Los Angeles–born Hobart built the civic center in a park at the eastern edge of town. Set on piers, the folded-plate concrete structure, with six-foot-deep exterior beams set between angled plates, floats on the greenery of Mercedes Park. The open area in the ground floor was designed as a recreational space to serve an artificial lake that was never realized.
Gerald Moorhead et al., "Mercedes Civic Center", [Mercedes, Texas], SAH Archipedia, eds. Gabrielle Esperdy and Karen Kingsley, Charlottesville: UVaP, 2012—, http://sah-archipedia.org/buildings/TX-01-MR21.
Buildings of Texas: Central, South, and Gulf Coast, Gerald Moorhead and contributors. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2013, 300-300.
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