Index · The Homestead, Phase 2
Chapter 01 · Open
A building this community
already owns.
Our job is to give it the next twenty years.
We are not introducing ourselvesto this community.
Twenty years ago Circle West helped shape what DC Ranch became. Market Street, Desert Camp, the community rooms residents actually use — we built inside this covenant, under this Commission, for these Boards. The Homestead, Phase 2, is the project where the lessons Phase 1 didn't get to apply finally get applied.
This document
This site is the presentation. Scroll top to bottom — each chapter is one thing the written proposal couldn't show on paper.Interview build · July 10, 2026
How the team actually works
Single point of contact, when consultants get engaged, and a Market Street story that proves the structure.
Chapter 02 03Existing conditions
What's actually there today: 2005 SHJ floor plan, the Grand Hall, kitchen, and lobby as they exist. The starting substrate — not a blank site.
Chapter 03 06The three governance gates
Board, Covenant Commission, Ranch Association. Where we've been through this before — and where new firms get caught.
Chapter 06 0720-year lease-vs-own model
Not a design study. A capital-planning document the Board treasurer can defend in a budget cycle.
Chapter 07Chapter 02 · How the team actually works
One point of contact.
For the duration.
Not a rotating PM. Not a hand-off after kickoff. Peter Koliopoulos personally runs this engagement from staff kickoff through Board adoption. Consultants are engaged through Circle West at the specific moment their expertise matters — not billed against a retainer waiting for something to happen.
Fig. 02 — Artifact from the operating rhythm
Every meeting closes with a "you said / we did" log — circulated within 48 hours, carried forward to the next meeting.
This is the format DCRCC staff, Board, and Commission will see week after week. It's how commitments stop living in inboxes and start living on paper.
Chapter 03 · Existing conditions
We are not designing on a blank site.
We're designing onto a building the community already uses every week.
The Homestead Community Center opened in 2005 as SHJ Studio's Desert Parks Community Center. Twenty-one years of programming, wear patterns, and operational learning are already embedded in the building — that's the substrate this engagement builds on.
Three multi-purpose rooms open into one via 14′ operable wall panels. Stage, projection, patio egress. The engine of the building's programming.
Commercial range, warming drawer, refrigeration. Sized for events — a strategic asset when evaluating rental revenue and programming reach.
The daily-use zone: coffee, casual meetings, drop-in. The Resident Voice instrument will ask directly whether this space is working — and where it isn't.
Fig. 05 — Outdoor amenities
Splash pad · Playground · Sport court
A summer anchor for families. Any change to the building envelope has to protect sightlines, shade, and the arrival sequence from this lawn.
Shaded, adjacent, in constant use. Programming decisions inside the building need to stay legible to caregivers on this pad.
Multi-generational use, from teens after school to residents at dusk. Part of the same programmed campus the Homestead building serves.
What we're starting from
These are the images and drawings DCRCC shared with us as part of the RFQ package. Chapter 06 (Governance) and Chapter 07 (Lease vs. own) both hinge on this reality: the concurrent priority to bring administrative office space into an owned facility means the Homestead footprint is being re-evaluated in the context of the entire capital picture — not treated as a standalone renovation.
Chapter 04 · Live status — how you'll experience working with us
Project Status
Weeks 1–5 · Aug 3 – Sep 4, 2026
Space Needs & Vision Alignment
- Staff kickoff & existing-conditions review
- Facility tour documentation
- Outdoor + structural feasibility input (Floor + Associates, Bakkum Noelke)
- Board / committee alignment on vision and priorities
- Findings-and-options report
Weeks 6–9 · Sep 7 – Oct 2, 2026
Concept Design Development
- Concept refinement to preferred option
- Covenant Commission input
- Resident open house + survey
- Detailed concept plans
- Draft presentation to Board
Weeks 10–13 · Oct 5 – Nov 3, 2026
Costing & Implementation
- Preliminary cost estimate & phasing
- 20-year lease-vs-own financial model
- Final report (formatted for future design-build RFQ)
- Final Board presentation & adoption
Chapter 05 · Engagement — demonstrated, not described
The Board ratifies
a direction residents
have already weighed in on.
Not defending one they haven't. This is the instrument we'll run at the Phase II open house — live, in front of you, so you can see the actual questions before the actual residents do. Sentiment doesn't just get collected; it structures the concept options the Board reviews.
Try it · about 3 minutes
Interlude · Prior work
The point isn't the building. It's the night people remember.
