Architectural Review Board Meeting   2/5/2024

All right.

All right.

So one o'clock.

So I'm calling the February 5th, 2024 meeting of the Albemarle County Architecture Review Board to order.

Yes.

Thanks.

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.

All right, thank you.

Nor will I. I don't have any disclosures.

I don't either.

All right, great.

We don't have any consent agenda items today, and we don't have any work sessions today, so we will move to our first regular review item, of which there are three today.

The first is ARB 2023-116, three-notched center.

Yes.

Good afternoon, everyone.

Mariah Gleason, Senior Planner with Community Development.

This is a first review of the architectural plans or architectural designs for ARB 2023 116 3 Notch Center.

Subject property is a single parcel with two buildings located at 5368 and 5370 Three Notched Road just west of Music Today and Star Hill Brewery with downtown Crozet located less than a mile west.

Three Notched Road or Route 240 is a county entrance corridor and therefore the plans require ARV review.

There have been several plans on this parcel to date.

The plan shown at the top left is the approved site plan for the parcel, last revised in 2020.

Architectural designs for the carwash building located at the northwest corner of the parcel were approved by the ARB in 2013.

That building was constructed in 2018.

Before that, the ARB approved architectural plans for a large multi-tenant building along the parcel's entrance corridor frontage in 2009.

The approved elevations for that are shown to the right.

The proposal will replace the previously approved architecture designs for the large multi-tenant building.

The proposed building will be a two-story, primarily brick building with a total of 23,000 square feet, having a building footprint of approximately 16,000 square feet.

The configuration of the building shown in the architecture plans does not match the previously approved site plans, and there are some inconsistencies in the building massing and sidewalk within the proposal.

The applicant is planning to turn to submit a site plan amendment to approve the new building layout and other site changes, including changes to the parking areas and parking area landscaping.

Conditions recommended by staff include submittal of the site plan amendment and also indicate where alignment is needed within the proposed materials.

The proposed design is consistent with the historic structures nearby and within the county and is also compatible with the industrial character of the surrounding area.

The use of articulated rectangular forms one to two stories.

and building height and brick, wood and metal materials promotes a coordinated and attractive appearance along the corridor.

There is however a concern that storefronts facing the entrance corridor may develop a back of building appearance as patrons utilize entrances located directly from the parking area resulting in the parking lot side functioning more like a front of building.

A building design that includes internal spaces to accommodate back of house functions would reduce the potential for windows along the entrance corridor to daylight

Utilitarian or service functions will be covered by poster style signs and help maintain an appropriate appearance along the corridor.

Second, while locations for signs are shown on the elevations, a proposed comprehensive sign plan for the building will be needed.

Other issues identified in the staff report include providing details for window glass, dumpster pad, and loading zones.

Confirming that the rooftop equipment will be eliminated from view from the entrance corridor street updates to notes and lastly revisions to additional information to align with landscaping, lighting and grading requirements.

A full set of recommendations and discussion topics are provided here.

I also have a slide that lists possible ARB motions should a member of the ARB like to have that on hand.

All right.

Thanks a lot.

Tara, do you have any questions?

I don't.

No, I don't.

I don't have any questions either.

Is it possible?

Good afternoon, everybody.

My name is Kevin Shaffer.

I am the Charlottesville studio director for design develop and we are here today to talk about Three Notch Center.

Thank you so much, Mariah, for the thorough staff report and the diligence.

We appreciate it.

As mentioned, this is a preliminary ARB presentation, so we're here to engage in the conversation, look for comments before we go back and kick off our civil engineer on the site plan amendment work, scope of work.

As Mariah mentioned, we do have a relatively significant entitlement process through the project.

2009 was the first site plan approved.

At that time, ARB was approved as well.

The car wash then came in 2013.

and had a site plan amendment associated with that.

But in general, the overall strategy and site design and site layout remains the same from the previously approved site plan.

And that would be that there is a 30-foot building setback along Three Notch Road and relegated parking to the rear.

The building itself has a strong entrance corridor frontage and the location and overall layout of the building utilizes the previously approved site plans.

But what has changed

In the past 15 years is how we use buildings in this post-COVID era.

We are starting to shift away from the traditional two-story professional office building.

And especially in Crozet, look more towards destinations or experiential uses, maybe it's restaurants,

or Small Scale Breweries, things like that.

And that change in use and the change in how we use buildings has prompted a redesign of the building and that redesign of the building has prompted some shifting of the footprint.

And before we got too far along with our civil engineer, we just wanted to get this proposal in front of you.

So that's just a little bit of a discussion on the process and where we are today.

We were pleased with county staff that they seemed favorable to the project and noted in the staff report that the compatibility with the industrial character of the surrounding area

and the architectural styles found in downtown Crozet.

Indeed, the building massing that's in front of you today, it was kind of a blending of two concepts.

One that paid homage to the existing downtown Crozet kind of commercial core right there.

And then another one that riffed on the industrial precedents found immediately adjacent, including Barnes lumber and some of the historic industrial projects around us.

The building itself is broken down into five primary building forms.

It's simple brick boxes with very rhythmic and sort of rational gridding with brick pilasters and fenestration that's of similar sizing, similar proportion.

and that's really emphasizing the kind of industrial brick warehouse typology and I think what's fun and what's compelling is when we interject the retail use with these larger storefront openings that start to break the rules, start to break the rigidity of this typology and open up the three notch center a little bit more to the outside, break down the scale,

and create a very porous and open storefront and inviting kind of building facade.

Additionally, we're creating a cohesive whole through the use of a refined and pretty simple material palette.

It's an anodized aluminum storefront and break metal trim.

It's a traditional brick tone and it's a dark wood

kind of material that starts to lend itself to this historic industrial aesthetic.

So we're creating a cohesive whole.

The main way we are achieving our human scale is through the implementation of these large canopies.

And there's numerous canopies.

And the canopies are important because the owner desires flexibility within this retail space.

Store fronts could grow, change, shift, things like that.

and every entrance had a canopy over it was a desire of the owner.

