1800s style store project winning rave reviews
Gas station design 'blueprint for future'
Thursday, October 14, 2004
By Richard Boyd
St. Tammany bureau
Four years after adopting architectural guidelines for new commercial development that embrace elements of classic 1800s style, Mandeville officials have applied the criteria to a gas station-convenience store project.
And all sides are lauding the outcome, which will become a blueprint of sorts for similar projects in the city.
After eight months of negotiations, business officials and city leaders have unveiled the look of a new Cracker Barrel Convenience Store and Shell/Texaco gas station that will be built at Gerard Street and U.S. 190 in old Mandeville. The station, which will replace a 20-year-old Cracker Barrel/Texaco on the site, incorporates a wide range of design guidelines adopted by the City Council in 2001 for new commercial developments along the city's major thoroughfares.
"This red brick building with a raised sloped roof embodies the aesthetics of the architecture of old Mandeville and continues what the city is trying to accomplish in controlling the commercial development along it major corridors," said Grover Mouton of Tulane School of Urban Design and a member of the city's design review committee.
He and architects Kieran Weldon and Lynn Mitchell, members of the committee, said the development represents a significant milestone in the evolving application of design criteria to commercial development, because it marks the first use of visionary approaches to designing gas station canopies over gas pumps.
"The whole issue of canopies has been a tough one for us," Mouton said. "We first considered requiring that they be connected to the main building but decided that created too much bulk. So, now, with the cooperation of this company, we have created what will become the blueprint for future gas stations in the city."
The canopy at the new station will feature a pitched roof emulating the design of the convenience store. It will have antique-type columns with brackets at the ceiling edge, emulating design motifs of the nearby Mandeville Trailhead Cultural Interpretive Center.
"It was not what they originally wanted. They wanted a free-standing large flat canopy, but we said no, and they compromised, and after months of negotiations, sometimes tense, we have what we think embodies our vision for future gas station canopies and building designs in the city," Mouton said.
Jim Bleckley of Baton Rouge, representing Cracker Barrel Convenience Stores with 58 outlets in southeast Louisiana, said he is happy with the result. "It was tedious but it was a pleasure working with a city that knows what it wants to look like. We had to work through initial resistance from the gas company engineers from whom we franchise and who have a standard design and don't give in easily, but they eventually did, and we think we bring something positive in design to old Mandeville," he said.
His architect, James Dodds, said he is so happy with the result he is trying to persuade Cracker Barrel to apply it to all 58 of its outlets.
"This is a critical quality-of-life issue," Mouton said. "We think modern gas stations can fit in our concepts but they can also embrace the classic architectural guidelines that we are bringing to our corridors."
Mayor Eddie Price praised the results. "This is a new gas station with an old village look, and I am happy with the outcome."
Council President Denis Bechac called it "another new, but old-looking architecture jewel in old Mandeville."
A new Cracker Barrel Convenience Store and Shell/Texaco gas station, to be built at Gerard Street and U.S. 190, has been designed to fit in with new guidelines in old Mandeville. The canopy at the new station will feature a pitched roof emulating the design of the convenience store. It will have antique-type columns with brackets at the ceiling edge, emulating design motifs of the nearby Mandeville Trailhead Cultural Interpretive Center. [1300079]
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