Architectural Review Board Meeting   2/17/2025

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

Both is provided in the lawfully posted meeting notice.

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

This 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 and told us your turn to speak.

Do any ARB members have anything to disclose?

No, no, no, no, no.

All right.

All right.

Great.

We do not have any consent agenda items today, nor do we have any work sessions.

We have two regular review items today.

The first is ARB 2024-77, Albemarle, Charlottesville Regional Jail.

Great.

This is a proposal to build an addition to the regional jail, which is located southwest of the intersection of the Avon Street entrance corridor and the I-64 entrance corridor.

You completed a preliminary review of this proposal in December of last year, and the applicant has worked since that time to address your comments.

As indicated in the staff report, we believe all those comments have been sufficiently addressed.

We're asking for just one clarification on the drawings, but let's just run quickly through the changes that have been made.

One of the primary items addressed in the previous review was the lack of detailing at the upper walls of the addition.

It was noted that the existing building had detailing to help relieve blankness in the upper walls, and those elements weren't originally proposed in the addition.

But bands of darker brick have now been added to the walls, and that is successful in breaking up that building mass.

Other key items identified in the previous review were the visibility of the security fence and the mechanical area on the Avon Street side of the building.

Those have been addressed by the addition of a metal screen wall outside the security fence and a gate matching the screen wall material.

The metal does have an industrial character, but that's not out of place in the Avon corridor, and it would be an improvement over the security fence.

The metal materials also proposed to screen the rooftop equipment.

Although the preference is to not have those areas visible at all, using that same metal material will help establish a coordinated appearance across the building.

There has been one additional material change since the previous review.

That's a change in the window glass.

The previous proposal indicated that the glass would meet the standard entrance quarter requirements.

The current proposal is for a glass that does not comply completely with those standards.

It's a tinted gray glass with 22% light transmittance and 13% reflectance.

The transmittance does not meet the criteria.

The criteria say the number should not drop below 40, but the applicant indicates that the darker glass is needed for extra security in this location.

The last issue that needed attention after the last review was the request to add landscaping along the addition.

That has been done with a mix of grass and shrubs that should be able to work with the utilities that are in that area.

The one item we recommended as a condition of approval is related to the metal screen, which is identified as an ornamental screen on sheet C301 of the site plan.

The renderings show no security fence above the metal screen, but the heights and positions of the fences relative to each other are not specified on the plans.

Our only recommendation is for that to be made clear on the plans.

Our recommendation is for approval with that one condition.

All right, thanks a lot for the presentation.

Thank you for your report, Margaret.

I didn't hear you clearly.

I did not have that in as a recommended condition.

We do have the glass sample here to look at.

Thank you.

Thanks, Taro.

No questions.

Thank you.

No questions.

Frank Hancock?

I don't have any questions.

Thank you, Margaret.

Yeah, Margaret, I don't have any questions either.

Hello, this is Michael Gibson from Mosley Architects.

I don't really have a presentation unless you need answers to questions.

All right.

We'll just stand here and see what you have.

I don't have any questions.

I do want to acknowledge and recognize that in the context of this application, we are taking into account the fact that this is on the Avon Street corridor and not Route 29 or 250 West.

We're sort of reinforcing the importance and value of these corridor specific guidelines and the sooner we can get those

adopted the easier applications like this will be to pass.

Thanks, Dade.

Thank you.

Let's see in terms of the staff question about the relationship with the security fencing to the screening fencing.

So the screening fencing is the security fencing.

There isn't two, one in front of the other, and I know that the stone wall that it butts up against that's actually the generator enclosure is around 10 foot 8 tall.

So it's great.

I don't have any questions.

Thank you.

All right, Tara.

Just one around the glass.

I have no idea what that glass is.

We're not touching it.

And the glass that we've darkened up is just at the main entry lobby.

And it's so that people from the outside can't really make out who's inside.

Right.

I don't have any questions.

All right.

In that case, the ARB will now go into discussion.

I guess we'll start with Tara.

I want to thank the applicant for working

with us and the staff to address a lot of the comments that were raised.

I think that the screening fence and the addition of the landscaping does a lot to help bring this project closer to the intention of the design guidelines.

And so, yeah, I appreciate the work that's gone into it and

Thanks.

Yeah, I don't really have much to add.

