A Boston architect with an Island connection has emerged the winner in what began as a 10-way competition to design a new bandstand for Tisbury’s Owen Park.
After a public hearing on the 10 designs earlier this year, followed by a period of ranked-choice voting, the town planning board met Monday to choose between the two that received the most positive receptions from Tisbury residents.
Keith Moskow of Moskow Linn Architects won the board’s unanimous approval for his curved-roof design of wood and translucent fiberglass, with a nearly full-width stone staircase on the harbor-facing slope.
“Something that we thought was important was that the bandstand open to the water,” Mr. Moskow said, as he made his pitch to the planning board Monday.
He described the steps as an amphitheatre-like amenity where sailing teachers could talk to their students, visitors could take in the harbor views and locals could gather and relax.
Elements of Tisbury resident Paul Lazes’s copper-domed bandstand, intended to reflect the town’s Victorian past, also appealed to the planning board.
But they preferred the airy and open design by Mr. Moskow, a career architect who as a young man worked for Island builder Herbert Hancock.
Soft night lighting in the translucent roof will give it a Japanese-lantern look, Mr. Moskow said, and serve as a beacon on the shoreline.
Mr. Moskow also has experience with the public bidding process required for municipal work, having designed and overseen the construction of a 9/11 memorial at Logan Airport.
Mr. Lazes, a self-taught architect, has not worked in the public sector and his design called for custom fabrication of wrought iron, copper and wood, while Mr. Moskow said the materials for his firm’s design can all be purchased at retail.
Planning board member Cheryl Doble saw the Moskow Linn bandstand design as a potential template for other structures in the park, including outdoor showers and whatever may replace the aging harbor master’s building at the water’s edge.
“I could see that being interpreted into the showers [and] into another wood-framed building,” Ms. Doble said.
At a public forum earlier this year, when all 10 designers presented their work, Mr. Lazes’s design was the most popular, Mr. Robinson said. But the forum only attracted about 30 people.
“It’s too bad more people don’t show up,” said planning board member Elaine Miller.
Tisbury residents will have the opportunity to suggest changes in the selected bandstand design during the months running up to the annual town meeting in March, when voters will be asked to fund all or part of the construction.
“This is going to be a decision that people have opinions about,” said Mr. Robinson.
The competition to replace the boxy bandstand, which dates to the early 1960s and has a failing roof, began earlier this year with about $10,000 in Community Preservation Act funding.
Each of the 10 prospective designers received a $400 stipend to come up with preliminary drawings, leaving another $6,000 for Mr. Moskow to create more detailed plans and an estimated budget over the next few weeks.
Mr. Robinson said it is possible that some fundraising for the bandstand may need to take place to supplement town funding, if it is approved.
Julie Schilling, director of the Vineyard Haven Band, is also being consulted to make sure the bandstand is adequate to the orchestra’s needs.
The entire painstaking process is necessary, planning board members said, because the new bandstand will be in place for generations to come, in the town’s most popular waterfront park.
“It’s not just a bandstand,” Ms. Miller said. “It’s a monument.”
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