The Ames City Council heard a presentation Tuesday night of proposed design standards for the site of a possible new regional shopping mall at its joint meeting with the Planning and Zoning Commission.

The overall design of the 13th Street Gateway Overlay District, which covers the intersection of 13th Street and Interstate 35, is intended to represent Ames. It should serve as a welcome center for the city and provide information on the community as well as set building standards to make the site aesthetically pleasing and congruous with nearby developments, said representatives of the project’s steering committee.

The presenters said that the report came as close as possible to meeting all the design interests and concerns of committee members.

“This reflects priorities, concerns and I think our best effort to get close to something that could provide standards,” said Jim Cooper, committee member.

Committee member Jeff Johnson said a number of things must be taken into consideration when the site is developed. “There are some things here that can’t be [defined], in terms of what we can write as code,” Johnson said. “But yet it’s important as developers and as a city as you look at this to keep those things in mind because they were areas of concern.”

City Manager Steve Schainker said it was important to note that, although the discussion is leaning toward developing the land for a mall, a large shopping center is not the only thing that might be built on the site. He said the land could be used for a variety of commercial uses, and the standards developed by the steering committee would apply to whatever is built.

The steering committee consists of 16 representatives from eight focus groups and one representative from Wolford Development Inc., the developer that is planning to build a mall on the site. The focus groups are made up of members of the Ames community, including designers, environmental groups, transportation groups, development groups, neighborhood associations, ISU students and members of the public.

Presenters from the steering committee stressed that the report expressed the interests and concerns of all the members of the eight focus groups.

The steering committee was created in July to develop design standards for the 13th Street and I-35 site.