Architectural Review Board Meeting   5/15/2023

OK. OK.

All right, it's 1.04.

Sure.

Mr. Van Der Werf?

Here.

Mr. Stoner is not present yet.

Here.

Today's meeting is a hybrid meeting.

The public may access and participate in the meeting electronically.

Instructions for doing so are posted on the Albemarle County website at the Albemarle County calendar.

The public has real-time audio-visual 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 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.

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.

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

If applicants in the meeting room have team members attending virtually who will need to present, please make that known when you come to the podium.

Everyone who is participating virtually, please mute your microphone until it is your turn to speak.

Yes, I am employed by the firm.

We'll be presenting on ARB 2023, item 32, the BMW renovation.

So I will not be participating in that conversation.

I do not have anything to disclose.

And I don't either.

Are there any members of the public that want to make a comment about a project that is not on the agenda for review?

There's one consent agenda item today.

It is ARB 2023-35, UVA Community Credit Union Initial Site Plan.

And I don't have it, so anyone like to move to approve the consent agenda?

We'll move for approval of the consent agenda.

All right, thanks.

Let's put it to a vote.

Aye.

Mr. Stoner is absent.

Alright, thanks a lot.

On to the regular review items.

We have two regular review items today.

This is a proposal for a Home Depot store to be located at the Fashion Square Mall property.

The new structure would replace the Sears building that stands currently at the north end of the mall.

The site falls within two entrance corridors.

It's Route 29 to the west and Rio Road to the north, and the site is visible from both of those corridors.

These photos are recent views from the Rio Road corridor.

Rio is elevated above the site approximately 20 feet, and that allows for views down onto the roof of the existing building, also likely onto the roof of the proposed building.

This is a view showing that change in elevation from the site looking out.

Another view of the development from Rio Road.

It shows more of the parking lots of the overall development and views through to Route 29 and to the mountains in the distance.

There are existing mature trees along Rio Road that are to remain, but views are available between and through those trees and along the frontage where there aren't any trees at this time.

This is a view from Route 29 where the site is elevated above the street.

Visibility increases

when you move westward away from the grass strip that's shown in that slide.

There are two entrances into the mall property from Route 29, and the north end of the building becomes visible in the vicinity of the northern entrance into the site.

And it remains visible further north as you move towards Rio Road.

As you can see, there's no landscaping along the northernmost section of the Route 29 frontage.

and currently the site plan shows no landscaping to be added there.

No architectural designs were submitted with the initial plan, so there's no architecture to discuss today, but the degree to which the design meets the guidelines will need to be addressed in a future review and it's anticipated that that design will be a version of a standard trademark design.

As you know, the site has already been developed and the proposed site layout is generally consistent with the existing condition.

The new building would be located generally in the same place as the existing Sears building.

It's shifted a bit further to the east, so it would be set back several feet from the building that would be remaining.

And the main building of the Home Depot extends a bit further to the north than the existing Sears building.

A garden center is also proposed at the north end of the main Home Depot building.

It would occupy most of what is now that northern parking lot.

Landscaping and lighting were also not included in the initial plan, so those details will also need to be addressed in a future review.

The primary issues identified at this time fall under the accessory structures and equipment guidelines.

Those guidelines state that loading areas, storage areas, and mechanical equipment, among other things, should be located to eliminate visibility.

And if after appropriate siting the features still have a negative impact, then screening should be added to eliminate visibility.

The areas highlighted in yellow on this slide are loading areas and a generator and they're located so that the building and topography provides screening from the quarters.

The plan doesn't show rooftop equipment at this time, but rooftop equipment is expected.

This is an image from an online search showing an elevated view of a Home Depot store with rooftop equipment.

Given the elevated position of Ryar Road, it's anticipated that standard parapet walls will not provide sufficient screening for that rooftop equipment.

The plan also shows areas for outdoor display.

They're mostly organized along the front elevation of both the main store building and the garden center.

These display areas would be visible from the entrance corridors.

Sales, storage, and display areas visible from the corridors require a special use permit.

The applicant has not yet applied for that permit.

Without details explaining how the outdoor display will be designed to achieve an appropriate appearance for the corridors, staff cannot support approval of the outdoor display areas with the initial plan.