We're still keeping the building from feeling too massive with these pilasters, with traditional detailing over the header and the sill.

We are breaking down the mass.

The two-story building helps break down the mass.

We get to vary our roofline.

in the central bays, but also the end caps where we're anticipating the restaurant use.

And then the central entrance in the core is highlighted by the wood material and another change in our roofline.

We did want to address staff's comment regarding how do we ensure that the

The entrance corridor continues to feel like the front of the house and not the back of the house.

And I think this design has several key elements that are working in its favor to do so.

The first, as was mentioned in the staff report, is there is a sidewalk that goes all along

240 on this site plan, and it has several connections back to the building itself, so we are inviting and engaging the pedestrian to utilize this rear side.

We're also treating the, excuse me, not the rear side, the entrance corridor side, we're also treating this entrance corridor facade like

the front facade in that it's getting as much if not more storefront, it's getting the deeper canopies, it's getting the signage, the rich detailing that happens on all four sides.

And so we're really designing it like the front of the building and we are treating it that way through pedestrian connectivity.

But maybe that doesn't necessarily satisfy the how do we prevent people from utilizing it as a service zone.

One thing I did want to step back and mention was just in this, in the map that's on the screen here, we have over 500 residences within a half mile walk of this site.

As new neighborhoods continue to be developed to the east on Three Notch Road, and they're already approved,

and as downtown Crozet continues to develop and grow to the west, we feel and the owner feels strongly too that this is going to become a important pedestrian connectivity route between those.

And that planning for that future connectivity as pedestrian infrastructure is added is smart and it would be short-sighted if we didn't design a building that captured some of that pedestrian connectivity.

The thought here is that not everybody is coming to this space as a destination.

It could be a pass through on the way to downtown Crozet and capturing market and pedestrian users as they do so was important.

So how do we continue to ensure that the

entrance corridor side isn't utilized as the back of house service areas.

What we provide, we provide the utility and the maintenance access or the service access or the delivery access from the parking lot side.

We also have a five bay structure that has required shear walls at each

at each box.

And so what that does is that allows for an interior wall that we can start to program with our services.

Maybe there's under slab plumbing in those areas so that it's not forced to the entrance corridor side.

And we start to pre-program bathroom locations, storage room locations on the restaurant in caps.

That's certainly the location where we would target the kitchen and things like that.

Any utility or landlord access would come from the parking lot side, and so by sort of starting to pre-program the interior of the building, but still remaining flexible for potential tenants, we can start to allay some of those fears regarding the entrance corridor retaining its front feeling.

The final note I'll make on that is that we do have the 30 foot building setback and it will be heavily landscaped based on entrance corridor requirements.

And so there is a significant amount of visual screening that will happen between the building and the entrance corridor if there is a poster put on there in some sense.

But there's always this tension between relegating our parking to the rear and creating truly a four-sided building.

And I think that relegating the parking to the rear is a smart move.

And now we have to just take these kind of design elements and these design cues and do our best to make sure that that doesn't happen, that it becomes a back of house thing.

And so those are the strides we're making here.

And so I think with that,

I'll just again reiterate we're coming back with the site plan amendment in hand but before we got too far down any one path we just wanted to make sure that this was headed in the right direction and if there were comments that would create a more efficient process for county staff and for our owner we'd appreciate them now.

All right, let's see if any board members have any questions.

Thanks, Kevin.

Did you have some pictures early on of the buildings immediately across the street in this area?

Sorry about that.

If we could switch to my screen.

So it looks like I don't have a front image of the Music Today buildings, but we do have Star Hill in this lower image.

Oh, I'm sorry.

OK, great.

Thanks.

All right.

I don't have any questions.

Great presentation.

Taro?

I don't have a floor plan, but the sheer walls that I was referring to would happen at the building change in height, the roof change in height and the kind of building articulation of those five boxes.

All right, thanks.

I don't have any questions.

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

All right, in that case, the ARB will go into discussion.

Taro, I'll start with you.

Yeah, I was just trying to understand a little bit better about the internal organization of the spaces if there's a, you know, way that we could, you know, speak to that back of house versus front of house issue.

You know, it's a little, you know, without having exact use programmed in that space just yet, I think it's a little hard to say.

Overall, I appreciate the presentation.

In terms of its overall compatibility, I think it fits into the entrance corridor.

I agree with the thought that this, the way that the overall scheme is organized, it fits in with the industrial character of the site.

It's pretty in keeping with the building that's sited alongside an existing railway.

I think that that all makes sense.

I think the other thing is just to note the, I mean, it's a pretty typical note, but just the mechanical equipment, which is helpfully indicated on the renderings also be screened per typical ARB process.

Overall, I think it's a really nice project.

Appreciate your presentation.

Thanks.

I think this is a great project.

I think it's entirely appropriate.

I think it does all the things we ask for.

I think when you showed the images of the previous application, we've moved from

kind of a residential derived building to more, I think, a building that's more contextually appropriate that responds to what's happening in this general vicinity, but also kind of further down into the downtown Crozet area.

So my only comment was, I wonder if it could be taller.

I think it could be a taller building, but I think it's really nice.

Frank?

Yeah, thanks.

I agree with my other board members who've spoken.

I think it's a really nice project.

I think this issue of front of house, back of house has manifested itself every time we do one of these or try to do a project that's new urbanist and relegated parking, but the reality is everybody's parking in the back and walking in the back of the building.

In this case, I'm not sure it matters.

I think I'd be inclined to approve this project if it didn't have any storefront.

We're not in a retail district.

In some ways, if this was an industrial use, I don't know that we would have an issue with it.

I think the fact that it's set back 30 feet from the corridor, again, sort of reduces its impact as a potential retail location.

It's gonna reduce visibility to the stores that are in the space.

So to me, it's kind of the front of the house, back of the house issue is kind of a non-issue for me.

All right, thanks a lot.

Yeah, and I agree with my fellow board members.

I think I tend to agree with you, Frank, that I'm not as concerned about the front versus back issue also.