I appreciate the updates, and I think it is an appropriate addition to the corridor, works with the existing building, and it's contextual with the other buildings along this corridor, so I don't have any additional comments.

All right, thanks.

Yeah, I agree with my fellow board members.

I appreciate the applicant's work to further develop and refine the fencing, the screening, the landscape, and the character and texture of the masonry walls, all of which I think may result in a much better proposal.

All right, thanks.

I don't have anything to add to what these guys have already said.

I think it's an appropriate change that does a lot to mitigate the negative that we saw in the original application.

Same goes for me.

I appreciate you listening to our comments.

And it seems like everything we had a concern about was addressed with this proposal.

So the recommendation was for approval with the condition listed in the staff report.

And that was the item about clarifying on both sets of plans, the heights and locations of the fences.

I realized that that wording may not be completely accurate at this point.

Does anybody have any tweaks or anything?

Sorry, yeah.

The relative height of the chain link slash security fence.

Michael Gibson, Mosley Architects.

There is no chain link at the location anymore.

Okay, great.

Thank you.

Can we just say the razor wire cannot be visible from the corridor?

Are you asking just to replace all that with razor wire may not be visible?

I think we do that for mechanical equipment.

It is the objective.

Yeah, so adding it to that condition I think would be reasonable.

Sure, I'll move for approval of the certificate of appropriateness for ARB 2024-77 Albemarle, Charlottesville Regional Jail with the conditions listed in the staff report amended as follows.

Item one, clarifying both the architectural and site plans.

The relative height and locations of the razor wire and security screen.

Razor wire may not be visible from the E.C.

Thanks.

All right, thanks a lot.

Good afternoon.

The application I'm presenting on is a review of architecture and site plan amendment to renovate a 6,000 square foot building and to accommodate a commercial mechanical contractor.

Site is located at 2275 Simmel Lane.

Since 2007, the Airbnb has reviewed two site plan proposals and a wall sign.

Site plan shows minor changes to the site, including a fencing refuge area, restyping the parking spaces and landscaping.

The plan shows chain link fence on the south and east sides of the refuge area and screening fence on the west side, which faces the entrance corridor.

The proposed screening fence is made up of black aluminum horizontal slotted panels with a three quarter inch gap between each slat.

The visual breaks and texture these gaps provide are expected to help reduce the fence's visual impact on the entrance quarter and meet the ARB design guideline for screening fences.

However, the ARB's criteria for screening fences also calls for landscaping along each 40-foot section of fence.

With this site, the proposed rolling gates will likely make the distribution of plants impractical.

Revising the landscape plan to show landscaping along the front of the building may have more of an impact as viewed from the entrance quarter.

Along the southern perimeter of the refuge area, deciduous trees are shown adjacent to the chain link fence line.

on the adjacent parcel existing evergreen shrubs, but screening should not be relying on off-site landscaping and filter views are still expected from the entrance quarter.

Revising the screening plans to evergreens or changing the fence on the south side to match the proposed screening fence is recommended.

The architectural drawings show minor changes to the building, including removing existing signs and awnings, adding a new pedestrian door on the south side of the building, painting the stucco and masonry gray, the doors a darker gray, and the reveal below the building's fascia blue, and installing metal canopy above the building's main entrance.

The paint colors provide a coordinated design but the overall appearance is uniformed with little detailing.

Revising the design to use a darker color at the base and adding canopies above the storefront windows could help reduce the uniformity and break up the elevations.

Regarding the site landscaping, after the site plan was finalized, staff and the applicant discussed the proposed site changes.

Just during this discussion, it was clarified that most of the landscaping shown is from the 1989 site plan approval and the minor amendment intends to align the site with that site plan.

With this clarification, staff recommends the conditions related to landscaping diversity, frontage and perimeter landscaping removed from the list and conditions.

Staff recommends approval of the minor amendment with the following conditions amended to remove 11, 10, 11, and 13.

All right, thanks a lot, Chris.

I guess we'll start with Taro if you have any questions.

No, thank you, Chris.

All right, Frank Stoner.

No, thanks.

Chris, thank you for your report and your suggested amendments.

Thanks, Frank.

I don't have any questions either.

Good afternoon, everybody.

I'm Steve Davis, principal of Thrive Architecture here in town.

We are, of course, the architects for the building effort here, not here today, but also on the team of the landscape and civil engineers from Leiden Grade.

