Board of Architectural Review Meeting   7/20/2021

I can go ahead and get started with my introductions.

My name is Robert Watkins.

I'm city staff.

Welcome to the July 2021 Charlottesville Board of Architectural Review virtual meeting.

We should now be live on channel 10, and we're continuing to stream on the city's social media channels.

Before I hand things over to Carl Schwartz, the chair of the BAR,

I'm going to go over a few guidelines and housekeeping tips just to make sure that everything runs smoothly tonight.

So first, for everybody who might be watching at home, I will introduce the members of the BAR.

First, we have Carl Schwartz, the chair.

We're also joined by Brett Gastinger, vice chair.

Other BAR members include Ron Bailey, Tim Moore, Cheri Lewis, Robert Edwards, Andy McClure, and Jody Lejandro.

We're also joined by Jeff Werner, who is my colleague and city staff.

Throughout the meeting, applicants and other participants will log on the meeting as needed.

For members of the public who are on the call right now, who'd like to provide comment, there are several places in the agenda where you can speak.

At the beginning of the meeting, there's a time for comments from the public for items not on the agenda.

Then before the BAR deliberates on each individual application, we allow time for public comment.

If you haven't already and you'd like to provide comment, you can register for the meeting on the city calendar, which is on the city website.

You'll become an attendee and then when we get to the comment portion of the agenda, you can raise your hand using the raise hand feature and I'll unmute you.

Then our timer will begin and you'll have the allotted time to speak.

For applicants who are already online, I just want to let you know in advance that I will share pages from your submittal to provide visual aid at your direction during any presentation that you might provide.

So if you'd like me to go to a specific page, just give me the page number and I can share my screen for that.

Also, like we've done for past meetings, we'll have short periodic breaks as needed, and our chair will direct us for when we need those.

So with that, I can hand things over to our chair, Carl.

But throughout the meeting, please let me know if you have any additional questions.

Welcome, everyone, to this regular monthly meeting of the Charlottesville Board of Architectural Review.

Staff will introduce each item, followed by the applicant's presentation, which should not exceed 10 minutes.

I will then ask for questions from the public, followed by questions from the BAR.

After questions are closed, I'll ask for comments from the public.

For each application, members of the public are each allowed three minutes to ask questions and three minutes to offer comments.

Speakers shall identify themselves and provide their address.

Comments should be limited to the BAR's purview, that is regarding only the exterior aspects of the project.

Following the BAR's discussion and prior to taking action, the applicant will have up to three minutes to respond.

Thank you for participating.

So first on our agenda tonight is matters from the public not on the agenda.

So if you have any comments on anything that is not on our agenda, or if it's on something that's on the consent agenda, now is the time to speak.

So Carl, I'm looking at the list.

Thank you.

All right, so next is the consent agenda.

That includes 854 Locust Avenue and 734 Locust Avenue.

Thank you.

I'll go ahead and call a vote.

Mr. Schwartz?

Yes.

Mr. Moore?

Thank you.

Ms.

Mr. Edwards?

Aye.

Mr. McClure?

Yes.

Mr. LePendreault?

Aye.

Thank you.

I can unmute me.

There you go.

Hang on a second.

Sorry, my computer,

wanted me to restart at about 10 minutes for the meeting and I'm just now turning it back on.

Okay, this is a COA request for 734,

743 Park Street within the North Downtown ADC District.

This is a COA request to remove the existing loom siding and I guess say coping, et cetera, and to expose the original wood trim and siding below.

and then as needed to repair the existing siding and trim or to replace it with cement material, spent board material.

And this excludes work that the BAR approved for an addition in 2014.

And additionally, the storm windows on the original house are to be removed and replaced.

So this is the RH Woodhouse, it was constructed

and around 1892, it is a contributing structure to the ADC district.

It's a Victorian vernacular style house.

It is rather unique in the city.

The city's 1970 surveys describe it as an outstanding example of a shingle style, which was popular in the 1880s and 1890s.

And it is described as one of the most distinctive structures on Park Street.

As I said, sometime

probably after that 1970 survey because it does refer to the clapboard.

The building was wrapped in aluminum siding, including the trim, including the eaves, so it's sort of, as I stated in the staff report, a little bit of a question mark as to what exactly will be found when a

remove all this.

A lot of you know, similar situation that I dealt with at my house.

So, you know, the first and foremost is to make sure that we at least, as I say in the staff report, work with the applicant to get them moving on this removal and to see what's there.

And then I think they've offered a reasonable solution to what to do next.

And in the staff report,

and I maybe need some help in the wording just to sort of clarify that.

So once the metal is removed and there's an assessment of what needs to be done that the African has some direction that they can work with.

For example, the suggestion is to either reuse the existing or replace if necessary with the cement shingles or cement sliding

I'm sorry, the Cement Board deciding.

My recommendation, BAR, is to sort of establish some thresholds for that.

