Architectural Review Board Meeting   8/1/2022

All right, the time is, it's actually 12 59 p.m.

I'm calling the August 1, 2022 meeting of the Albemarle County Architecture Review Board to order.

This meeting is being held pursuant to and in compliance with ordinance number 20-A-16, an ordinance to ensure the continuity of government during the COVID-19 disaster.

The opportunities for the public to access and participate in this electronic meeting are posted on the Albemarle County website at the Albemarle County calendar.

The public has real-time audiovisual access to this meeting over Zoom and real-time audio access over telephone.

Both is provided in the lawfully posted meeting notice.

This meeting is being recorded and will be made available on the county's website.

This online meeting is a public record and subject to disclosure under the Freedom of Information Act.

All speakers, when it is your turn to speak, please first state your name for the record.

Everyone who is participating today, it is good practice to mute your microphone until it is your turn to speak.

Applicants who are making presentations, note that your presentation is limited to a total of 15 minutes, which you can divide among your team members.

Carolyn will let us know when the 15 minutes are up.

A quorum is present.

Architecture review board members present electronically are Frank Hancock, Frank Stoner, Taro Matsuno, and myself, Chris Henningsen.

Yes, I do.

I'm employed by the firm that's working on this project.

So I will be the premier circle item on the agenda.

So Chris, I am not directly involved, but indirectly involved in the premier circle project and that PHA is a partner in that project.

And I serve on the board at PHA.

I don't think that's a direct conflict, but I wanted to disclose it.

All right.

I also need to disclose that I worked on both of the regular review items while I was employed at Timmons Group.

All right.

Sounds good.

Thank you.

No, sir.

All right.

Thanks a lot.

There are no consent agenda items today, but there are two regular review items.

They will be presented by Chris Taggart and Margaret Maliszewski of the Planning Division of Community Development.

The first item is ARB 2022-61, TJACH Premier Circle.

Chris, are you ready with your presentation?

Yes, I am.

Is everybody viewing the slideshow screen?

The application I'm presenting on today is the final review of architecture and site plan for the first phase of the three-phase development.

This phase includes a four-story, 80-unit building for the associated site improvements.

The site is located at 405 Mirror Circle and contains a motel that predates the entrance quarter.

There will be recommended approval of the initial site plan and provided preliminary comments on the architecture on May 1.

A few changes have made.

Since the previous review, those changes include minor revisions to the building design and site plans.

Regarding the building design, the brick sample matches the appearance described by the manufacturer of weathered painted brick and the windows added to the southern portion of the east elevation helped to reduce blankness and establish continuity.

Details have been provided for the elevator tower.

The drawings note that the roof of the tower will be just a foot over the parapet, which would make it not visible from the entrance corridor.

However, the location of what looks like the elevator appears to be oriented differently than in the roof plan and much taller than one foot above the parapet.

Staff recommends revising the drawings to coordinate the height and orientation of the elevator and adding materials and colors to the drawings if this element will be visible from the street.

Regarding the landscaping for the site, the plan has been advised to show only the plantings provided in phase one of this development.

However, no landscaping shown in the limits of work along Premier Circle.

Staff recommends revising the landscape plan to include the interior road trees from the overall plan within the phase one limits of work.

Staff recommends approval of the final site plan with the revisions listed in the staff report.

All right, thanks a lot for your presentation.

I don't.

Frank Stoner?

I don't have any questions, Chris.

I don't have any questions either.

Hi, yes, I'm Whitney McDermott, BRW Architects.

I have a presentation.

I'll go ahead and share my screen.

Hopefully you all can see the premiere circle presentation.

Great.

Thanks again for viewing this application.

Again, I'm Whitney McDermott at BRW Architects.

I just wanted to take a small amount of time to remind you all I presented this last time we reviewed the initial site plan of the kind of the future vision for this project.

It's an ultimate build-out.

It's going to be, or the vision is that it would be a combination of a way to address homelessness and affordable housing in our community.