Already noted, a garden center is proposed.

If items for sales, storage, or display in the garden center will be visible from one or both corridors, then special use permit approval will be required for the garden center as well.

An online search of Home Depot images reveals a range of garden center designs with a variety of roof and screening treatments.

Some have no roof,

A design with no roof in this location would allow the items within to be viewed from the Rio Road entrance corridor.

Some of the roof treatments appear to be fabric or plastic or similar materials.

Some appear to be seasonal and are removed from the metal frames for periods of time.

These have a temporary utilitarian appearance that may not be appropriate for the entrance corridors.

A garden center enclosed with walls and roof and constructed of permanent materials would be appropriate for the corridors.

Because appropriateness of the garden center design cannot be confirmed with the information submitted with the initial plan, we've recommended a condition of approval to address that.

So our recommendation on the initial plan is for approval with two conditions.

One, that the garden center must be a fully enclosed structure using permanent materials, the design of which would require ARB review and approval until a special use permit is approved for the use showing an alternate design and materials acceptable to the ARB.

All right, thanks a lot, Margaret.

All right, we'll go to questions from board members.

I just wanted to refer back to the staff report that was provided and connection with the recommended items at the end for discussion.

It just had mentioned that the yellow items, including the landscaping, had been the items highlighted in yellow.

Landscaping was included in the things that we could

The presence of landscaping is something we could include in this discussion for this hearing.

I think that you can discuss.

It would be helpful to bring up any items that you think are of concern and we have an opportunity to discuss them.

Right.

Thanks, Frank.

Sure.

Thanks, Margaret.

Maybe if you could elaborate on the outdoor display and the special use permit requirement.

Thinking back to like the sheets that I think had some things outside that maybe are not the scale of what this would be.

But just thinking, I mean, in my mind, I'm thinking lawn mowers and all that sort of thing, but

So the special use permit is required for any outdoor sales storage display in the entrance quarters specifically.

The sheets example, I don't believe that came up in our review of that.

I don't want to get sheets in trouble.

I was just thinking that kind of reminded me.

I mean, I think at that point it was like windshield wiper fluid and maybe not the same scale as this, but that's helpful.

Thank you.

And then I don't, this might be a question for the applicant.

Just knowing the specifics of the plan about how far from 29 is this building.

It seems a pretty big distance.

Thank you.

I don't have any other questions.

Thanks.

Thanks, Chris.

Thanks, Margaret.

Picking up on Taro's question, you highlighted that there weren't street trees proposed or accident on 29.

The review would apply to whatever is within the limits of disturbance, but when we get to the point of having enough information to determine what's visible regarding the outdoor display, the applicant could choose to add landscaping or change the limits of display to include an area that would help them provide screening.

Yes, yeah, thank you.

Let's see, I also appreciate you highlighting the elevation position of Rio relative to the building.

I guess not for this application, but for our future consideration of the ultimate architectural application.

There's nothing specific to that other than the broad guideline we have about, you know, materials and textures and scale and appearance.

Thank you.

All right.

Thanks, Dave.

I came in with some questions, but they've been addressed by the discussion.

I'm Valerie Long with Williams-Mullen.

We're here representing, supporting the applicant here today.

We do have at least one of our team members participating remotely, the project architect.

I'm not certain if the civil engineer is on remotely or not, I hopefully, but so if there's specific engineering type questions, I would ask to defer to him.

We really don't have an official presentation today.

We're obviously happy to answer questions.

As Margaret indicated, we know we are going to need most likely a special use permit for outdoor storage and display.

There is a small chance that the garden center can be completely enclosed.

They're still studying that issue and thinking about designs and so forth.

But very likely we'll be back hopefully fairly soon with a full package of application on outdoor storage to address the concerns there.

Thank you.

So we will go into questions for the applicant.

Not at this time, thank you.

No, I don't have any questions, thank you.

I don't, thank you.

And I don't have any questions either.

So are there any members of the public that would like to make a comment?

No, there's no members of the public currently that would like to speak on this item.

All right, thank you.

ARB will now go into discussion.

Just that one of the things that I would be looking for as the process continues is landscaping and clarification on the presence of the trees and screening, all that sort of thing.