Maybe they contact me and work with me on, all right, what have you got that can be used?

What can't be used?

Maybe they can use as much original material as possible on a particular facade.

Same thing goes for the trim that might be up there, the cornice.

And one of the questions in their staff report is that

in lieu of requiring custom run of material, maybe it would be acceptable.

And again, staff working with the applicant to any trim that needs to be replaced, that the profiles that are used that are at least similar or appropriate to that style.

So not a recreation of what's there, but if, you know,

as close as possible if that's what the circumstances require.

And there was a question that I asked Zach about the, he referred to a synthetic material for the trim, something I wasn't familiar with.

So I'd asked for some additional information, I believe he probably can address that.

And then, as far as the storm windows go, typically those the removing or installing of storm windows is something we approve administratively.

They've met that, you know, what I would look at, but if you all certainly can with this being in the COA is to apply the conditions during the design guidelines.

So, you know, my recommendation was for approval with some flexibility in

in how the applicant moves forward once they've removed the metal.

No, I think that that summarizes our intent here well.

I think the big concern on our end at this point is that if the existing siding, whatever's under the aluminum, is not salvageable, that we have a clear path forward that doesn't require

waiting a month for the next BAR meeting.

That's our primary concern.

And our intention is to do everything we can to salvage existing siding without having to redo all of it.

But then if we do need to replace it, I think probably the easiest and best path forward would be to

Just go forward with a smooth fiber cement product that matches the reveal of the existing.

You know, it remains to be seen what's under some of the kind of flair details between the two stories and if we can match that with something off the shelf, I think we can, but

and then for the trim, the product that Jeff referred to was the Boral True Exterior is what we'd use and that also has a smooth side that we'd prefer over the faux grain.

Thank you.

Are there any questions from the public?

Mr. Chair, I don't see any raised hands.

We'll start.

So if you take off the siding, and it's, you know, you've got some damaged areas, is your intention to piece in

How would you handle the damaged spots if it's not a full facade?

If we're looking at more of a patch scenario, we're going to be replacing

sections of board that need to be replaced with a similar material so I'm assuming it's a pine clabbered siding or some other wood and then we'll just patch in with some marine grade epoxy and filler

We're pretty good at doing that just kind of piece by piece.

And I expect there's going to be some of that on the trim.

And I think from what I can see in some of the places where the aluminum's missing, it looks like there are kind of exposed rafters on some of the eaves and in some really flaky looking paint on the underside of the roof sheathing.

So, you know, I think it's going to be,

Yeah, I'd remove what's there.

Yep.

It's awfully hard to make decisions about something we don't know.

That's what we're being asked to do.

I see.

You know, as far as I'm willing to go is you can replace anything that's severely damaged that you find underneath the aluminum siding in kind.

And in kind,

means in kind in terms of appearance.

You could use the fiberglass product, but the appearance has to be the same.

To me, to do this, to do our job best would be to

remove all the aluminum siding, do a survey of what you found, come up with a plan of what you're going, how you're gonna replace the really damaged stuff, what damaged stuff you found.

I think you're, hopefully, you're gonna find some really interesting things in some of these detailed areas, in small little gable ends, on the towers, on the orioles,

But we just won't know until you start to take off the aluminum siding.

And I'd be really interested to know what the historic paint colors were.

Can't imagine if it's just a white building.

But anyway, it's

I'm wrestling with this one.

I was just going to say, just a second.

That's true.

As the homeowner, can I answer that or attempt to answer it?

I think our intention is to keep the historic appearance of this house absolutely as much as possible.

So if we don't want to have to use cement board siding, we would like to avoid that.

I think you know we just don't want to run into a situation where we take everything off and if everything underneath is a total disaster that then we have to come back to the board we have to wait another month you know supply chain issues I think we're potentially looking at leaving our house through the winter with nothing covering it and we don't want to run into that situation as the homeowners we live here and we can't leave it and so

I think, you know, our intention again is 100% to preserve the nature of the house.

We bought this house because it's a unique piece of architecture in the city and we're removing the aluminum siding because we think it needs to be done from an aesthetic standpoint.

I mean, we live like this, functionally.

So again, our intention is really to keep it.

But I think in order to proceed with removing it and feel secure that we can protect the house and finish the project, it would be helpful.

Thank you.

And I don't mind

I don't mind if we pull the siding off and learn a lot about what's here and if it's much different than our expectations.

I have no problem with coming back and making sure that what our intention is acceptable.

It's just the timing of it that's a little bit of a hurdle.

or that I would say is a kind of a practical hurdle for the project.

I mean, the removal of the siding is going to go fast.

The crew we've got lined up to do this, it'll be, the siding will be, the original siding is going to be exposed in a matter of days.

and then we can get to work on restoring it.

Let's have a site visit meeting in two weeks with the siding off.

So if I could throw a thought, you know, and Zach, I know I shared with you what we did over here.