So the TJAC Premier Circle initial plan before you today is just a component of the larger vision.

that is a partnership between Thomas Jefferson Area Coalition for the Homeless, which is TJAC, Virginia Supportive Housing, which is the component of the project that this building represents, and Piedmont Housing Alliance, all of whom are working together over the next few years to provide a multi-phase approach to homelessness and affordable housing on this site along Route 29.

Each entity is contributing to one component of the affordable housing on site.

Currently, TJAC

is there and they work to reduce homelessness by initiating creative solutions and coordinating regional resources and services.

They have partnered with Pacham and they are currently operating on site providing temporary emergency housing for the homeless in the existing hotel or motel.

And they hope to provide as many rooms as possible throughout the project until the ultimate phase, all the parcels of construction is underway.

Then this project represents Virginia Supportive Housing and they have a mission to end homelessness by providing permanent housing and supportive services.

With the building in this site plan and ARB application, it's VSH that is initiating the next phase of the overall master plan for the site by bringing in the 80 single residency occupant units in this building.

to provide homes for formerly homeless and onsite support services to those residents.

The next partner and phase of the project is not before you today.

However, I mentioned it to help shape the ultimate vision.

After VSH is kind of complete, the building is complete, Piedmont Housing Alliance, another local nonprofit providing innovative solutions to affordable housing plans to build up to 60 affordable multifamily

units on this site as well, maybe somewhere in the back of the project parcel.

And then the current master plan will be complete with the development of the front parcel down here, Route 29, the entrance corridors, planned south here.

This parcel would be developed, and the ultimate plan is that would be intended to be a mixed-use building directly adjacent to the entrance corridor.

So I just also wanted to address some of the the primary points of discussion.

The first being the idea about the blankness and adding some relief to blankness of wall.

And I might have misunderstood which wall the staff report was talking about.

We had added some windows.

I'm sorry, this this plan is a little out of context.

Route 29 is planned south here.

We have added some windows along this wall to relieve blankness.

And I was thinking the staff report was also noting this wall over here.

And I just wanted to mention that we, you know, we were not able necessarily to provide the same way of addressing blankness on this wall, if that is a wall in question, just due to the stair landing.

I'm sure there are other creative solutions, but as a first pass, we

or as thinking it through, we have not added windows there for that reason and thought that the length of wall was small enough that it actually provides an architectural element to actually provide a blank wall in that location.

Here's the perspective of that.

So that's the wall I was

Just talking about it, and these are the windows we did add in response to comments after the initial site plan review.

The next point I wanted to address has to do with the visibility of a guardrail along a site retaining wall.

So again, Plan South is Route 29 in this plan, site plan.

Currently, the site plan proposes a retaining wall along the property line which allows for the building to be placed and have a universal design, accessible access all around the building and to all amenities around the building.

Currently, the site has this berm along this property line and

It requires a retaining wall in order to allow for kind of that access I was just talking about around the building.

And so the staff report mentioned, discussed the potential visibility of any guardrail that would be on top of that retaining wall.

The retaining wall would have to be around five feet to five and a half feet in some places.

And so a guardrail would be required

If the retaining wall were to stay.

And so I did a quick study this morning of how high up from our rendering program you would have to be to see that guardrail.

And this is about 15 feet, 14 feet off the ground.

And you just kind of start to see it.

So I don't know if that's telling of anything yet.

We can do some further studies if needed, but that's a first look at addressing that comment in the staff report.

Something I will mention is that the retaining wall is the berm because the berm kind of just slopes up to the property line and then back down again it is possible that the applicant can go and get discussed with the property adjacent property owner to get a grading easement to relieve the need for the retaining wall that is something that

is being considered currently.

It's still under consideration with the adjacent property owner.

And the third point I just wanted to address has to do with the visibility of the elevator tower.

And I wanted to clarify, and I'm sorry if it wasn't clear in the drawings, the elevator tower is kind of located in the middle of the roof and it is only about a foot and a half above the top of the roof.

