Grand Opening Ceremony at New Carlsbad Safety Training Center

The City of Carlsbad held a grand opening ceremony for their new safety training center on Tuesday, May 22^nd. The state-of-the-art training facility is the first of its kind in California and includes an indoor 25-yard pistol range, an indoor 100-yard rifle range, residential and commercial burn prop structures and a virtual simulation training room all on a 4 acre site. While the safety training center will be run and maintained by the City of Carlsbad, it was designed to allow cities throughout Southern California to utilize the facility for their own certification and training needs. This will ensure that the region’s public safety teams receive the best training available.

At the ceremony a crowd of around 100 people, including City staff and curious residents, were greeted by beautiful weather as they participated in the festivities. All members of Carlsbad’s City Council were present and had nothing but wonderful things to say as they spoke to the crowd about the numerous training activities and sustainable features that were designed into the project. A pair of local firefighters and SWAT members helped the Council cut the ribbon before all attendees were invited to tour the new facility. City staff made sure to note the outstanding efforts of the design team and RRM Design Group in particular. Perhaps the most excited attendee was the range master who will run the new indoor shooting range; he noted that he felt like a kid at Christmas with all of the options he will have to train his team. RRM is thrilled with how the project turned out and we look forward to seeing the new facility in action.

RRM Selected to Design Newport Beach Lifeguard Headquarters

Building upon the firm’s extensive body of experience in revitalizing urban waterfronts, RRM Design Group was recently selected by the City of Newport Beach to refurbish its aging lifeguard headquarters at the foot of Newport Pier. This $1.4 million project will allow for the consolidation of the City’s lifeguard programs while restoring a high profile structure that is sorely in need of it. T. Keith Gurnee will serve as principal-in-charge for the project with RRM’s David Chacon taking on the lead design role.

Click the following link to read the OC Register’s recent article about this exciting project: http://www.ocregister.com/news/city-355584-headquarters-staff.html

RRM in the News: Port of Long Beach Revisits Developing RRM-Designed Bike/Recreational Path

Having wrapped up design development efforts for the Port of Long Beach’s waterfront recreational path through the Queen Mary complex and former Spruce Goose dome, RRM Design Group is ramping up to begin the conceptual design phase for the Port’s California Coastal Trail connection between the Los Angeles River and Port of Los Angeles.

Click here to read more in the Long Beach Business Journal: http://lbbusinessjournal.com/long-beach-business-journal-newswatch/118-12-05-22/624-port-revisits-developing-bike-recreational-path-along-pier-j-queen-mary.html

RRM Receives Two Awards from the American Planning Association for Excellence in Urban Planning

On Wednesday May 16th 2012, The American Planning Association, Orange County Section, recognized RRM Design Group for excellence in urban planning. The Orange County Section of APA encompasses 33 cities and represents one of the largest sections of the California Chapter. Only eight project awards were selected by a five member jury. RRM received two of these awards. The first award was given for the El Corazon Specific Plan in the City of Oceanside which sets a vision and land use policy for habitat restoration, community park space, civic facilities and mixed-use development.  The second award was given for the Town Center Specific Plan in Yorba Linda under the category of “hard won victory” and established a vision for a revitalized and vibrant town center. Implementation of this vision is well under way. Click the following links to learn more about these exciting projects:

El Corazon Specific Plan

Yorba Linda Town Center Specific Plan

New Art on Display at RRM’s San Luis Obispo Office

RRM Design Group is pleased to welcome the work of local artist, Marie Ramey, to the lobby of our San Luis Obispo office. Marie’s beautiful paintings are brought to us courtesy of the Art About Town program offered by the San Luis Obispo Museum of Art. Every four months, new artists are chosen and pieces are rotated at the participating businesses. RRM feels privileged to be able to support our local artists in cooperation with the San Luis Obispo Museum of Art. We hope you’ll come by and take a look! Click here for a sampling of some of the other “art about town” in our community: http://www.sloma.org/exhibits/aat/currently-on-exhibit.php

RRM in the News: Construction Underway on Central Coast New Tech High School

The Lucia Mar Unified School District hired RRM to assist them with development of the Central Coast New Tech High School on a very aggressive timeline in order for the school to open in the fall of 2012. The new campus is adjacent to Nipomo High School and includes three new modular classrooms as well as renovation of existing buildings. The 11 modules were constructed by American Modular Systems at their plant in Manteca, California and trucked to the site. In the space of four hours, they were all lifted into place and secured to the permanent concrete foundation. The last module to be placed contained restrooms with tile on the walls and floor and weighed 55,000 pounds. The new classrooms are specially configured to support the innovative, collaborative, project-based instruction that will be a part of the new tech program.  All of the new classrooms feature solar lighting, insulation and other features to reduce operational costs and promote sustainability. The District is pursuing LEED certification of the project.

Click here to see the San Luis Obispo Tribune’s coverage of the construction:

http://www.sanluisobispo.com/2012/05/10/2062812/photo-solar-classrooms-land-in.html

RRM at Groundbreaking of New Manteca Transit Center

RRM attended the City of Manteca’s recent groundbreaking ceremony for the new Manteca Multimodal Station. Hired as the schematic design architect, RRM listened to the City’s needs for programming the station, and designed the site and building to include a relocated bike trail, bus drop-off areas, two public plazas and a community room.  The building is designed to connect existing bus lines to a future rail connection that will connect to the extension of the high speed rail when completed. Construction is slated to begin this fall.

RRM’s Thousand Oaks Boulevard Specific Plan receives Planning Award of Excellence from American Planning Association’s Central Coast Chapter

RRM and the City of Thousand Oaks received the Award of Excellence in the Hard Won Victory category for their Thousand Oaks Boulevard Specific Plan at the APA Central Coast chapter’s annual awards dinner this past Saturday at Sycamore Mineral Springs.

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Planning Commission approves RRM’s IQMS project in Paso Robles

The Paso Robles Planning Commission just this past month approved RRM’s designs for IQMS’ new 30,000 sf office building. They complimented IQMS and RRM on the forward thinking of the master plan for the IQMS campus. One council member said, “This is the Ideal Project, a nice design, no storm water impact and head of household jobs for the community.” The project is scheduled to break ground this fall.

Click the links below to learn more:

San Luis Obispo Tribune article, April 28, 2012

Paso Robles Press article, May 3, 2012

RRM’s Modesto Area 2 Cross Connection Removal Project Invited to Submit Full Proposal for Prop 84 Application

The Modesto Area 2 Stormwater to Sanitary Sewer Removal Project was one of three projects in the Central Valley region to be invited to submit a full proposal for Proposition 84 funding. The project uses low-impact development techniques to convey stormwater to Garrison Park, provide water quality treatment, infiltrate stormwater and recharge the groundwater aquifer. The project will reduce the number of sanitary sewer overflows and improve water quality for Dry Creek, and the Lower Tuolumne River. RRM Design Group prepared the preliminary design report, construction documents and assisted the City in preparing the concept proposal application request for $3,000,000.

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