I found that once we

Because stuff had been nailed into that old siding, it was pretty smashed up.

I mean, it was certainly parts to use, but that would have been a lot of little two and three foot pieces.

But what we did was removed everything.

We were able to then get it off site, clean it up, prime all four sides, and then go back and sort of

Ty Becker on the house, things like that.

So I don't know if that was in the plan.

It almost seemed from an efficiency side of things to work rather than trying to piece together pieces here and there.

But I mean, that's one thing that, I mean, it extends the project a bit, but it's that things are being done on it.

So I don't know if that's in the plan or if you thought about it,

just say the benefits of getting that house wrap on and living in an old house.

That was huge.

Okay.

If you remove the siding and you make the call that, yeah, what's underneath is not salvageable, it's not patchable, it's got to come off,

So I guess a question for you, Zach, and for you, Jeff.

Would you be comfortable with Jeff coming out and kind of administratively saying, yes, that sighting can't be, it's fine, you can take it off, it's not salvageable?

Yeah, I mean, having been there, done that, I am.

And I'm also, I think it was less so

less concerned about the flat material than a profile material.

That's where it gets a little tricky.

I mean, one by six siding is one by half by six siding.

I have not seen it vary that much.

Now, if it's like, you know, shiplap siding or German siding or something like that, well, but I don't believe it is from the historic survey.

I agree.

I think that the concern is in the in the trim and in the details.

But in the main, you know, what the what the owners want to do here is exactly what we would hope that owners would do with historic homes.

We've run into this timing issue in the past.

So I don't I don't see why we can't approve something along the lines of even what Jody said, where we set our expectations

Because technically this is a repair once they get that aluminum off, right?

So, I mean, that's repair and maintenance.

So it's really a question of how extensive if the repair goes beyond the definition of repair, it's a full replacement, then that is a judgment call.

And it also seems likely that this, in an unusual term, it wouldn't surprise me if there were some shingled areas in the building as well, given its architecture.

I would fully expect to find something of that nature too.

So some of those things may be very easy to match, but I think it's just, you know, get the stuff off.

I would anticipate that some of it will have some problems because of the aluminum,

Seeing as we seem to really want to get into comments, are there any comments from the public?

I'm sorry.

It's already crossed that line.

Yes.

And for the owners and for the contractor, I mean, my passion for doing what's right here is because this is such a rare building.

This is an extraordinary house.

and that you all own something that's very special in this area, a shingle style house.

And hopefully it's like it was gift wrapped about 50 years ago and that you're gonna find these wonderful things underneath of it from the original house, hopefully.

So that's why I'm just,

I want to be careful, be cautious, and I'm comfortable with the way Breck phrased that, where Jeff could come out and have a field visit and make some decisions and a follow up on the field.

Well, is there anybody that is adamantly against what they're proposing?

OK, great.

So I guess the trick is how do we craft a motion that does this and gives us a little bit of protection?

It sounds like we're, the idea of having Jeff come out and take a look at it after all the siting has come off is agreeable.

Yeah, that's fine with me.

Okay.

I think it, you know, I think, you know, the, one of the, you know, I just shared a lot with me about what he did with his, his project and, you know, that was a,

I think a slightly different kind of restoration that we're talking about doing.

I don't think my clients are interested in going as far as the insulation and all that, if it can be avoided.

This is much more of an aesthetic kind of let's make this house look like it's meant to look rather than, and accept the fact that it's an old house and it will perform as such.

So I think that as long as the conversation remains

limited to aesthetic architectural review questions and not about the integrity of the performance and or like how we decide to patch and make these changes or improvements.

Okay.

And I think the call is mostly of if something is

Yeah.

Yeah, you know, I'm sorry, Zach, I was laughing.

It's like my wife was thinking the same thing as I was tearing this thing apart going, what have you talked me into here?

So it was but it was a function of for us just saying, I know I can't save all this, take it all off and then and then let's

use what we can, where we can, and it ended up just being a lot easier than trying to piece, you know, mix and match pieces, but that's what you can address.

I think there may be some details in there that we don't, you know,

aren't expecting maybe some fancy type of trim at the gable.

Yeah, I think we're all on the same page with that.

Is there anyone on the board that would have a problem with replacing

All right, great.

And then just, sorry to interrupt, just, I don't, I, we're, and my sound isn't great.

Yes, I guess if it was a profile trim board, you would use the Boral product that you're talking about, correct?

That's right.

Okay.

And yeah, I think we're good on the storm windows.

So yeah, as long as the storm windows follow our guidelines that they match the size and shape of existing windows and original SASH configuration, if there's any special shapes that you use those,

I don't think you have any arched windows or anything, but if that comes up and that you don't damage or obscure the window frames.

So I think we're good, as long as you follow those guidelines.