My other thought was just around the visibility of the rooftop equipment, because most of the cases where we're dealing with them on the entrance corridor, they're elevated and parapets and other strategies can really mitigate the appearance of the rooftop equipment.

But I think for future

sort of reviews of this project.

Thanks, Taro.

I think those are great points and the visualization would be helpful.

I think especially with the gray change there, it's good to know that those existing trees along Rile Road are staying.

Do we have a distance?

Okay, so pretty far back.

But I'll just add, I think overall, I think it's a really nice project as a redevelopment of a site instead of, you know, doing this on a greenfield site somewhere else in the county.

So and I'm confident, I think, you know, given the distance from the corridor on 29 and kind of the grade change condition that we have there now that, you know, this

won't have an overwhelming impact on either corridor.

So I don't really have anything else to add.

Thank you.

Thanks.

I agree.

I think as a redevelopment, that really is kind of a benefit.

And I think the real challenge comes from more the Briar Road corridor than 29.

I think that's trying to,

Based on the photos of the existing conditions, to a large extent, you're going to be looking down on the roof and it's going to be a challenge to hide the equipment and make that look, you know, not bad, you know, not like better than a normal roof.

So, but in terms of

what we've seen in terms of the layout of the site.

Yeah, and I agree with what all of you have said.

I think it's great that it's a redevelopment, but I think like Taro, like Chris, would be interested as this moves forward to understand and hopefully see more landscape and

I guess I'll just go through and see if anyone has any

suggested modifications to make and then we'll go for a motion.

Tara?

The only thought I have is with the first clause of the the garden center must be a fully enclosed structure using permanent materials and I think that it definitely makes sense for the

Garden Center to not have the sort of temporary appearance that Margaret was alluding to, but I don't know if they'd necessarily go together.

Like, is there a theoretical, non-enclosed structure that has permanent materials?

Or are they kind of intrinsically linked?

Other than that, I think for me, the question is more the appearance and the materiality of it.

I'm open to whether or not it needs to be.

So the part of the issue with the being fully enclosed is that if you can look down into it and see what's inside, then it needs a special permit.

We don't have that application yet.

And just to clarify is that, you know, I realized when I read it, I was thinking fully enclosed roof.

Thank you.

Okay.

So thanks for clarifying.

We have, um, um,

Thank you very much.

Members of board, thank you very much.

John Karakas from the firm, Greenberg Farrow.

We're the site development managers for the for the overall project.

I believe the my question was about once it was about the fully enclosed garden center.

But the comments that I heard answered all my questions.

So I'm good understanding what Margaret explained that what needed to happen was because we didn't have an SUP that the recommendation that it be fully enclosed.

We'll work forward on the SUP and then, and the other part of that was there's two, and I think someone else had mentioned it.

Okay.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I appreciate the opportunity.

I just want to clarify, and I think we're all on the same page here, but just for the record for future, as Home Depot and its designers move forward with the design of the garden center and any future outdoor storage and display, we anticipate that possibly those conditions would change as the special use permit, assuming it's needed, works its way through the process, such that at final site plan,

Perhaps a portion of it would be not fully enclosed as a permanent structure if that were approved as part of the special use permit.

It's very likely we'll be back to you hopefully soon with a special use permit application.

They're just working on it now.

And there's a possibility the entire building could be fully enclosed with permanent materials.

I think that's not very likely, but we recognize that anything that's not would have to be approved as part of the special use permit.

So I hope that's clear.

All right, I don't have any suggestions or edits or anything.

I'll second.

Mr. Van Der Werf?

Mr. Matsuno?

Aye.

Mr. Hancock?

Aye.

Mr. Henningsen?

Aye.

All right, thanks a lot.

It's going to take us a second to switch over.

The application I'm presenting on today is the preliminary review of a renovation plan submitted for BMW of Charlottesville's sales and service buildings.

Subject properties are located on the south side of Route 250 east of the intersection People Place and Route 250.

The ARB has approved a number of applications for the site, including a special use permit in 1998 for outdoor display with vehicles.

ARB applications in 1998 and 2008 for the design of the current buildings and sell or sign applications.

Renovations of sales and service buildings revise the curved parapets to horizontal, paint the existing brick and ephos white, and add canopies over the main entrance and storefront windows of the sales building.