We've been assisting with the site plan development.

Chris, thanks for your report.

I appreciate that.

If it makes sense, I thought I would just make a couple observations on staff's recommendations.

It's pretty straightforward, I think.

And then I'll switch gears and talk a little bit about some of the architectural issues.

Of course, there's a number of kind of perfunctory comments.

Certainly, we take no exception to those as it relates to the architecture or the site plan comments.

On the landscaping, there's a couple of comments there that I just wanted to touch on.

Relative to what Chris was just mentioning about landscaping in front of the fence, to his point, it is kind of a challenge to landscape there because it's asphalt right where the fence is and with the moving gates.

Chris didn't go into maybe this level of detail, but at the perimeter of the property on the

Westside, the 29 side.

Those shrubs are taller shrubs.

Those are all by the county classified as screening shrubs, though they're not evergreen shrubs.

So there is a good amount of degree of screening between the entrance corridor and where the gate is.

So I wanted to just mention that.

On the south side, where we have a short stretch of chain link fence, we have screening trees right now.

We certainly take no exception to changing those to evergreen shrubs.

So, you know, four season screening.

Chris, I guess a little bit shorter, but certainly we could work with staff, whether that's an evergreen shrub or evergreen tree is probably fine there.

The comments 10, 11, 12, I appreciate staff revisiting.

Those are 10 and 11, at least 10 and 11 relating to our minor modifications to the original site plan from 1989.

I did not pick up on the nuance until Chris's presentation that 12 was kind of excluded from that.

That's the interior parking lot trees.

Those are not part of the 1989 site plan.

We were not intending to increase the amount of paving.

We're just redoing the surface and restriping there.

So that one maybe we can talk about a little bit more or maybe have some thoughts on.

That was a little bit of an outlier unknown for us.

And

I know Chris was kind of commenting on the diversity of the plants because there are a limited number of species in the few number of trees and shrubs that we're proposing.

We actually didn't take exception to that and we may do that anyway.

So just add a species in those different stretches because that's a valuable point that he was making that underlies that.

Those are the comments I wanted to make on

the general items and on the landscape.

And I did want to just talk a little bit about the building.

Of course, I think everybody understands this building is one of the older buildings on this stretch certainly predates a float dealership across the street, predates Costco, Walmart.

It's contemporaneous with probably with the double tree on the hill, Dr. Hertz original Riverside development before it was kind of renovated a few years ago.

So there wasn't much at that time north of Fashion Square Mall.

Our take on this building is that the colors are kind of dated.

The canopies are kind of tired and worn.

The two-tone color, especially between the kind of front third of the building and the rear two-thirds.

So a little bit creates some imbalance.

Maybe that's kind of the imbalance that Chris was mentioning.

and especially the canopy there in the front over the front door it's curved and it kind of hides what little bit of architectural feature there is there which is the masonry kind of squared entry portal in that piece of glass so I think on the

What the client would like to do with their expectation here was they had the building that was existing, they weren't changing anything on the outside.

We're looking to take the canopies off, you know, spruce everything up, give it a little fresher phase, fresher appearance on the entrance corridor.

And primarily the change that they were implementing is this sense of understanding that they have a fairly robust

Waste management and recycling effort that they're kind of managing there next to that entrance to the rear.

So if we, I wanted to talk for a moment about the two issues, the base and the canopy really.

So certainly we take no exception to try and to provide that sense of scale and the base.

I think in this context, it's really a question of color.

If you know that building or if you can discern from the photographs, these pieces at the bottom are 8x8 masonry block.

The portions above are stucco, so you can see the masonry pops up around the front door.

So that's where I think we would go with a little bit darker color.

On the sides, this varies a little bit from what Margaret, you and I talked about on the phone last week, but we think it makes sense to carry that same line horizontally through the back of the building.

Of course, grade is rising to the back, so that base will receive the grade on both the north side and the south side, so darker at the base and lighter above.

And then at the same time,

for the upper parts of the masonry, having that color match or very closely approximate the color on the stucco.

So we get a more unified appearance on the north and south sides.

On the canopies, while we're looking at this, I would just mention there is one canopy I think that the colonial web would like to add.

There's a personnel door that goes into that storage area.

This is the north side, of course.

So that would be a canopy.

Certainly, we would expect that to match the canopy on the front.