I guess, and this is one of the staff comments, but the visibility of the mechanical units, you were gracious to

make the units very prominent in the rendering.

So you know exactly where they're gonna be.

I would consider maybe locating them on the high roofs and not the low and just increasing the parapet height, which I think would help with that, even if the mechanical engineer doesn't like that idea very much.

But that's all I think generally very well done.

So if we could call up the recommended motion or I guess at this point they're just looking for comment so we could do a motion though or not.

So we're trying to move towards getting a motion for every action, so that's what we have on the screen for you today.

This I'll just run through in the same order for comments to see if anyone has any tweaks they'd like to make.

I support that too.

Yeah, unless there's a way

Yes, yeah, I just thought it would be helpful to see, you know, what's the scale of the space that they're proposing?

What are the demising walls?

Given the level of storefront and the amount of storefront along that facade, that would be one of the things we would usually ask for would be more demonstration to see.

So like you're going to have a pretty good sense of what's happening inside the building as you drive past and

I think the fear is probably that it ends up like Whole Foods, for example, where it sort of orients to the street, but you can't actually go in the entrance.

I suspect that's what...

Sorry to interrupt.

The exhibit that the applicant showed of just

The context, the amount of residences nearby, the scale of the road.

I mean, it's a much different scale than some of the buildings we often cite.

You know, it's like examples of the back as front or front is back.

That's not successful.

Like the one on Pantops we talk about a lot.

Right.

I agree.

I agree.

It's not in a retail district, really.

It's in an industrial district.

So it was just offices there.

Any additional tweaks or anything?

All right.

All right, great.

Mr. Hancock.

Aye.

Mr. Van Der Werf.

Yeah, right.

Aye.

All right.

Well, thanks a lot.

We will move on to our next regular review item, which is ARB 2023-117, Flow Honda Renovation.

Chris, do you have a presentation?

The application I'm presenting on today is a preliminary review of the renovation design submitted for the Flo Honda building.

The site is located along Route 29 near the intersection with Hilton Heights Road.

ARB has approved several applications for the site, including two special use permits, ARB applications for the original design of the Phase I and II buildings, and ARB applications for the renovations to the Phase II building in the northern portion of the Phase I building.

To orient you within the site, the phase one building is the larger building with structured parking on the right side of the site, and the smaller building on the left is the phase two building for Subaru.

The renovation of the Subaru and Chrysler Dodge Jeep Ram buildings that were approved by the ARB in 2022 and 2023 added ACM panels to both buildings and slate-clad towers and a canopy to the Subaru building.

Painting the brick and ethos that was remained

was also proposed to both buildings, but was not ultimately approved by the board.

For renovation, the Honda building would remove the existing entrance tower canopy and two bays of storefront windows and brickwork related to the showroom building and paint the brick and eavies related to the service portion of the building white.

What is proposed to replace the existing design is an adaptation of Honda's branding scheme, which consists of double-height storefront windows framed by blue ACM panels with a series of white ACM panels extending out from the top of the blue frame.

The removal of the existing entrance tower eliminates a top-heavy, exaggerated version of a traditional building form.

However, the double-height storefront windows reduce the existing

existing human scale of the building and do not relate to the glass found in the rest of the building.

Revising the design to introduce elements that break up the scale of the glass and maintain the existing rhythm of regular space bays of storefront windows would be appropriate.

Painting the red brick white reduces level of coordination between the super building and the northern portion of the phase one building.

Staff recommends revising the design to maintain the red brick related to the service portion of the building.

Staff recommends the changes listed in the staff report to be reviewed by the board in a future meeting.

All right.

Thanks a lot.

I don't.

Thanks, Chris.

OK. You can go first.

Yeah, I don't have any questions.

I'm just caught with my pants down.

Does the applicant have a presentation?

It's good to be here again.

It's been a long time.

You know, I had to make that joke.

All right.

Kevin Shaffer, studio director for the Charlottesville branch of design develop.

Thank you, Chris.

Appreciate the staff report.

Appreciate the review, as always.

As staff mentioned, we are the third recent review from ARB on this parcel.

The first being Subaru, which was recently completed in this past summer.

And then CDJR, which went through review this past year and is about to break ground now.

And so

as Flow continues to improve their physical facilities and go through these brand rejuvenations.

The Honda one is next.

This is the existing building, as you can see, built in 2003 and feeling perhaps a little bit weathered, showing its age a little bit, maybe a little dated.

I think our owner has a few more choice words for it, but in this context here, we'll just say it's showing its age.

At some point between 2003 and today, Honda did a renovation and

In addition to this front facade, which gave this curved blue mass as the front entry element and also introduced the wavy canopy element.

both of which I think are starting to date the building a little bit as Honda's brand has moved on.

And with this ownership change, we have the opportunity to breathe new life into a big structure along the entrance corridor.

One of the things that I think we struggle with when we look at this project is the construction type is very unique.

It's a unique construction type to put two stories of parking deck on top of two stories of showroom and office.

And so what ends up happening is that the aesthetic that is presented to the entrance corridor is very much driven by this structural requirement to support

two stories of parking deck and so you end up with a very long low it's 330 feet long building that fronts the entrance corridor it's only about 26 feet in height at this parapet wall it's you know obviously less you're about

I want to say 15 or 16 feet right here at the at the mansard roof eve line.

And the the length of the building, the horizontality is only broken up in these two instances, which are a little underwhelming in terms of entrance elements, in terms of establishing a hierarchy and engaging with the the visitor, whether it's pedestrian or someone who's parking their car and noting the entryway is very small for a building that's three hundred and thirty

feet in length and only 25, 26 feet in height.

And so when we start to

evaluate this campus holistically and look at this from an entrance corridor perspective.

This did go through ARB in 2003.

It was approved at that time.

I don't know how much the entrance corridor guidelines were updated in 2011, but I think if we holistically looked at this project today, under today's guidelines, we would say it does not meet the intent of the guidelines.

and I think it's too, the mass is too big, it's not broken up enough, there's not enough, you know, whether it's a unifying motif or something that starts to break down this horizontality, maybe that's just my opinion, I think.