Having considered standards set forth within city code, including city design guidelines for 80c districts,

I move to find that the proposed exterior alterations at 743 Park Street satisfy BAR's criteria and are compatible with this property and other properties in the downtown ADC district and that the BAR approves the application as submitted with the following conditions.

That material that is discovered beneath the siding shall be replaced to match

match scale and appearance when painted.

Two, that proposed storm windows should match the size and shape of existing windows in the original sash configuration.

Three, storm windows should not damage or obscure the windows and frames.

And four, that the owners and contractor shall consult with city staff regarding any

Thank you.

I'll call a vote.

Mr. Kastinger?

Aye.

Mr. Schwartz?

Yes.

Mr. LeHendro?

Aye.

Mr. McClure?

Yes.

Mr. Edwards.

Aye.

Ms.

Lewis.

Aye.

And to the owners, thank you very much for tackling this.

Thank you all for considering this.

We're really excited to see what we find and both through the details and the colors that we may find underneath.

We will.

Zach, good luck.

Zach, thank you very much.

All right.

All right.

The main event, I guess, if you will,

So... What was that?

That was Joe.

Mute me while I'm in transition here.

All right, so

This is a, and I don't want to be redundant, but I think it needs to be, this is a formal request for a COA for 3 Highville Park Street and I believe also there should be two other addresses in there, but this is for the,

City County Courts expansion at the Levy Building, what Eric and his team will refer to as the East site.

You all had a pre-application discussion back in October about this, and also in December last year, you reviewed the request and approved the COA for selective demolition of the 1980s

annex to the Levy building and the hyphen.

And so again, this is a COA request for the construction of what will be an addition to the Levy building and related to the expansion of the city and the county courts complex.

Eric and I, and Eric is part of the design team, but I told him yesterday, he's sort of the name I've assigned to the applicant, quote unquote.

So, but there are several others with Eric's team and he'll introduce them in a minute, but I just, so that everybody understands, this falls into that category of a large project and which over the last,

two years, been in the process and have, I think, adopted a process for evaluating these large-scale projects.

So in lieu of a series of COAs based on the components, sort of an incremental approval, we are working towards a single COA.

And Eric and his team understand that.

And so tonight, while again, this has been submitted formally, the understanding is that

We're working tonight towards

developing an application that can come in for that approval.

So the best scenario at the end of the discussion is for the applicant to request deferral and the BAR to approve it, to approve that request.

And with that, then the clock is in the hands of the applicant.

They can bring it back to the BAR when they're ready to.

And so just going to quickly,

At this site, we're dealing with historic structure, be it the Levy Building, which is Greek Revival.

It was constructed in the 1850s.

next to it or between it and the Redlands Club, which formerly the site of what was known as the Swan Tavern is currently a parking area, and that is also part of this, and that portion forms the courtyard of this project.

So I've laid out a lot in the staff report.

There are links, Cheri, hopefully that worked.

It's a nice way to do it.

But the goal really is to work down through what would typically be that checklist.

And I've noted in the staff report, this is a

primarily in addition as far as how it's defined and then addition then is a lot of that criteria goes back to then what is under new construction.

We also have the site design and elements portion of this and certainly there is the component of public design and improvements which

aren't very, don't say a whole lot, but that is one of them.

I know that there could be elements related to rehabilitation as far as the Levy Building goes, but that's not anything, nothing of that nature has been proposed yet, or I'm aware of at the Levy Building.

So it is not a renovation, if you will.

And,

And so I say, I'd like to, I think, Robert and I reviewed these drawings with Eric, I think, three weeks ago and I commented it was actually a lot more information than we've received in the past for some, I don't want to say a preliminary submittal, but certainly that first look.

There's a lot here and there's a lot to work with and

I hope, given that we've got the time on the agenda, that we really take a roll up our sleeves and have a good discussion about this.

And so that we get this, you know, towards where it can come back to the VAR and hopefully be approved.

So sort of with that all laid out and if anybody has any question about that, you know, COA

I think unless you all in B.A.R.

Yes, please.

Thank you.

I'm Eric Antman from DGP Architects, local architects on the team.

I'll introduce the rest of our representatives that'll be doing the majority of the presentation in just a moment.

Just to reiterate, we will defer action on this, and we're bringing this forward to you today to really start the conversation and keep introducing you to the project.

We've been before you twice before, and we want to keep those lines of communications open.

Just a quick status update on where the project is in development with the county.

We've been through conceptual design.

We have the scope of the project figured out, square feet, interior floor plans.

So the sort of meets and bounds of the project are pretty well established and we're approaching a schematic design package at the end of August.

So we're beyond sketching a little bit, but we're still getting a little bit more specific.

So with that, the rest of our team members here tonight are Steve White from Fentress Architects.

They're the prime architect on the project and our team lead, and also Elliot Roadside.

And I think Drew Taylor is here also, both from Roadside Harwell, our landscape architects.

Great, thank you, Eric.

And good evening to you, board.