Soda Row at Daybreak — another Circle West community placemaking project. A rink, string lights, a Friday in February. This is the outcome the design conversation is actually optimizing for at The Homestead: reasons to be there, together, after 5 p.m.
Fig. 04 — Soda Row · Daybreak, UT
Chapter 06 · The three governance gates
Board. Covenant Commission.
Ranch Association.
Most consultants learn this structure on the job. We built through it — Market Street was our first pass. Early informal input to the Covenant Commission beats a late formal submission every time. That's not a scheduling preference, it's how you avoid a redesign in Week 11.
Chapter 07 · The differentiating deliverable
A 20-year lease-vs-own model the Board treasurer can defend in a budget cycle.
Most facilities studies produce a concept and a rough number. This engagement produces a capital-planning document. The Board doesn't just get a preferred design — it gets a defensible 20-year cost trajectory for consolidating Canyon Village operations into The Homestead, run against staying on lease.
Where this lands
The model becomes an appendix to the final Phase III report — formatted so it drops directly into the next design-build RFQ without a translation step. A study that doesn't require another study.Inputs
- Current Canyon Village lease terms + escalation
- Homestead construction cost (Catalyst)
- Operating cost delta (consolidated vs. split)
- Ranch Association headcount scenarios: 0 / 10 / 21 staff on-site
- Bond capacity + reserve draw timing
The model
- 20-year NPV comparison, three scenarios
- Break-even year on ownership
- Sensitivity: lease escalation, construction cost, staff scenario
- Reserve impact by fiscal year
What the Board sees
- One-page executive summary — three numbers, one recommendation
- Full model as spreadsheet (not PDF) for the treasurer to interrogate
- Narrative memo the Board can share with residents at Phase III adoption
- Direct feed into the design-build RFQ
Fig. 07 — Live model preview
Two paths, side by side. Move the assumptions on either side.
Illustrative only — actual model runs on Catalyst estimates and DCRCC lease documents. Shown to demonstrate the interaction pattern, not the number.
Path A · Continue leasing
Canyon Village lease
Rent the Ranch Association pays today, escalated forward for 20 years.
20-yr NPV of rent paid
$5.21M
Total rent paid (nominal)
$8.49M
Year 1 rent
$285k
Year 20 rent
$600k
Annual cost · years 1 – 20 (nominal $k / yr)
Path B · Own on the Ranch
Homestead-based facility
Build once, then carry level debt service plus added on-site ops.
20-yr NPV of ownership
$12.48M
Total carrying cost (nominal)
$19.18M
Debt service + ops
$959k
Debt service + ops
$959k
Annual cost · years 1 – 20 (nominal $k / yr)
Shared assumption
NPV = today's-dollar value of every future payment on that path, discounted at this rate. Lower NPV is the better financial outcome.
Side-by-side, in today's dollars
At these assumptions, leasing is the lower-cost path by $7.26M of present value over 20 years. Ownership does not overtake lease on nominal cost within the 20-year window.
Circle West's counsel
Stay on lease — for now. Position for ownership in the next capital cycle.
At the current assumptions, leasing is the lower-cost path by $7.26M of present value. That's a defensible recommendation to bring the Board — and it's the recommendation we'd sign our name to today, given only what's on this screen.
Two conditions that would flip our answer
- 01Lease escalation runs above 5.0%/yr for more than three consecutive years, or the landlord signals a step-up at renewal.
- 02The Ranch Association commits to a 21-staff on-site scenario — the operational upside crosses the break-even before the financial one does.
Illustrative counsel from live inputs. The Phase III deliverable includes the same verdict — with Catalyst's real estimate, DCRCC's actual lease terms, and a signed memo from Circle West.
Chapter 08 · Schedule reference
What's next, and who's involved.
Staff Kickoff
Committee / Board Alignment
Covenant Commission Review
Resident Open House
Draft Concept to Board
Final Presentation & Board Adoption
Encore · Design excellence
Design excellence.
Our work focuses on responsive and flexible design concepts which allow innovative building techniques that redefine conventional notions of process, type, and context. The Homestead is the next place we intend to prove that — alongside DC Ranch, and answerable to this community.
"Responsive. Flexible. Answerable. That's the standard CIRCLE WEST ARCHITECTS brings to The Homestead."
Market Street, in-community at DC Ranch. Same material vocabulary — board-formed concrete, weathered steel, timber, local stone — that will inform The Homestead's architectural language. Built. Occupied. Weathering as intended.