It could be presented better.

And so the point is, we have an opportunity to have this new interjection, this new renovation.

And so we really feel that this Honda element that's marking the front entrance is really beneficial, actually, and is not necessarily

a disservice to the human scale, but it's actually an asset to the human scale because we're increasing this verticality and this very oppressive horizontally oriented facade gets at least a moment of relief here at the entrance.

Not only that, it does

illustrate what's happening behind here.

This project is slated for a significant interior renovation as well, and the two-story adds natural light.

It engages with the vehicle going by, by bringing in some dynamic kind of action into the building.

It tells what's happening behind the building.

It gives the pedestrian the direction on where to go, where to enter,

The canopy itself provides some relief from a pretty static front facade.

It adds shade and shadow.

And the white elements here are three blades of a pergola.

So it's adding some dynamicism from the front entrance perspective.

And it really goes a long way in just reducing the appearance of these horizontal lines that are the eavesband as it goes across.

That's not to say that we disagree with all of staff's comments and staff kind of pushed the are we keeping the blue at the top of the parapet wall question and then we ended up taking that potentially a little bit further and this is

different than what's in your presentation, but if we were to keep the red brick and would we start to reduce the amount of blue in an effort to reduce the trademark perspective, that could be kind of a give and take here that's happening where the portal, the entry element, the canopy element

is deemed to be appropriate in exchange for reducing some of the blue.

The service canopy is much more understated now, much less of an architectural element and really more just a blue line that notes where the vehicle is supposed to go when you get service.

And we also are maybe suggesting

reducing the amount of blue paint on the Ephs header and sill bands, which I think you can see here start to really help with limiting the trademark or the national brand building that's in the package currently.

As we look down here, this is helpful from my perspective.

The mansard roof gets broken by the canopy element, which again just starts to provide a single vertical element in contrast.

It's a little bit wider here.

Breaking the rules and making a larger storefront here is actually is beneficial in a building that's so rigid and static because of the parking lot structure behind it.

The T's are a very specific 60 feet apart.

And so we have these like very specific structural bays, which are still articulated here.

They're not articulated out of brick anymore.

They're articulated out of steel.

and wrapped in an ACM panel and that's what you're seeing here.

But I think that the change in a structure there going from the heavy brick pilaster and raising it is beneficial to the building from an entrance corridor guideline perspective.

Here's a rendering from the other side and I think this is when we start to grapple with, and I'm going to present two chapters to this presentation,

Now, and this is just a discussion and a conversation that we want to have.

And I'm glad that Chris showed the previous submissions and things like that.

I know that bringing new things to a presentation is generally frowned upon, but we're hopeful that we can just at least engage in a conversation with you.

But as we look down this long facade, to me, it's it's a CDJR metal panel that's been stuck to a brick

Facade, and then it's a Honda Blue that's been kind of stuck to a brick facade and these things are a little jarring.

And then as you look further down, there's a slate icon tower and a metal panel at Subaru that's been stuck on.

And as we look at it from an entrance corridor perspective, this is at the corner of if you were headed northbound on 29 or you were pulling into Hilton Heights Road, this is where the entrance from Subaru, this is the

the facade that we're presenting to that entrance corridor.

It's simple.

It's clean.

It's a modern automotive typology.

It looks nice from my perspective.

But from a southbound on Route 29 perspective, we have the red brick retained and the east band retained.

And from my perspective, it's disjointed.

And if our goal is a cohesive whole and our goal is

You know, a unified building that's thoughtfully composed.

To me, this feels like an addition that wasn't completed on the backside.

And I think that we have retained the brick, which, yes, is a traditional material, but this is a 2003 brick.

It's not particularly handsome.

It's

on a great brick, I guess.

And it's a cream stucco or a cream colored eefs, which is streaking and showing it signs of age.

So if we were to approach this entire parcel as a campus and start to evaluate it holistically, is there something we would do differently here that would make it adhere more closely to the entrance corridor guidelines?

If I were a tourist and I was coming from Monticello into Charlottesville for the first time and I was coming down Pantops and I saw this campus, I would think, wow, that's a really nice campus, really nice project.

The massing is appropriate.

It is well executed.

It feels good on the street.

It is thoughtfully and cohesively designed.

and so does someone coming from Route 29 kind of feel the same way and you're coming down on north on Route 29 do you look at this building or this campus in the same way and say oh yeah that's that's quite nice that's that's new that's cohesive that's thoughtfully composed and could it be and again just want to initiate the conversation

Could it be something that's more cohesively considered?

This is just simply painting the brick and painting the eaves.

And for me, it starts to minimize the brand elements or soften the brand elements.

I think the red brick against the blue Honda or against a shiny aluminum panel or even against the slate seems to be you know it's a big contrast and can we start to make this very long structure, de-emphasize the length, de-emphasize the rigidity of it through an update which is paint and start to unify it and

bring in that cohesive whole that I think makes for a better entrance corridor experience and for someone who's passing by on the first time to notice it less perhaps in a negative light or maybe even think, hey, that looks like a nice new automotive dealership.

So that's the gist of it.

Two chapters in the conversation that I was hoping to

Facilitator, Foster, I guess.

Is the storefront in canopy element appropriate with maybe incorporating some of the revisions and is it appropriate to start to approach this from a cohesive campus approach?

Does it reflect better from a guidelines perspective?

I'm happy to answer any questions you may have.

All right, thanks a lot.

This might be a question for staff.

Are we reviewing this cohesive campus approach now or this was new information

It's new.

The cohesive campus approach.

OK, so before the application before us is the red brick with the new storefront entry expanded.

Let me see questions for the applicant.

I didn't think of any questions during your presentation.

Good afternoon to the two members of the board that I'm speaking to today.

My name's Neil Williamson.

I'm with the Free Enterprise Forum.

We do not take positions on projects, and we don't have any position on this revamp or whether you painted purple or anything else.

But we do have the benefit of sitting through 20 years of these meetings.

And I actually remember somewhat vividly when this was built, which makes me really old.