We very much appreciate your time and attention tonight to our design and our proposal.

And we look forward to a robust discussion.

And Robert, I believe I'll just give you notification for changing slides.

So next slide, please.

So I think we all know where the site is.

And Jeff gave us a pretty good overview of the bounds.

We have East High Street to the north.

We have Park Street to the west, East Jefferson Street to the south.

and the Jessup House, which is also owned by the government, city or county, I can't remember, and then to the east of that Seventh Street.

Jessup House is not in the bounds of the site.

As well, the Redlands Club is not in the bounds of the site that's privately held, but it's certainly part of the context.

And Jeff made a comment earlier about the Levy Building, just as a point of clarification, we are renovating and rehabilitating that building.

So we would be doing facade restoration

roofing restoration, the architectural embellishments, and as you know there's a hyphen and an annex that was that's currently there to the east which was built in the 1980s that is going to be removed

as part of this project and it'll likely be removed shortly before construction starts.

And as you know, that addition has what we call a hyphen that abuts the eastern side of the Levy building.

So that's one thing I want to point out to you all as we place a new annex and a new hyphen against that building.

Next slide.

So I'm going to first walk you all through at least you all know the history and context better than than any of us.

But I want you to know a little bit of what we've been researching.

What a wonderful site and what a beautiful cultural landscape that you all have the privilege of being.

on the Board of Architecture Review 4.

And it's an honor for us, Fentress Architects and DGP and Roadside Harwell to have the opportunity to work here.

So it's with humility that I come before you and share with you this

This historic site, as you know, the circuit court on the left hand side, the second building from the left is the only courthouse in America where three presidents practice law in.

anywhere.

So it has that history to it.

It's part of our American heritage that we all share.

And so any move we make with new architectural improvements, embellishments is done so very, very thoughtfully.

Next slide.

We looked into some of the history in and around Swan Tavern, the history in and around the downtown environment.

And that's an old postcard there of the circuit court that they color filled.

Next slide.

And then of course, there's the region beyond Charlottesville.

that is unique and rich in its own right with the Shenandoah landscape.

Next.

So next, we're gonna go into site context.

And Robert, you can just slide right to the next slide.

So we have a couple of drone views of the site.

That's the 1803 building in the foreground with the 1935 administrative building that is west of the east site.

We call it the west site.

And then that's all the view looking west.

And then the next view is above the administrative building, 1935 looking.

to the east of the east site, and that's the Levy building there on the left.

And next slide.

And then here we see the pattern language of these historic buildings.

Things to note is the four column, three bay organization of each of these, each in their own sort of

interpretation of a style, whether it's Greek Revival or some sort of Corinthian order in a Georgian sort of pattern language or a sort of Romanesque Georgian.

All of these we're observing and looking at carefully.

Next.

These are just some Google Street views sharing with you the context in and around.

I think most of you are all familiar with this.

I won't belabor these.

I'll get you through these next couple or maybe three slides.

And then next is site analysis.

We have truncated this to just being a single slide so as not to elongate the evening, but we did an exhaustive review of the urban edge, views to the site, views from the site, the site topography and landscape, solar orientation, traffic patterns, and there are others that we looked at.

Next.

So now we'll get into the eSight building design.

This site plan is a good orientation plan for you to see how the massing elements come together.

This program for this building is nominally 55 to 57,000 square feet.

The primary purpose is the general district courts for both the county and the city and the primary

space for both of those is obviously the courtroom.

So the courtrooms really are driving our design and that's essentially that large element where it says new building.

That's pretty much most of what that is, is those two large courtrooms to serve the

the citizens of Charlottesville and Albemarle County.

It also houses elements such as the judge's chambers and an entry portico and ancillary services that that service the court.

And that's where a lot of the other modulated elements, we call them saddlebags that are that are adjoined to the primary quartz building element.

So if we start at the top left and we see the Levy building there, that building is about 2900 square feet as a footprint.

about 8,700 square feet as a three story structure.

Then we have, as we're going around clockwise, there's a hyphen element that receives into where the 1980s building abutted into it.

We don't know

Exactly all the fabric that was lost.

We found some of it, but our inclination is to abut, at least in plan, a similar juncture so as not to expose

fabric that's been removed.

And then as you move again to the right, that saddlebag is essentially highlighting the judge's chambers, but it also is the sort of scale and proportion of the Levy building in terms of width and height.

Then we have the quartz area.

And then as you come around, you got the Redlands Club and then that entry element portico.

And we've essentially taken that element and pulled it back off the road by about 40 to 50 feet.

So we've created essentially an entry element, a forecourt.

for the visitors of the courthouse.

So that gives you basically a general overview.

I know I spent a lot of time on this slide, but I think it's helpful for you to kind of see how all these pieces go together at the macro level.

So let's dive into the plans.

And as you know, we're not going to go into details of the functions, but this is the ground floor plan.