This, on the other hand, is another piece of equipment, a DOAS.

It's part of the mechanical system, and that is what you see in this front elevation.

And that is what you're actually seeing in this render here when we were trying to study how high off the ground you had to be to start to see any of the mechanical or elevator.

projections on the roof.

And again, that was estimated to be about 21 feet above.

Route 29 is when we started to see that piece of equipment pop over the parapets.

So that is a quick overview of our response.

Here's an elevator section just to kind of show you that the elevator tower itself isn't

Hugely massive above the roof line.

So that's all I have.

Thank you.

All right.

Thanks a lot for your presentation.

Yeah, Whitney, just one question regarding the retaining wall.

I think I understand it, but the elevation on the building side is lower than the elevation on the other side.

Is that you are excavating down?

Okay.

That's what I thought.

Just wanted to confirm.

Thank you for your presentation.

Great to see kind of the overall vision for the project.

And I appreciate how you framed kind of the staff questions and comments.

That's very helpful to see.

Just further expanding on Frank Stoner's question, I guess guardrail, there's two terms, guardrail or chain link fence.

If you're required to have a guardrail,

From my understanding, we wouldn't want a chain link fence.

I think it could be a guardrail as long as it met the requirements for the load that it was containing back 200 pounds or something, I think.

Okay.

All right, thanks.

I actually had the same question as Frank, but I answered it satisfactorily.

All right, great.

Thank you.

ARB will now go into discussion.

I mean, I think the improvements address all our earlier concerns about the structure.

Hopefully they can negotiate a deal with the adjoining neighbor and not have to build that retaining wall, which seems like an artificial

sort of construct since the ground goes down anyway.

All right, thanks a lot, Frank.

Frank Hancock.

I agree.

I think it'll be a nice addition to this corridor.

I think the way it's kind of set back in the phase one

is just a piece of that frontage.

I don't think it's gonna overwhelm the corridor, because it is kind of perched up on that hill.

And then there's the variation in the building, just the relief with the architectural elements, but also kind of that crook that creates the garden space, I think is really nice.

And yeah, thank you for the application.

Thanks a lot, Frank.

I am in agreement with my colleagues.

Yeah, I did have one other question that came to mind.

We did receive a sample brick and then the two colors and samples noted for the two metals that are being proposed for the elevations.

The only item that kind of staff

I'll move to approve the application with the recommendations outlined in the staff report.

All right, I'll second that.

Great.

OK.

This is a proposal to construct a hotel with associated site improvements at the corner of Olympia Drive and Town and Country Lane.

And that's just a short distance north of Route 250 East at Pantops.

This is a final site development plan and a second review of the architectural design.

This is the current design for the building.

And in this slide, the south elevation, which is the lower one, is the elevation that faces the entrance quarter.

And these are the other elevations.

Again, the north elevation, which is at the bottom of the image, is not visible from the 250 entrance quarter.

The ARB last reviewed this proposal in February of this year.

This slide shows a comparison of the current south elevation at the top with the one that was reviewed in February at the bottom.

You can see that there have been some adjustments to the composition of the pieces at the roof and then the location of the mechanical equipment screenings on top of the building.

In the February review,

It was unclear whether the angled roofs were limited to just the top of the building.

The current proposal shows that they are limited to the central elements at the center of the building.

In February, there was also a request for confirmation that the wall area under the angled roofs would not be illuminated and that has been confirmed.

This is a comparison of the side elevations of the building with the current design at the top and the previous design reviewed in February at the bottom of the slide.

One of the comments from the February review was to reconsider the color scheme of the building for greater compatibility with the existing character of the corridor.

The staff report from February noted that red brick and neutral tones of stucco were prevalent in the area.

And this particular image is from the previous, the middle.

The colors have been shifted somewhat in the current proposal, but the palette is still very close to the original proposal.

There were some minor landscape comments made in the February review and they have all been resolved with the current landscape plan.

Lighting issues are really the primary items that remain.

Two lighting plans have been submitted for review.