The change of the parapets from curved to horizontal help better connect the forms to historic architecture.

And the canopies help add to human scale to the building design.

How we're painting the earth tone brick and even this white will downplay the varying textures of building materials in existing design, weakening the base metal top pattern identified in the board's review of the existing design as aspects that increase the compatibility with the county's historic architecture.

Staff recommends revising the building design to one that maintains the existing base middle top pattern.

I'd be happy to try to answer any questions.

Thanks, Chris.

Thank you.

Good afternoon.

My name is Bruce Wardell.

I'm the architect assisting the owner and the manufacturer with this application.

And I don't have a formal presentation.

You've seen just about everything that there is.

It's a relatively minor modification.

Well, there's minor work to the building.

There are a couple of things that I would mention.

While he's getting that up I will introduce the other topic that when I sat on the board I hated when this happened and that is on Friday afternoon we got a call from the manufacturer

requesting that we present the building as a fully synthetic stucco building without taking the brick off and putting synthetic stucco on.

I informed them that that was kind of impossible at this point in time.

and that the precedent of keeping the brick in the entrance corridor was probably the preferred strategy at this point in time.

If you all decide to not consider the full stucco version of it, I would appreciate your articulation of that in your motion.

Secondly, the perspective is probably the best one.

because that's the major view of the building from the entrance corridor.

The only comment I would make is that while the sort of bottom, middle, and top typology for a traditional building of a classical building makes sense, a modern building oftentimes doesn't have that same kind of structure.

and same kind of organization and so our thought was that by painting the brick and keeping it as a natural material and there's precedent for painted brick in the localized entrance corridor up at the Atlantic Bank building and the

I think it's the UVA credit building that the painted brick fits in with the palette that's along this entrance corner and that the idea of not having the kind of base middle and top there's no cornice on a modern building and so concurrently there usually isn't a base on a modern building so I would request that the application be considered as is and that

that if that becomes an issue we can have a conversation about it.

Other than that, I think we've presented the

The limited changes to the building in terms of its configuration, the windows and doors will stay the same.

The profile of the parapets I think is the major improvement to the building as well as the more consistent appearance of the exterior materials.

It sort of takes it out of the late 80s and gets it back closer to where we are.

Sure, thank you for the presentation, Bruce.

That was not considered.

We had what we thought was the, we had back in March,

We had put this configuration together.

We ran it back through the food chain, the owner and the manufacturer.

And you guys know that sometimes the owner and the manufacturer aren't on the same page in these things.

But we had run it back through the whole food chain.

And this thing coming in on Friday afternoon was a bit of a curveball for us.

And it went against any

I don't.

Thank you, Bruce.

Great presentation and great application.

Large print.

Yeah, I agree.

I don't have any questions either.

Are there any members of the public that would like to make a comment?

No, there are no members in the public who would like to comment.

Thanks.

The ARB will now go into discussion.

I think I'm comfortable with the original proposal.

While the current variation in color and material breaks up the scale somewhat, it's a rather diminutive building.

And I think in some ways, actually, the form is a little bit

clearer when the color is unified.

So sympathetic to Bruce's statements about a modern building, and I think the application is acceptable.

I think normally, if it were a new one, I'd be concerned about the extent of stucco.

But given the extent that's extant there, this seems acceptable to me.

Thanks, I agree.

I think you got to look at this contextually too and think about this corridor, what's, you know, with the Toyota VW, there's white or light, definitely lighter colors.

And then if there's a place for contemporary architecture, it's definitely here, you know, knowing what BRW did across the street with the new flow complex,

I think it fits in.

I think maybe some of the conversations about the white being the dominant material is maybe more impactful on some of these multifamily residential projects that we see and kind of their location, maybe a little further out and more kind of suburban, rural context.

But

I think here, given the adjacent other similar uses and contemporary architectural styles, I think it works.

Alright, thanks.

Yeah, I agree.

Also, I think the painted brick kind of would give a subtle textural difference between that and the stucco.

And I think considering the amount of stucco on the existing building,

Adding to it slightly by straightening the cornice line is acceptable but kind of wiping away that brick texture I think would be taking a step further.

Regarding the white, I also agree it's a commercial building and what clearly is a commercial corridor and we've approved other examples that

Add a similar color scheme, so I don't have a problem with that either.