But there was great excitement.

that we had the cars out of the entrance corridor.

The car storage was behind and was hidden and was relegated.

I remember the term relegated being used then.

And I think it's important that we recognize that we stand on the shoulders of those who came before us, sometimes for the good and sometimes for the bad in terms of design.

So thank you very much.

All right.

If there are no other public comments, the ARB will now go into discussion.

Sure.

It might be helpful if we maybe could pull up your presentation, Chris.

I don't know if we're able to swap back and forth, but just remember what we're reviewing.

which is tough because I think there's some improvements that you presented in the cohesive campus approach over this application, but there's also some things in this application that I think are successful.

I think generally this is a nice kind of nod to what just happened at the Subaru building.

I think that does help tie the two buildings together.

I think the storefront, kind of the two story, I don't have any issues with that as far as if you talk about the scale of this building and the speed at which you view it.

I feel like I say that at every meeting, but I think that's a good thing for this building.

I think it actually helps it.

And as the applicant mentioned, I think it breaks up the,

the horizontal nature of this or the strong horizontal nature.

So I agree like this is kind of disjointed the image we're looking at now and the cohesive campus approach I think simplifies some things and my one thing that stood out to me is that

While it did simplify some things, that new approach might create more blankness or create a new blankness where this building doesn't have it now.

It just felt like everything was the same, especially on that northern end.

So I don't know if there's, you know, some accents or some certain elements that are varied to give it a little more interest.

That makes sense.

I think like this painting the red brick on that southern end I think didn't make as much sense but then when you show it at the cohesive approach it makes a lot more sense.

Yeah, no, I guess I agree with what you were saying.

In the kind of original materials that we're seeing right here, the white paint on the service corner did seem a little bit incongruous with what's existing and what was going to be left red brick on the rest of the original facade.

So actually the

The updated renderings that you showed that eliminated the blue roof and the white paint on the service area I felt was a

a big improvement and address some concerns that I had about, you know, what we're seeing in this slide right now.

I agree with Frank.

I think that two-story entrance, I don't have a problem with it.

I think it's

obviously a big improvement over what's there now and kind of as a branded element goes it's a lot more subtle in my opinion than what's there now so I don't have a problem with that either.

I guess my feelings about the consolidated campus is that it's

Almost like a completely different proposal that would have to be presented as one thing.

I think you have a good point.

On the Subaru building, I don't think leaving red brick at least unpainted on half of the building

was an improvement.

That's just my personal opinion.

So I do think like an overall approach that would kind of update this whole campus as a campus is worth considering.

I don't know that just getting a big bucket of white paint is

It certainly makes things look more consistent, but there might need to be a little bit more to it.

But I think at least in terms of the updated renderings that you proposed, I think address the concerns that I had about the original proposal, which were some of those comments were listed in the staff report too.

Should we look at the staff comments?

And then I guess the question is, are we moving forward with that still and you want to receive comments on that?

Yeah, I think maybe just to summarize, the two-story canopy element feels appropriate revising in a way that starts to eliminate some of the branding elements like we were showing feels appropriate.

And there's an openness to the cohesive campus approach, but it needs to be articulated and obviously fleshed out into a proposal.

Thank you for engaging.

I think it could have easily just been like we haven't seen this.

This is too much.

We could go back and forth and do that for a long time, but a lot of times just the dialogue is helpful.

It's nice to see it as a, think about it as a whole thing.

There was a phasing in construction sequencing that was going to happen, right?

It's not all three are happening at the same time.

So then how do we start to, you know, introduce that?

Thank you.

Yeah, I guess I'm thinking in terms of the cohesive concept.

Yeah, I think we want to limit these comments to the submittal that the report was based on.

In the minutes, we can detail some of the comments about the other proposal.

Yeah, I'm good.

I'll move to approve the list of changes outlined in the staff report for ARB-2023-117 to be reviewed at a future ARB meeting amended as follows.

Are you ready for a vote?

Okay.

All right.

Thanks a lot.

All right.

So we'll move on to our third and final regular review item, which is ARB-2023-118, Home Depot Minor Amendment.

Yes.

This is a review of a minor amendment for the Home Depot project.

The amendment is required in part to show the existing site features that will be demolished prior to construction of the new Home Depot building.

The crosshatching in this image shows the proposed demolition and the remaining mall structure that would remain would be to the left in this image.

As we've discussed in previous reviews, that demolition includes the Sears building and a portion of the north end of the mall building.

And you'll recall that the original proposal had the Home Depot built up right against the mall structure.

And then the revised proposal places a travelway between the new store and the existing mall.

With the demolition of a portion of the mall, then a new wall is needed for the north end of that building.

That blue line shows where that new wall would be in this image.

And this image shows the proposed new wall.

It's faced with Ephos and is almost entirely blank.

There's one employee entrance at the west end.

There are minor steps in height and joints at intervals along the length of the elevation.

Those joints aren't really expected to be visible or discernible from any distance, so they wouldn't really contribute to eliminating the blankness very much.

The design doesn't address the guidelines requirements regarding human scale and blankness.

Although the wall may be screened by a future building, approval of the minor amendment cannot require the construction of that building, so the work associated with this minor amendment must meet the design guidelines on its own.

Consequently, we've recommended that the new mall elevation be revised to include treatments to address scale and blankness.

In addition to that, there were a few recommendations for minor changes regarding paint colored lighting and tree protection.

All right.

Thanks a lot.

No, thank you for the report.

Thanks.

No, I don't have any questions.

No, I don't have any questions either.

Thanks.

I don't have any questions either.

Thank you, Mara.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman and members of the board.

I'm Valerie Long with Williams-Mullen, representing the applicant, Home Depot.

We also have several members of our team here today, our civil engineers with Cumley-Horn, architects, the project architects.

So there's questions that are beyond my scope of knowledge.

I'm happy to ask one of them to come up and join us.

As Margaret indicated, and I know you know this project because we've been here I think three times at least already, but as Margaret indicated as a refresher, because of the need to remove part of the mall to create space to build the new Home Depot store, they have to build a new wall, temporary mall on the end of the mall there, the northern end.