One was included in the site plan and the other was created as a separate submittal.

The two plans are not completely consistent in terms of the maximum level of illumination at the ground.

The plan that's not part of the site plan set includes ground-mounted upweights to illuminate the building.

That's information we need to know, but it needs to be in the site plan set.

The uplights are LED fixtures, but the total lumens hasn't been included in the schedule and that information is also needed.

Photometrics have been provided showing the level of illumination from the fixtures on the walls and building.

The maximum shown is 16.2 foot candles on the east elevation.

That's actually more than the maximum at ground level.

And this type of illumination is typically not approved in the entrance quarters.

The Airbnb has typically limited illumination of the building to that which is needed for safety and security.

These are photometrics for the building illumination on the south and west walls.

The black and gray diagrams represent the distribution of light on the walls.

One other lighting issue to be resolved is the color temperature.

The color temperature specified for the site lights corresponds to a 4000 K. We've been working toward a consistent 3000 K color temperature, which is a warm white light.

Those are the highlights of our review and staff report.

Our recommendation is for approval with the conditions listed in the report.

All right, Margaret.

Thanks a lot for the presentation.

Not at this time, but thank you for your presentation.

I don't have any questions.

Yeah, thanks, Chris.

Margaret, do we have a roof plan that shows exactly where those sloped roofs extend to as

Okay.

Yes.

All right.

Thanks a lot.

I don't have any questions either.

Okay.

I hope you can hear me.

And my video is not on, and I don't know how to turn it on.

Start video.

Okay.

Got it.

Okay, finally.

We don't really have a presentation because we basically have responded to the comments and Margaret has the presentation which basically reflected what we responded to the comment.

So I can answer any questions.

I also have the clients on the line, which is Sahil Patel and Hitesh Patel and my project manager, Asim Kumar is on the line too.

But I can respond to the one question I heard

That is the roof.

It literally is just a decorative parapet roof.

It's not a occupiable space or anything like that.

Just a architecture embellishment feature.

And Margaret, you were correct.

That's great.

Thank you.

I didn't get a chance to see what the elevation difference is between 250 and the, I guess, ground level of this building.

I don't know exactly but Kim Rosser from Timmons Alliance, you may be more qualified to answer that.

It almost looks like the only thing you see from 250 is what is like the top of the building.

So I don't have the exact difference in elevation.

Yeah, this particular image is from the last review.

We didn't have new perspective.

All right.

Does that answer your question, Frank?

Yes.

Yeah, I think it does.

Great.

Frank Hancock, do you have any questions for the applicant?

I don't.

Thank you.

Thanks.

I don't have any questions either.

No, sir.

Thank you.

The ARB will now go into discussion.

Sure.

When I was looking at this, I really was thinking about it.

Contextually, I think in the staff report, it noted the two buildings that are in between this building and the corridor.

But when I was thinking about it, I kind of spread that view a little bit wider and thought about the recent application

that's actually just recently completed the Porsche building that is fairly close to this and then some of the other auto dealerships on the other side of the road and I think to me that kind of

made me feel better about this color palette you know when you look at it just in terms of the two red brick and kind of warm tone colors of the buildings that are right in front of it I think it's a stark contrast but when you think globally or zoom out a little bit more I think it's appropriate and I think

Given too that this building is not directly fronting the corridor, I'm okay with that color palette.

I do agree with staff however that you know the uplighting is something that we do not want on the corridor.

I think you know that would actually have more of a negative impact in my eyes than this kind of cooler color palette.

All right, thanks, Frank.

I just wanted to note that that was a, I think that's a good observation, Frank.

I don't have, I would second the issue of lighting, but I didn't have any further issues.

Thank you.

I don't, I would agree with pretty much everything Frank Hancock said.

I think staff's recommendation that the color and the extent of uplighting be reduced or eliminated is appropriate given the location.

Obviously understand the desire to make sure people can see the building and I don't know what the signage plan looks like and assume that we'll come back at a later date.