So you can see that courtyard that's south of the Levy building.

And Elliot and Drew are going to be describing that in a few minutes.

And then we have the entry portico, which is symbolic of not only the courts themselves, but also reminiscent of the history of courts in this campus of court buildings.

The first floor essentially is administrative and clerical, all the clerks type spaces.

And then if we go to the second floor, that'll give you a peek into the arrangement of the courts.

So the courts really are driving again that shape of the building.

They're organized symmetrically about the entrance.

If I could just jump in for a second.

You'll see in red there that this slide is marked updated.

So those, all of the slides that have that in red, they're mainly interior plan changes, but they may have effect fenestrations, so we wanted to give you an updated plan, but they don't largely affect the exterior aesthetic that we're presenting.

I appreciate that, Eric.

And if you sorry, Robert, if you go back one slide, that that slide actually has one more.

I'm sorry to the updated that when we added dimensions to that plan.

So you can see where the saddlebag on the north, it has about a 10 foot and some change set back off the curb line.

We tried to pull back a little bit to give some relief that that

Pedestrian way is very narrow and the Levy building is really encroaches into that.

So it's not a very

pedestrian friendly portion of that street.

And so we were attempting to ease that slightly by pulling back.

And then the driveway entry for the below grade garage, the curb cut is there.

You can see it there.

and it would go down about nine feet from the elevation of the street.

And then that return piece is attempting to be somewhat close to the Jessup House so that there's some acknowledgement of the fact that the Jessup House is back.

So there's a small gesture there.

to address that relationship.

And then if we come around to the to the court side, you can see those dimensions there, the 47 and the 52 off curb and property.

It's about a 50 by 70 foot space.

which I think would be a very comfortable pocket park.

And then to the south we have about a seven foot and some change set back from the curb line giving you some space there for pedestrian way.

But all the public access to this building will be strictly from that plaza, so we're not going to be asking anyone to be accessing these ancillary streets to enter the building.

Okay, I think that covers the plans for now.

We can go on up.

So at the top, we've got a mechanical screen wall.

That's what's depicted there in that box and with the leader going to it.

Next slide.

So looking at iconography and the importance of tying the building to place and function, of course, we looked at

buildings that are part of the cultural heritage of Charlottesville and and Virginia at large and to the judicial system at large in the United States.

And then we also the three images at the bottom make some reference to courthouses in the in the in the most recent past

in the past, say, 15, 20 years that have acknowledged those proportions and relationships to create symbolic entry and a sense of civic gravitas without the embellishment of a particular style from

from history.

One in particular that I love is the Musée Carre, which is next to the Roman

Temple there on the bottom left and that Roman temple was what Thomas Jefferson used to create your state capital.

So it's a replica of that museum, of that temple and names.

And there was an addition done in that plaza that was a museum that

again makes reference to those proportions and to that Roman porch portico, but does so in a very modern and elegant way.

Next slide.

So for us, looking at the proportions of not only the porticoes, plural, but also the end bays, there was an 1870s addition to the original 1803 building that the end wall

has a very nice vertical proportion to it.

And I think we have to remember that this general district court will be part of a of a civic place filled with several courts.

So we've got one, two, three,

four courts that are all within a block of each other, either with city or county or both.

And so having a pattern language that readily identifies them as being related, I think is really important so that they look like they were meant to be together.

Next slide.

So this is our first rendering of that plaza space.

And you can see the relationship of the pieces.

The building is a two story structure, which is actually lower than the cornice line of the Levy building, which I think gives appropriate

holds up the Levy building in an appropriate way as being a cultural landmark and an important building to your city.

Oh, and I think this is just the update.

So that's the same image, just that we changed the color of the road to brick.

So sorry about that.

I didn't realize we were on the wrong slide.

So here's a transition point.

Okay.

Do you want to go back one slide?

It might be a little easier to see it in perspective first.

Court Square is a really beautiful place that's distinctive because of the buildings that Steve was describing as well as the landscape of beautiful hardscape which brick predominates and lawns and large deciduous trees and the beautiful sequence of spaces.

So on the site that we're working on,

The buildings that you see here are framed by existing brick sidewalks and brick parking areas and a beautiful brick street.

So our goal is to develop a design and a language that enables the context to flow into the complex that we're designing.

And the landscape architecture consists of preserving and enhancing the brick sidewalks that surround Redlands and Levy and flow into the court building.

There are several highlights of the landscape.

One is the curved blue stone wall.

And if, Eric, are you, can you point?

a curved bluestone wall, the accessible ramp entrance on the southwest side,

steps leading up to the plaza on the northwest side.

We've created a focal point area that's framed by the bluestone wall.

It's an elliptical shape that's framed by the wall and the two benches, and then further framed by the double trees on both the south and the north sides of the plaza.

There is a new brick wall that defines the southern edge of the plaza and gives the plaza space from redlands.