For the other canopies, I think you can appreciate a couple of us there.

It's about 100 feet of canopy if we put canopy on all of these.

I think we would agree something more architectural.

If a canopy was put on an architectural canopy, it would be nicer looking than the canvas canopies.

I think the position we're in now, it feels like that's cost prohibitive for where they are, having started with really just thinking this is a tenant improvement job on the inside and they're going to screen the fence.

And we don't know really much about that wall.

I suspect it's a stud wall in the front.

So even with lightweight aluminum canopies, I think

There's engagement of structural engineer and perhaps reinforcing the wall to get the canopies and things like that worked into the design.

So I appreciate the discussion on scale.

Where we stand right now, it feels like that's a little bit of a bridge too far for canopies everywhere.

I would say about the sense of scale,

The base I think certainly helps.

I think that mullion that strikes that line, the lower mullion there in the glass field speaks to that as well.

And I wanted to end on this just because I think when we go to the darker base, we felt like we might just tweak the colors a little bit to a lighter palette than the gray that was on the original submission.

All right, thanks a lot for that presentation.

Thanks for the presentation.

I don't have any questions.

I concur with most of the architectural decisions you've made relative to the existing structure and certainly understand your concern about the canopies around all the windows and doors.

Yeah, thank you for your presentation.

Frank Hancock?

I don't have any questions.

Thanks.

Tara?

No questions.

Thank you.

Sorry, I don't have any questions either.

You never know who, you know, people might be online like waiting to make a comment.

In that case, ARB will now go into discussion.

I just appreciate the applicants working with staff to address some of the comments.

I think that they've

provided a pretty sensible and sensitive approach to this existing structure.

I think the landscaping as proposed is gonna substantially improve that portion of the corridor.

And I think, yeah, I think it's an appropriate addition to the corridor.

Thanks.

I agree with Taro.

I think it's a nice thoughtful application.

Thanks.

Yeah, echo others' comments.

I think it's a good proposal, especially, like Frank, appreciate the fence.

I think it's a good example for other projects.

And I appreciate very much Chris's report.

I think he rightly mentions human scale.

I think it's mitigated for me in this because the building is already of modest scale in the openings.

And I think the mullions, as the applicant alludes, start to help establish that.

So, I think it's a positive implication.

Yeah, and I agree with what's been said.

I don't really have much to add to that.

A recommendation is for approval with the conditions listed in the staff report.

We have struck through numbers 10, 11, and 13.

Number one does say consider, but it's about revising the design to add canopies.

I'm sorry, for item seven, I might be getting confused.

Is that intended to address the plantings in front of the gate, or are we

Number 12 was a question by the applicant and just to clarify that a little bit further, staff's review of this proposal really found that the defense was the primary issue and the defense criteria are clear about

requiring landscaping along certain segments of fences that are over 40 feet in length.

So would they need to build islands?

Yes.

Either end of the building?

There are no parking spaces shown.

I'm not sure if it's currently used for parking.

There's a handicapped spot there shown.

Again, just the primary concern was the fence design and trying to keep with the criteria that are established there.

I think that's my inclination, that the fence design is kind of sufficient.

I didn't know if other board members had any other thoughts.

Yes, I think so.

Yeah.

All right.

No.

I'll move to approve.

The proposal with conditions listed in the staff report amended as follows.

Alright, thanks a lot.

We will move on to other business.

First is approval of the February 3rd, 2025 minutes.

I'll move to approve those.

One last thing we need to do, there might have been a glitch at the beginning of the meeting, recording wise, everything's working fine, but we're not sure if we captured the role and we want to do it again.

I know obviously you're all here, you've all spoken, but just to kind of make sure if we didn't get that, we get it at the end if you don't mind.

I did.

Okay, you both did.

Mr. Stoner, I don't know what's wrong with me, sorry.

Aye.

Mr. Matsuno.

Aye.

You got your chuckle for the day.

All right.

Motion toward the minutes.

Do any board members or staff have any additional items?

Like a no?

In that case, the next ARB meeting is scheduled for Monday, March 3rd, 2025.

Well, we've got a calendar.

Sorry about that.

I will not be out of time.

I will be in time.

I will be present.

I will not be absent.

I will not be able to.

Well, it sounds like I already leave.

So in that case, by my watch, it's 1.40.