Otherwise, I'm generally comfortable with the architecture given the location.

I don't think it's going to be all that visible from the corridor.

All right.

Thanks, Chris.

Thanks a lot.

I am in agreement with my colleagues.

I thought the applicant did a good job addressing the concerns from last time, and I don't really have any major concerns about where it's ended up.

So we could review the recommended motion.

All right, do any board members have any modifications that they'd like to make?

Thanks, would anybody like to second that?

I'll second it.

Mr. Stoner?

Aye.

Mr. Hancock?

Aye.

Mr. Matsuno?

Aye.

Thanks.

Okay, so there is

One more session item today.

It's on the Entrance Partner Design Guidelines, ADEMO.

Well, thank you all.

Thank you.

Great.

So we provided you with a document that includes some of the segments that you've already seen.

We want to just give you an idea of put everything together and see so you can see how things are coming along, how it's progressing.

There is new information in this document and it includes the sheets for Route 151 and for the Ivy and Northridge segments of 250 West.

Also, there were some updated photos for the University segment on 250 West.

And so this is the intro sheet and the Afton segment that you saw earlier, previously.

Two sheets for the Greenwood segment.

Two sheets for the Crozet segment.

Again, you've already seen this one previously.

The Ivy Depot and the Northridge segments are the new ones.

We realize that there are a few photos in the new information that don't have captions.

We'll get those filled in for you for next time.

and new photos in the university section.

Again, you realize we've got captions to add.

The Route 151 segment, which is new today.

We do have two options for the photo layout that we'd like to get your input on.

There they are side by side.

And I have each sheet individually that I can pull up

as you'd like to, whatever you prefer to do, however you'd like to look at it.

Love to get your feedback on the new sheets or if you've got new comments on the old ones, that's good too.

All right, thanks a lot, Margaret.

I don't initially.

I guess I need to study the two-quarter photo arrays in a little bit more detail.

I know where the photos are intended to be final or if it's just the layout that we're studying today.

Yeah.

Sure.

So the image on the left, the images are the same for both with the exception of one image, which is the church image that's at the top right that is deleted from the second layout.

The, what I tried to do with the two layouts was nine fits the grid layout that we have, especially in a landscape, kind of a landscape extent.

I thought what the second one to the right offered was that it, the point of this corridor was really those, those majestic rolling hills in the distance and the views to them.

So this shows a view

to the west as well as a view to the east and kind of gives, it shows a little more priority and precedent towards what is the view from a distance versus the layout on the left is you can kind of see it in the photos, the distant views of the mountains, but I think the right-hand side does a better job of really

putting a focus on that point.

Both work fine.

Thanks.

Now that you've explained it like that, that makes a lot of sense because the structure is on the segmenters, almost like incidental to the overall experience when you're on that route.

Frank Hancock, do you have any comments?

Yes, it's great to see kind of this whole segment and see how it'll all work together.

For this specific question, my thought is can we have the flexibility of using either option or dividing that grid in different ways along different corridors?

I think it works really well with the landscape

Character of this corridor but it could also work really well with like a collection of buildings that we think is important or notable so showing kind of that more landscape view would help illustrate that so I don't know that we have to be rigid and every page has you know

The same nine picture grid and they're all the same size.

Yeah, I think we want to maintain flexibility.

I think this was

It's a question to ask whether flex is we, like when to break the grid essentially.

And then I had one specific comment on the Crozet corridor.

I refer or talk about the FNR building fair amount.

I think it's a really successful example

of a contemporary building on the corridor and a rural setting.

So I don't know if that could get maybe more featured billing as like a standalone, because that's somewhat recent.

I guess if we're pulling out projects, like in the first segment, I think the 2-8-7-1-IV Road, I'm not sure of the name of that building, but that's, yeah, on the bottom left of the right-hand spread on the previous page.

Oh, previous page.

Or previous slide.

Sorry.

Yeah, 2-8-7, on the right-hand spread on the bottom left.