And then after a lot of studies, we've integrated the plaza with the Levy Building by bringing the paving up to the face of the Levy Building.

And you'll see in the next slide, some of the more specifics about the layout.

Okay.

Doing a great job.

So there's the brick sidewalk.

No, no, go back.

The brick sidewalk, the two primary, three primary materials are brick paving, bluestone trim,

Bluestone walls, a major focal point field of bluestone, wood benches atop bluestone bases, and then the plant material which consists of the four trees that frame the plaza and then planting on the sides.

So it's a very simple, uncomplicated design.

that through the form of the ellipse integrates the public realm of the sidewalk with the entranceway into the building and creates a place for gathering and court-related activities that hopefully will be a beautiful addition to the whole Court Square complex as well as downtown.

The next slide.

shows the circulation pattern, obviously the sidewalks around the complex.

Handicapped accessibility was a key determinant in the determination of the elevation of the plaza as well as the building.

So because the sidewalk slopes from the high point at the southwest corner of the site down toward High Street,

We're able to come in at grade and then we make a grade when the grade is lower with a series of four or five steps that come up to the plaza.

So the building is accessible to the public.

The next slide shows in more detail the simplicity of where handicapped accessibility is and where the entranceway to the building is located.

The next slide are two sections.

One is north-south, the Redlands Club to the Levy Building with the new building between the two, and we've been judicious with the use of trees and we're using, at this point, thornless honey locust trees that

are open and filter the view of the building but don't obscure any one of the three buildings that frame the plaza.

And then the bottom section shows the small change in elevation from the sidewalk cross section through the plaza through the ellipse to the portico to the entrance to the new building.

And Elliot, these are kind of hybrid slides.

So I think either you or I or both can contribute to these.

This view here is obviously looking at the area that will be the future plaza, but it gives you a good understanding, a live photo of Redlands and Levy.

And then if you go to the next slide, we tried to get a similar angle there.

to imagine that enlivened landscape.

And there are a couple of things I'll point out and then I'll hand it over back to Elliot.

But one thing that's very important to us with this Portico design is that we portray an open and accessible government.

And the one way the architecture can do that is we have in that Portico large sections of glazing.

Once you get beyond the

thin pencil like column elements that will allow you to see the activities that are going on in the lobby and movement up and down the atrium space.

The people when they come in the morning, they would come through that central door and then they queue primarily on the inside.

But if there's overflow, rush hour, they do have the screen, the shelter of the Portico to be waiting.

in shelter so they're not out in the rain.

The other piece I'll point out is that this is west-facing, which is contrary to having large light, so we have that to deal with.

So we've added these screen elements

to buffer some of that when the sun starts to drop in the sky in the afternoon.

But it also we're using it as an architectural element to highlight the three bays out of the five hierarchically as a very gentle nod back to the circuit court, which is a three bay entrance.

The paving of Court Square is so predominant and strong and so memorable.

We had explored with Steve and Eric and the team the palette of materials and we've

are recommending the use of brick and bluestones since they're part of the existing series of open spaces on the block and across the street on the west side to make the plaza and the open spaces flow visually and physically from the public realm

into the space to create a warm looking and feeling plaza and have all of the elements relate to the entranceway to the building.

And we've done that subtly, and I'm not sure where it shows, but the trim around the ellipse embraces several of the columns and orients toward the building.

Just while we're looking at this one slide, if I could add something to help understand the scale of this space because it's so important.

So as compared to the downtown mall, they're very similar in terms of the width, roughly 65 feet and bounded on the north and the south by a two and a half or a three story building.

So if you're trying to visualize what that space feels like, it's proportionally very similar to the downtown mall.

On the mall, the two rows of trees are clustered more towards the center line.

They're roughly 15 feet apart in the center, so you have more space on the two sides down the alleys, so to speak.

Here, the trees are roughly 12 feet from the edge, so your space is in the middle.

But I hope that helps to understand the scale of the space.

And we, as you know, we did a million different sketches and options.

And the simpler the solution, the better the scheme was and is.

And we've utilized the elliptical bluestone

paving that's at the same grade as the brick as a place of focus, a place to bring all the elements of the space together.

That's a great point, Elliot.

I'm really glad you brought that up.

I think, Robert, maybe we can go through a couple more slides.

I know we have a model shot that just is another view slightly to the north.

We have a few model shot views.

I would love to be with you all in person tonight because it helps to pick up a model and squat down next to it and look in it.

These elevations here, you know, one thing I will point out is that we were looking very closely at the cornice lines for Levy.

And you can see that several elements are sort of born out of the, either the column capitals or the lower part of the entablature.

to sort of bring that together.

And so now moving from the plaza on the west, now we're going to go to the north.

This High Street was a big concern in terms of it being crowded and also the relationship to Levy.

So this view we've now rendered.

If you go to the next slide, Robert.