So the recommendation was three comments, assuming that revised plan, a revised proposal would come back to you for review.

It sounds like number one, you want to, that leaves

Just two and three about lighting.

I've added a number four, which says the ARB does not support the request for walls fully covered with synthetic stucco.

All right.

All right.

I'll make a motion for approval with the conditions listed in the staff report.

Amended as follows.

Strike item number one, add item number four.

Second the motion.

Aye.

Mr. Hancock?

Aye.

And Mr. Hensing?

Aye.

All right, so there is one work session today.

It's on the entrance corridor design guidelines addenda.

Sorry, I thought my computer died.

That is really nice for the record.

Good afternoon everyone and thank you again for your continued

Work and review of this effort to identify consistent and common elements and historic aspects along each of the county's entrance corridors.

Today we're going to be reviewing the draft entrance corridor addendum for two routes, route 231 and 22, Bordensville Road and Louisa Road.

respectively.

So these routes were combined in one spread because the traveler's experience along them is one of a continuous road, grouped them together.

This is the main, there's one spread, so two sheets.

This first sheet is the typical information.

So the location of these entrance corridors is in Eastern Albemarle, beginning at the top northeastern corner towards Gordon'sville and Orange.

going south on Route 231, Gordonville Road, and then continuing on Route 22, Louisa Road, south of the intersection at Cismont.

So Cismont is the turning point.

The experience along this roadway is extremely consistent in its scenic, rural, and agricultural character.

Most views are ones of undulating pastures, winding roads, mature trees, forested hills, tree-lined

Lanes and Board Fences.

So while there are a number of historic structures along the roadway, very few are visible from the road due to their distance from the road topography and vegetation.

All of the properties are in the rural areas zoning district, except for a small pocket of commercial development at the southern end of Route 22 at the intersection 50, which is the gas station.

Moving to the next sheet, this sheet contains more details regarding consistent structural and landscaping elements seen along the corridor and representatives' precedent images.

While pastoral lands are remarkably predominant, there are a few images of representative buildings that are visible from the corridors.

We gave the lower right image

More real estate on the sheet because I think it does a pretty good job of capturing and depicting many of the consistent attributes identified along the roadway.

This is the sheet spread that we have for your review today.

Putting this together and the historical information on this route is pretty interesting, so I appreciate that it's been provided.

Otherwise, I think it looks really good.

Actually, we were talking in the office today about just what other folks are up to when folks in our office who sit on boards and stuff, and I had showed some of your examples, and I think everybody was very into the layouts and the project itself, so thank you for

What a great compliment.

We were into the 29 North section, and there's a great two photo spread like the one you did here, but of the motel and that like Jeffersonian building on the side.

So, you know, it's been good.

Sure.

Great work.

Definitely a favorite corridor.

This is an awesome corridor.

And what I was, my question, I don't know that contextually you would think about this, but at the I-64 end of this, is that gas station?

Like, I don't want to think about a gas station with this corridor, but I feel like that was maybe reviewed by the ARB at one time, just thinking about that canopy.

I don't know if that's an example, because this is largely about the landscape and the extended views, but at the same point, we often look for gas station examples, and that one's at a prominent intersection.

And then there's also these gray little buildings like the post office, or, you know, I don't know if there's one of the, I might be thinking of one of the side roads that comes off of this corridor, but like that kind of corner store, the county has so many of them, any of those types of buildings.

Actually the photo that's in the middle of that spread that was, if it's correct, originally a one-story store that was converted into a two-story commercial building.

To your comment about, just to clarify the comment about the gas station at the corner of route 250, that gas station is actually in our 250, route 250 spread.

So it would be one of those conditions where what do we do at the intersection of two, which we have yet to have that, we've talked about a work session, that is coming in the future.

I'd forgotten that it was included in the other one.

I think as long as it's in one of these, because I think there's some good examples within that project building.

I think we're good.

But this quarter kind of ends in that I think there's like an office building or two.

So there's uses here other than residential and kind of state lands that might be

In this image, Shadwell is actually covering the commercially zoned property, that label.

Most of the developments that you're referencing are, well, they're interesting in that they are little centers of activity, but they're isolated to a parcel.