I've always kind of liked that one as a personal, from a personal perspective of a sort of medical building that contains a modern style that refers to traditional elements.

I guess the one thing is that it's difficult to photograph certain parts of the quarter itself.

I wonder if you can get a different

I guess that brings up a question too.

If a building can be better described,

Generally, from the view that's not necessarily the view you would get from the card itself, is that a valid way to do it?

Because I think, you know, I don't know that it, sometimes the best shot of a building that really gives you a good understanding of the building is not necessarily like maybe the exact

It's odd that you see as you're driving by where it might have screening or foliage and bottom end.

Just putting that out there and that's what everybody's doing.

I think that's one of the things that Margaret and I talked about as we were laying this out is that so much of the continuity in this corridor is the buffers provided by the landscape and the landscape plantings themselves.

So what we tried to capture in that

and that image was the deep setback that provided that landscape buffer that's continuous throughout the corridor and as well as that it's planted at various, with various types of plant species at various heights, depths and spacings.

And I think you brought up the point of, you know, what is the view from the corridor and sometimes what establishes these is very,

I wonder if what establishes some of these buildings as very successful buildings is their ability to blend into the landscape, the landscaping being part of that, but maybe there is a better image to kind of showcase all of that.

Well, and that's a good point, I guess.

Thinking as an architect who does not draw trees in front of the building in my elevations, I want to see the building, maybe cut down some trees and stuff in front of it.

But that's a good point.

I mean, you can't remove it from its context.

Yeah, I guess that was my own also professional bias.

It can, I think we can,

You could make a case for highlighting a building or the way the building looks, even if it's slightly different than how you might typically see it from the street, particularly when you're driving by.

The guidelines do say that the landscaping or the landscaping along the street, getting consistency there allows for more variety in the architecture.

I guess they share different things, right?

Like all the images can, some of them speak to the screening, some of them speak to scale and massing or color.

All right.

Well, you talked about the university segments.

Just because we do have these, I think the ones without captions on the left, and just that we're going to talk a little bit here about the complimentary scale and the different setbacks between the older and newer developments.

I guess it's like, it's great to call out some of the more recent additions to the corridor, but not having been present when these were being discussed.

I'm just kind of wondering like, yeah, what does go in those spaces?

And what kind of things do we want to highlight about these structures?

If there are any initial thoughts of what would go in them in the future?

some you know very prominent brand new buildings and I'm wondering I guess for other corridors like and maybe that gets to just a general comment about as

As new buildings are developed on each of these corridors, is there any thought towards a mechanism for keeping the one-pagers updated?

Like, would a new project bump a project that's featured on the one-pager?

If so, how would that happen?

How often do we think of

That's a good question.

And it isn't one that we've talked about a lot.

But I think it definitely makes sense to update as we go.

All right, does anyone else have any other questions or comments?

I'd just like to make one additional comment and just to encourage everyone but in particular the board member who did the initial survey work on the corridors to look carefully at the text and to make sure that what we've put in there as the general characteristics and all the bulleted items

really captures what you found in your survey work.

So for example, Frank Stoner for Route 151, I think that was one of your corridors.

Great.

All right, thanks.

Well, we appreciate it.

And they're still looking great.

So I guess on to other business.

Would anyone like to make a motion to approve the July 18th minutes?

I wasn't here.

So moved.

I'll second that.

Mr. Matsuno?

Aye.

Thank you.

All right.

Thanks a lot.

The next ARB meeting is scheduled for August 15th, 2022.

This will be a virtual meeting.

Great.

So, sounds like we will have a quorum.

Do any board members or staff have any other items or questions, comments?

A question for Frank.

Oh, that's exciting.

OK, congratulations.

Thank you.

I've been here about a month.

Sounds great when you said hi.

Yes, I will.

I did have a question.

All right, thanks a lot.

This meeting is adjourned until our next meeting on August 15th.

It is 1 56 p.m. by my clock, so I hope everyone has a enjoyable two weeks.

Thanks Chris.

Thanks a lot.

Thank you everyone.