And so it's really, and that's required because for the demolition permit,

it was determined that we needed a minor site plan amendment because there's no, the existing site plan is from 1979 and it shows the Sears building there and of course this segment of the mall.

So in order to have the right to demo that Sears building and mall, prior to final site plan approval of the new store,

we had to go through this.

The need to remove, start this demolition sooner before site plan approval, site plan, final site plan is still under review.

We expect it'll take at least several more months.

There is a significant, obviously the demolition takes time and there's also the need to, a lot of other site work including relocation of underground utility lines.

So the goal is to go ahead and start the demolition of the old Sears and of the mall

and start if not finish all of the underground utility relocation so that once the final site plan is approved, that construction, the vertical construction can begin right away.

So there's a lot of text on here, I know, but so that's why we're here today.

Again, even though you've provided comment on the final site plan already, that continues to be underway.

So it's this new temporary wall

is it will be an interim condition until the Home Depot stores under construction, just as it would be if we waited to do the demolition until after final site plan.

That temporary wall will be at least 150 feet from Rio Road.

That's measured from actually the entrance

to the mall from Rio, which is one of the places that you may see some gaps through those plantings and proposed future plantings of the new store.

So any views of this temporary wall from that Rio entrance is 850 feet away.

It will be behind the new store, which itself is 580 feet long.

and then there'll be the travel way in between as well.

So it'll be quite a distance from the Rio Corridor.

It's also, the new temporary wall is shorter than the new Home Depot store.

So most of that wall will be blocked by the new store and I have some slides that'll show that a little better.

There will be a segment of it, if you're looking at it straight on from Rio Road, there's a segment of it that will be visible, that will not be blocked by the new store.

We don't think it'll be visible when you factor in all the new landscaping that will be added in with the store.

and again, this approval of the demo permit will allow the Home Depot store to get started sooner than otherwise and then once the final site plan's approved, the vertical construction can start.

Also, as I believe we've shared before, Home Depot owns most of the mall.

Everything that was available to purchase, they bought it.

That's how badly they wanted this site.

The plan is to redevelop the entire mall.

but they have to get the store up first.

The sooner they get the store up and running, the sooner they can redevelop the rest of the mall.

So most of the mall is going to come down, hopefully in the near future.

so that the whole site can be redeveloped.

So this wall is temporary and we would really prefer not to have to spend a lot of resources designing, making this wall look more attractive given that it's a temporary wall and it will be so far away from both entrance corridors and much of it blocked by the new store and much of it lower than the store and also there'll be so many plantings in between

the views from each of the ECs.

So again, as Margaret indicated, obviously that's the parcel in question.

The green area is the portion of the mall that would be removed.

And sorry, it's a little bit closer in.

You can see the blue line is the approximate location of the temporary wall.

And you can see the two entrances.

that will remain, that's the Belk entrance and then this is the one on the backside of the mall that's also an entrance.

This is just a slightly different perspective.

In this you can see all of the landscaping that's proposed on the final site plan application including that which was approved by the ARB.

You can see as you all head.

recommended or required, there's a more variety of landscaping along Rio, there's lots of new plantings, and there's not proposed to remove any of the existing landscaping.

So again, the distance from here to this, this is about the segment of the wall that will be visible and not blocked by the store or this canopy from Rio.

There's a lot of new trees that are going in, in addition to the ones that are there already.

This shows the measurements 853 from that entrance and from Route 29 it's 724 feet and again this is the really it's it's from here to here this segment of the wall that will not be screened from by the store or the canopy

that could potentially be visible, but it's at such a distance and with all the new trees in between, we don't think that having spending resources on building articulation and architectural details is money well spent, especially since it's a temporary wall.

This is obviously a markup of the exhibit that was in your packet and shown in an effort to explain a little bit better what you're seeing.

The top image is looking straight at this temporary wall from Rio Road.

And you can see the sort of columns, that's that back entrance to the mall.

And then you can see the existing Belk store in the background.

And then the middle image is showing how, starting with that eastern entrance, going all the way to the far end of the middle section, that will all be screened by the new store.

and then the lower end is showing on the far left, the portion that will be screened by the new store here and then this is the segment that will potentially or theoretically at least not be screened by the new store but then again, the taller Belk building will remain right behind it and just for context, that's the existing Belk entrance on that side.

So the vast majority of this new wall will be screened by the new store and it will be up against the Belk building.

Proposal is that the color of the new temporary wall will match that of the Belk building and other buildings behind.

Just for frame of reference, if you haven't been out to the mall lately, which a lot of people haven't, this is that Belk entrance that I was referring to.

This is obviously the Red Robin store and the Home Depot would be off to the left.

So we're talking about this area right in here and what goes up against it.

Again, this is obviously looking in the opposite direction.

This is that Belk entrance, and so the new wall roughly right in this location.

So you can see it will be back up against this building, which if you do get up close to it, you can tell it's brick, and there's some articulation, but certainly from a distance, in my opinion, it looks like just a plain, blank wall itself.

And again, this shows that when you get up close, you can see some brick, but from a distance, it's very difficult to see.

Just for a reminder, frame of reference, these are the elevations that we have submitted as part of the final site plan application to provide context of what else will be going on.

We think also that with this new store in place and the new garden center and the plantings that will be out front, any temporary views of this temporary wall, one, they'll be at a distance.

There'll be lots of plantings in between, existing and new.

And we think that people's eyes will be drawn to the new store and the new garden center and that the temporary wall will just blend into the background if one sees it at all.

We think it could actually make it stand out more if we added articulation.

Again, this is a view from

The Route 29 vantage point is actually a little bit closer than you'd be from the entrance corridor because it's right on the edge of the parking lot.

But just to show frame of reference looking just left to right in this image, that's the span.

You know, we're going to take that whole segment goes away in the mall.

So that shows how far away the new temporary wall would be both from the

Route 29 entrance corridor, as well as the Rio.

