In Quarters: Clive, IA, Public Safety Center

This facility received the Shared Facilities Silver Award in the 2022 Firehouse Station Design Awards. Find the full list of winners here. 

The new Clive Public Safety Center opened and was dedicated in November of 2021. This was a significant time for the city of Clive. The facility is the first ground-up building in more than 30 years for the city. The Clive Public Safety Center houses both the police and fire departments. Shared uses were incorporated into the center portion of the building, with police and fire on either side to maximize efficiency. Common spaces include the main lobby/public entrance, a training/conference room and a fitness room. The lobby includes a public art commission, which is a mobile structure that has color-changing LED lighting.

The constraints of the center’s site required a very compact and linear building that provides carefully planned vehicular circulation for fire and police vehicles. Site design included sustainable features, such as bioswales with perennial plantings as well as porous pavers in portions of the parking area. Even though the site was situated extremely tightly between two different uses and despite the existence of more than 20 feet of fall across the site, the fire department has adequate space for training, hose management and proper vehicle turning radius.

Fire department staff created a step-down process from gross decontamination to medium decontamination and to then safely entering the living areas of the station. Through the process of pressurizing spaces, Hot, Warm and Cold Zones were created in conjunction with the aforementioned step-down procedure.

To break up the long building of the center, the exterior design alternates the use of precast concrete, brick masonry, translucent polycarbonate panels, woodgrain metal panels and aluminum curtainwall. This construction approach creates a more contemporary design. Police and fire logos that are on the front of the building are backlit at each end of the building as identification.

The project included solar panels to provide electrical for the facility, which became the city’s main data center. This green approach to providing power allows the building to be an emergency services location for the city of Clive and surrounding communities.    

Architect/Firm Name: SVPA Architects