Whereas when we get down to 250, a lot of the businesses start to orient towards 250, and it's almost the entrance into that corridor versus

and entrance onto this one, but entrances being seen as when you approach.

So the approach here would be from north to south and there would be little installations along the way.

Yes, yeah, I'll add my thanks and compliments to Taro's and Frank's.

It's wonderful advancing.

I guess one question I had recognizing the really remarkable character of this corridor is I guess there's one example of the residential development shown that is not subject to our review, right?

It's just sort of accidental that they've planted screening trees.

Maybe just want to flag, not too much for the guidelines or for this survey, but for a guidelines update.

I think one issue I'd like us to consider is if there's a way to expand the application of the guidelines so that they apply to all development along these corridors.

And I think, Margaret, you had mentioned that maybe scenic entrance routes might provide more of that protection.

Yeah, I was thinking all along the same lines.

I mean, this is one of the most gorgeous corridors and it feels a little similar to some of the sections of the 250 West in that

It's gorgeous, but like out of our purview.

And it's like, I'd almost like regret to see any application on a corridor like this.

Cause you kind of the best thing that could happen with this corridor is for nothing to happen to it.

So like what they had suggested some mechanism where the

The only thing is just I would second Frank's note about signage is like the one little thing that kind of intersects with stuff that we're considering.

All right, well, thanks a lot.

We'll move into other business now.

It's all good.

I'll second.

Mr. Van Der Werf?

Aye.

All right, thanks a lot.

Yes, I have two items as follow up to questions from the last meeting.

There was a question about when the ARB would be able to make some more comments or recommendations for the comp plan.

So we have some options there beginning from now until the end of the summer.

We could add an item to the agenda to talk specifically about goals and objectives that the ARB would like to see or to see updated.

Our staff who are directly involved in that work, we're happy to have your help in drafting goals and objectives for that entrance quarters.

Alternatively, we could wait until the fall when we could present you with

draft calls and objectives, or we could do both.

So when you say, would it just be the folks we usually see at these meetings?

Were there other people involved in the process that would be included in that conversation?

So at some point, between now and the end of the summer, we can have staff come and just have a discussion.

And then from that discussion, we can draft the goals and objectives and come back and present you with those drafts and get your comments again.

Yeah.

OK, great.

The second item that I wanted to update you on was

At the last meeting, Neil Williamson had stated that he had heard from somebody who had contacted him to talk about somebody else just driving the entrance quarters looking at signs.

And so

The code compliance officer, or there is a code compliance officer that does travel the county's streets to look for

illegal signs in the right of way.

So that is a proactive thing that the code compliance officers do.

When Neil made his statement, I thought he and because he was here, I assumed he was talking about signs that like you all would approve or that we would approve for you.

That's not really the case.

So but there is, in most cases, we're waiting for

You know, a complaint to be made and a code compliance officer will go out, but that this is a different situation for the illegal signs in the right of way.

So that is a proactive thing that's happening.

And if one of them is out of the site, and they happen to see something else that really looks like it's not not in line with what's supposed to be there, then they would pursue that as well.

So

I can follow up with Neil since he's not here today.

That doesn't seem out of the ordinary, right?

I mean, other municipalities have.

Yeah, I appreciate the follow up, Margaret.

And just the illegal signs of the entry in the right of way, that's like,

Trying to imagine what those other infractions would be.

Yep.

Okay, makes sense.

Thank you.

Sad we won't get a dedicated ARB enforcer.

We'd give them a water bottle.

So I think that maybe the other way to look at is the the ones that are I think that they're focusing on are those that are really temporary, they're real easy to put in and take out.

And so it's not like the permanent signs that were that are attached to a wall or

Okay.

Well, thanks.

One quick question.

Nice.

Looking further ahead, I guess we'll check for the 19th at the next meeting.

That is, so we have, is the next meeting June 5th?

Oh, sorry.

That's way ahead.

But that's a good point.

That's Juneteenth.

Is the county open on Juneteenth?

I know UVA is closed.

Oh, that's a Tuesday.

Yeah, I think I'll be here.

I should be here.

Yeah, me too.

All right, well, in that case, this meeting is adjourned until our next meeting on June 5th, 2023.

It's 2.04 by my watch.