And of course, this parking lot will no longer, most of this will not be a sea of parking.

Some of this foreground area is not part of the new project yet, that'll be part of the future redevelopment, but there will be a tremendous amount of trees in the parking lot to support the store as required by the final site plan.

Again, this is taken from the southbound lanes where we don't think you'd see this new wall at all driving north unless you turn around and looked over your shoulder.

Driving south, certainly there's potential to see it, but we think this demonstrates the distance involved and how challenging it would be even with existing vegetation.

As you can see, it's tough to really see through all of that.

And we think with the new plantings that will go in, any views of that temporary wall

will be brief and so much at a distance that any building articulation or new designs would not really help at all.

Again, similar looking straight at the mall.

All of this vegetation will remain as we've discussed.

And then there's, we show on our site plan, this is the area we've talked about in the past about putting some plantings in there if VDOT allows it in their easement area.

And then again, just trying to help frame the reference of where that mall is in relation to the rest of the building.

So everything to the left of that red arrow will be removed.

Again, just showing more visual frame of reference.

This is from that point, this is from Rio Road where you turn into the mall so you can see the old Sears building in the background.

That's where the new store would be.

This obviously doesn't show where the new wall would be, but just again to remind everyone of those existing trees and other plantings will remain and actually be supplemented with new plantings.

Same here.

You've seen this image many times.

That's the Sears building that will go away.

The new store will and garden center will be in the foreground.

And again, it's about 850 feet to where that new mall will be.

And again, this is the renderings you've seen before with the existing landscaping in terms of

showing what we expect will be the levels of visibility of the new store if no new plantings were put in but with the new plantings shown on the site plan.

it will be much different and we don't believe, even in the unlikely event that the, for whatever reason the mall has not yet been completely demolished and redeveloped, we don't believe that you would see that wall anyway.

And likewise, looking straight at the site from Rio Road with the new plantings.

And I think actually this probably doesn't even reflect the revisions that were made to the planting plan in this area at your direction several months ago.

So again, it's an interim condition just until the store is built.

It's 850 feet away.

It's behind the 580 foot long new store.

It's shorter than the new store will be, so most of it will be blocked.

and if you'll allow us to do this without having to spend a lot of resources on building articulation and other design, it will help a lot.

It's just an interim condition.

All right, thank you.

Thanks for a very comprehensive presentation.

Any timetable for redevelopment of the mall?

Home Depot is hoping to start demolition in early June and hoping to start vertical construction in August.

That's the goal.

I don't know that there's been a time frame identified.

I do know that Home Depot has been for probably a year now working with potential development partners to identify options for how it could be developed, you know, sort of

identifying who's the right partner to do that.

Home Depot would not do it themselves since they're not developers in that sense.

They build Home Depot stores and that's it.

But they are very much moving forward with that.

You can imagine it's challenging, a project of that size to put together a master plan and work with the existing form-based code and other things.

So.

And my only other question is really for Margaret.

How are we defining sort of temporary structures, review of temporary structures?

The entrance quarter guidelines don't define temporary.

The zoning ordinance does not define temporary.

All right, Frank, do you have any questions?

Potentially, hopefully.

I mean, the wall itself probably will for sure.

Will it be 180 days before vertical construction?

Sorry, I should say 180 days between when the Sears store and that portion of the mall is demolished, the gap between demolition and the new store,

I hope will not be 180 days, we can't say for sure, but certainly hope not based on the schedule.

That's the goal.

This is a minor site plan amendment, is that correct?

With this

Okay.

Sure.

In fact, we talked about it before the meeting that it would,

The plan is to show it that it will match.

Our concern is that the Pantone colors that would be chosen may not match that which is on the existing building that has 40 years of weathering on it, but that it will match.

I'm just curious if it's maybe better if it doesn't match.

It looks more blank and if it's all the same.

Okay, great presentation.

Yes, but an exciting project.

Thanks.

Tara?

Just so I have it right, it's temporary in the sense that

I just want to clarify that Home Depot does not own the Belk store, the portion that we've been showing in the images, the portion of the Belk that fronts on 29, they don't own that.

and they don't own the J.C. Penney building either.

But otherwise, I believe they own everything else in that area.

So anything they own and can control.

They'll also I know they've been working very closely with the Belk representatives.

And so to the extent the Belk could go down as well, I'm not sure.

Thanks.

So.

All right, thank you.

I don't have any questions.

May I add one more point, Mr. Chairman, that I just thought about, which is about a comment in the staff report about landscaping along the wall was a suggestion.

We would prefer not to do that in order to provide room for landscaping in that area.

Either the travelway would have to be reduced in width, which we don't want to do.

There's a sidewalk in there and we want to keep it, it really sets up, as we've talked before, the future grid pattern that the Rio 29 form-based code plan

envisions, in order to add more plantings, they'd have to demolish a whole another bay of the mall building to provide room for landscaping, which creates many challenges with existing tenants in the building.

They've already, they're fully relocated or in the process of relocating the tenants that are in the portion that will go away.

Moving it further will make that even more challenging

and maintaining fire code, emergency exits and all of those things that are quite challenging to coordinate.

So again, we think that given how far away it is and all the other plantings that'll be there, that that won't actually provide the benefit.

Thank you.

All right, so the ARB will now go into discussion.

Thanks for the presentation.

Yeah, I think in general, you know, what I would think about as the problem around this wall is, I think in the most ideal case, you know, it will become a non-issue as the development proceeds, you know, as intended.

I think the only case that I can imagine is like, which I think the intention of the way that this process is set up is like in the unfortunate event that the Home Depot development doesn't move forward, then like what ends up happening with this wall that's been, you know,

there and then I think the question is like well what's a reasonable way to treat that wall right like to Frank's suggestion is it like does it become a different color you can go there's like many many variations of how you could decide to treat that wall but in general I think like you know given the intention for future redevelopment that the types of treatments if any that I'd be interested in seeing would be something on the order of like

changing the paint color in one location, like a base, like some sort of simple treatment on the order of changing the EFIS color, not like, I didn't think that anyone on the board was necessarily asking them to like add a bunch of architectural features to that wall.

