Representatives from Holst Architecture presented their latest renderings for the Resource Access Center to downtown's Public Safety Action Committee this morning. The RAC, on NW Broadway and Irving across from the Greyhound Station, will include a full-service day center, 90-bed men's shelter and 130 units of permanent supportive housing. Originally planned to fill the entire block, the building was redesigned with a smaller footprint earlier this year when tax credit funding became scarce.
"What we're really trying to do is create a usable space that will be inviting, easy to maintain and very durable," Dave Otte of Holst Architecture told the committee.
The main entrance to the center will be through a courtyard on the east side, which will feature benches and parking spaces for bikes and shopping carts. Otte said the courtyard will have a 150-person capacity.
"This is intended to be the place to be so people don't have to line up... out on the street," he said.
The plans now enter the design review process and will need to be approved by the design commission in about two months, Otte said. The developers plan to break ground in early fall and finish the project by spring 2011.