers," he said. "It's not always done."

Kirkland, who created the two pieces, said he rode buses and observed Public Works mechanics while preparing his art. "These artworks are inspired by those who are the caretakers of this town," he told the crowd at Monday's dedication.

Mechanic Keith Bowden likes the artwork, but he said he could have thought of a better tribute. "I would've put more into the employees' pockets," he said.

Town employees got a 4 percent raise this year.

Dick Robinson, the Chapel Hill Public Arts Commission chairman, said the money wouldn't have gone very far in raising pay for more than 600 town employees.

"We're not talking about grand sums, usually," he said. "This is the exception."

 

Opening celebrates transit

Town Operations Center is spacious

The dedication and grand opening of the new Chapel Hill Town Operations Center on Millhouse Road took place Monday morning.

Though employees have worked there since July, the ceremony officially marked the opening of the $52 million facility that houses the town's transit system and public works department.

Hundreds gathered to hear speeches, see the ribbon-cutting, and tour the new facilities. One of the town's colorful new buses was also on display.

"There had to be at least 175 people," said Kurt Neufang, project coordinator for Chapel Hill Transit.

As the keynote speaker, U.S. Rep. David Price, D-Orange, addressed the audience. Other speakers included artist Larry Kirkland, who oversaw creation of public artworks at the facility, and Mayor Pro Tem Bill Strom, who headed the dedication.

Price should be praised for backing the project, Strom said.

"He has been a true supporter of our public transit efforts here in Chapel Hill, getting us federal funds," he said.

Strom also commented on the quality of Kirkland's speech and his role in installing the facility's art.

"Kirkland talked eloquently about the people who fabricated the installations and how meaningful they were to the people who work there," Strom said.

"It puts us in the mix in the international art scene."

Besides the art, the buildings' sustainable design and their improvement from the old facilities make them special, Strom said.

The larger facility offers employees much more space than the old building, which was located on Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard.

"Everyone was sitting on everyone else," Felix Bloch, a town transit bus driver, said of the old facility.

"Now we have room to relax, even room to urinate with three stalls instead of one."

Strom said other town staff and officials covet the building's innovative features.

"The people who work in Town Hall are figuring out a way to get out there."

 

 



  • [Chpac-staff] CHPAC in the news : 9-11-07, Steve Wright, 09/11/2007

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