Yeah, so for me, it's either to kind of keep it the same and if the development doesn't move forward, it's just being

continues to be this wall that's the same shade as everything else, which itself is not great, but at least it's coordinated.

Or if you do a couple of little tricks with the e-fist to just, you know, change the pink color kind of alongside the lines of what's happening at the Home Depot, where there's like this alternating thing going on and you change the base and you call it a day.

That's kind of, to me, the two courses I can imagine.

But I don't think anything, for me,

I don't think it needs to be clad in a particular material or articulated in a specific way.

Frank Hancock.

I agree with Taro.

I think for this interim condition, some temporary conditions I think would also be acceptable and

I think you outlined maybe some of those or at least maybe that's just where my brain went.

Is it like movable planters or things that could be reused elsewhere on site?

I think this is where you have to get super creative and I kind of hinted at it and my question is do you install the landscaping along Rio early as a measure to you know to try to relieve blankness?

So I think it's kind of

Yeah.

I think everyone is just nervous about this interim condition.

Maybe one day is not an interim condition and someone comes and asks us why we approved this big blank wall.

But it seems very unlikely that that's going to happen.

And we don't want to put any unnecessary burden on the applicant for what we got

What I see is a great project for the county and I feel like, yeah, I think kind of some of that creative thinking of how do we use temporary measures or how do you do very small scale interventions to kind of relieve that blankness for the very limited time it's gonna be visible.

The other piece, a lot of applicants really,

make the effort to show what's actually gonna be visible.

I know you've shown some of those renderings, but you can make a very strong case of how far away this is, all of the things that are happening between this temporary wall and the entrance corridor.

It's when we're presented with a big, long elevation that's all the same color.

I think that's what makes us nervous.

Thanks, Frank.

Yeah, I'm in general agreement.

I think given the distance from the corridor, given the fact that 580 feet of it's not visible,

Given the fact that the existing context is big blank walls, I'm not sure it's worth spending a lot of time thinking about how we could make the wall look better because quite honestly what's out there is pretty blank.

So, yeah, I just I feel like it's temporary there.

The owners are going to be incentivized to do something over time.

Right.

So I don't think there's a risk that this is going to be a condition for years and years to come.

And for that reason, I would

I would suggest that we approve what's been proposed.

Those are my comments.

Thanks.

Yeah, I'm in total agreement.

I think the only concern is like we're being asked to approve something that would never fly on its own as like just a proposal.

So it comes to me, at least it's like a

Question of like, do we have faith that things are gonna happen the way, you know, the applicant is saying that they're gonna happen?

And I think in my case, at least I have good reason to believe that yes, this wall eventually will be mostly obscured by a new building and then eventually will be, you know, demolished with the rest of the wall.

So I think investing any more into it than,

than it needs is probably just a waste of resources.

Well, yeah, I think if it doesn't, so let's say the project doesn't end up happening, because we probably wouldn't have approved the fashion square mall

in its state.

Maybe, but I feel like it would be a question, right?

Like to the previous applicant's point about the campus, right?

Like Fashion Square Mall would have been different if it were brought before this board currently too, right?

And then if the project, if this is a project doesn't end up happening, like I do think that if that wall is just blank, it'll be bizarre.

But if it were treated in a particular way that's different from the existing building, I think that'd be even weirder in a way.

I guess, yeah, that's my thought is because as Frank pointed out too, and applicant too, it's pretty far from the road too.

And there's a lot, you know, at least at the road, there's some screening.

And I think in most cases,

You're driving past it.

It's something that you're seeing kind of off in the distance.

I think just blending it into the existing masses is going to kind of downplay it.

And that's even in that worst case scenario where nothing happens except this wall and it's just there for

As long as it's perceived to be a mall, you expect to see big blank walls.

Right.

This raises a larger question about what the ARB should and should not review in the way of temporary or transitional uses.

We have

typically not brought to ARB review, things that are truly temporary, for example, temporary construction trailers, that sort of thing.

This wall is temporary in that someday it will likely come down, but there's no date associated with it.

So it's not,

It would be good to update the guidelines to address the issue, but I think it would be hard to make a decision saying that temporary is anything that may someday not be there, because that's potentially everything.

I mean, doesn't it all come down to permitting approval timing?

It's really not a temporary wall.

I mean, it's not a temporary as the building code would define it.

It's got to be built as a permanent wall.

It has to be safe.

It has to be usable.

Yeah, I mean, it seems like in this case, just this particular project, probably better to err on the side of caution in terms of like having the board review this particular proposal.

I think smaller or less prominent stuff, you know.

I guess there are a lot of eyes on this particular project, so probably best to

Let's say you had a construction site that's three years in.

You know that probably wasn't, I should probably shouldn't have used that example because I'm just now thinking that we actually, those permits do come to us for review and we may not have been dealing with those consistently.

Temporary signs is a better example.

Those have a particular timeframe associated with them.

Can we amend number two, I guess, in accordance with what the applicant suggested?

Yeah, actually that's what we prefer.

Do we know what the finish of the wall is?

OK. All right.

I'll move to approve the proposal with the revisions listed in the staff report amended as follows.

Eliminate item one.

Modify item two to remove the second portion of the sentence that says a pink color and corresponding Pantone color for the new wall or note.

All right, thanks.

Anybody want to second that?

Second.

All right.

Mr. Maris... Matsuno, I'm sorry.

All right, thanks a lot.

All right, so we will move to other business.

Does anybody want to move to adopt the January 16th, 2024 ARB minutes?

They were really good minutes.

So moved.

Okay.

Thanks.

All right.

Do any board members or staff have any additional items they would like to discuss?

All right.

Sounds like that's a no.

So the next ARB meeting is scheduled for February 19th, 2024.

What is it a holiday?

The 19th.

County's open.

We'll be here.

Right.

Yeah, it sounds like the four of us will be here and maybe dated too.

In that case, the meeting is adjourned until our next meeting on February 19th.

It's 2.39 by my watch.