Les Schwab Tire Centers’ future headquarters at Juniper Ridge may be ensconced in glass with buttresses that angle outward as they rise, giving the buildings a slanted appearance.

Drawings released Friday by the city of Bend show the buildings, on the northeast corner of a future two-lane roundabout at Cooley Road and 18th Street, located very close to the curb, with parking lots behind and largely out of sight of passing drivers.

“As the first building to go up, I think it will do justice to the company and to the Juniper Ridge project,” Councilor Jim Clinton said in reaction to the drawings. He added that the buildings as designed would be “an impressive, high-class project.”

Designers working on the headquarters, slated to break ground later this fall, will present their work to the Bend City Council at a work session Monday evening.

Les Schwab’s headquarters will be the first building in the city’s 1,500-acre Juniper Ridge development, which will eventually contain a university, hundreds of homes and a research and development park. So far, Les Schwab is the only company to have announced plans to locate in Juniper Ridge.

When Les Schwab announced in December that it would become Juniper Ridge’s first business, city councilors reacted with frustration over what they called a closed-door process that left them with only a few hours to decide whether to approve it.

“The upset was about the lack of process,” Councilor Linda Johnson said Friday, and not about the company. “I think we’ve learned things that we can improve on next time.”

Monday’s meeting will essentially be the council’s first look at the Les Schwab project itself since December’s meeting. The presentation is largely to fill the council in on how the headquarters is progressing. The approval of all of the details and building plans will be made by the city’s planning and building divisions, not City Council.

Portland-based GBD Architects is working on the design of the new headquarters. An architect working on the project did not return a message seeking comment Friday. GDB has designed a multitude of commercial and residential projects across the Portland area, as well as a handful of projects in other parts of the Northwest, according to information on its Web site.

Les Schwab spokeswoman Jodie Hueske said the price tag for the building is still up in the air, adding that “we’re still in the evaluation phase.”

She said the company is “excited” about the design and is pushing forward with a fall groundbreaking, but declined to comment on any other details of the new headquarters.

Though land use plans have been submitted to the city already, the company has not yet applied for building permits and the design could still be modified.

“I don’t have a sense for exactly what stage they are at,” said Jerry Mitchell, the city’s Juniper Ridge development manager.

The concept for the building is strikingly different from Les Schwab’s modest and low-profile current headquarters in Prineville. Also missing is the trademark red-and-white paint scheme at many Les Schwab retail locations.

The headquarters is three to four stories high, with roofs sloping slightly away from the street. Though Clinton approved of the overall design in the renderings, he was concerned about how energy-efficient they would be.

“I would be worried about a large expanse of west-facing glass, which would be pretty bad news in the summer,” Clinton said. “I know people like to get views of the mountains, but you pay a humongous price in terms of the air conditioning.”

Johnson was also interested in learning more about how energy efficient the buildings will be.

“It’s what is behind the faade that will really make the difference, in terms of sustainability, for example,” Johnson said.

Looking at the renderings for the first time Friday, Mayor Bruce Abernethy was also receptive to the designs.

“It needed to fit in with where we wanted to go, what we wanted Juniper Ridge to look like, and this certainly is consistent with that,” he said.

If You Go

What: Bend City Council work session and meeting

When: Work session starts at 5 p.m., meeting starts at 7 p.m. Monday, July 2.

Where: Bend City Hall, 710 N.W. Wall St.