And you can see the the articulation of the saddlebag of the judges chambers and the way we created a two story order, which is very lightly dimpled with pilasters to again make reference to the building it's next to.

and a very small gesture.

And then you'll also see that the hyphen, again, the connection to the Levy building just touches the bottom portion of the of the frieze.

of that entablature so as to actually reestablish the cornice because the cornice line right now is broken.

If you go back up a slide, you can see a little bit there that the hyphen jams right into the top of the cornice of the levee, which I think this will be a betterment to that.

And then again, you have the driveway going down the slope.

Fortunately, we have a large tree at the Jessup House on that corner, which will help screen that vehicular entrance, which will be just for judges and for transport of detainees, but not for public use.

Next slide.

This is the east elevation.

So Jessup would be in front of you in this picture.

And you can see the modulation articulation of the fenestration along that east facade.

Next slide.

This is the elevation of the north facade.

That's fine.

You can keep going, Robert.

And then this is the south elevation.

You'll see that the area right adjacent to the Redlands Club, we're very close to that site, and therefore we don't have any fenestration along those two walls, given our proximity to the property.

that we just sort of threaded our building into this space.

Where the fenestration touches the ground plane are exit stairs that and you can see how that gesture was slightly dimpled as well.

So you have a symmetrical book ended fenestration element to the right and then a very narrow

Articulation of that corridor and stair and that occurs also in the north.

And that's really where that shape was derived from.

And that shows it right there.

The other piece is that we took the fenestration of the second floor windows and then created a transom above that.

And the intent there is that we can get light from that higher elevation and get it into a clear story into the courtroom so we can get some natural light.

We do have a penthouse screen wall and we'll be likely doing that in some sort of metal panel that will be

grayed out to just sort of fade away with the skyline as you see it against the sky.

And then if you go past this one to this one, yeah.

So, you know, Elliot has gone through pretty extensively the use of the bluestone.

We're illustrating this all in brick with limestone or cast stone trim.

If you look really small, there are three little brick samples.

We're in the process right now of making probably a half dozen blend boards using a range of bricks.

and different percentages.

And we're looking at a Norman brick, which is a little different from the rest of the buildings on campus, which are a Flemish bond, you know, normal size brick.

So

Trying to be the same but different.

Also with the color of the fenestration going to a dark bronze, which has a nice institutional feel, looks good with the brick, but isn't the repetition of the straight up Georgian white trim that everyone's expecting to see in buildings in this area.

And that was a lot that we covered.

I believe that's our last slide.

I thank you for your patience listening to all that.

All right.

Are there any questions from the public?

OK, questions from the board.

Quick question, you mentioned limestone as a material.

Yeah, the limestone, if you'll see, there's areas where there's

Some trim elements that are like over some window heads or between the transom light and the window on the second floor that band.

We've also explored some bands at the base.

And on the south side, it looks like some of your plans, I see some green space, other plans, it looks like you bricked all the way up to the side of the building.

Is there an intent for landscaping there?

I think it's too small for softscape.

I think it should be hardscape going right up to the building.

in a year or two, and be a muddy pit.

And also, just to clarify too, that parking lot to the south of the Redlands Club is

the Redlands Club's property.

Could I ask a little bit about that parking area?

It sounded like there was a decision made to avoid fenestration in that area.

On the other hand, it seems like it could be kind of a scary place that surrounded by building and with no windows and

I don't know, just seems kind of daunting.

Sure.

Sure.

Some jurisdictions lessen this.

The Washington, D.C.

actually does in the urban core.

It's a fire code issue.

If you're within a certain number of feet, there's no fenestration.

And

Yeah, it's the International Building Code as adopted by the Virginia Construction Code.

So unprotected openings are not permitted within five feet of

An interior lot line.

So the Redlands Club is a nice sort of quaint little building, but suppose it burns down in a fire and somebody builds something right up to the property line, you know, now you've got two buildings within five feet of each other and there's a fire again.

So, you know, no frustration permitted by code.

Okay.

Thank you.

Sorry.

The operative word is unprotected.

Yeah.

That's not my understanding, Eric.

OK, because it's a property line, it's not.

But.

We could go through a code.

I'm happy to entertain a code discussion if we wanted to.

I only bring it up as as it's it's I don't think it's foreclosed, but only if it's important to to

It's also worth noting those are public restrooms.

So we'd have windows into public bathrooms, which is not a great situation to have also.

I could be, this will be a big surprise everybody,

I was just wondering, looking at the lighting, modern contemporary lighting, I don't know if you admire the lighting that's there right now in that general district, but I'm just wondering how you expect to relate to it.

I mean, I personally rather you didn't, but I just, I don't imagine there's any way that you're not going to be addressing the district lighting in that immediate area, right, where they've got those

We've looked at both the lighting in the context of the site and have

bounce back and forth between utilizing the lights that are of that area, as well as the alternative of using a contemporary simple light.

And at this point, we're thinking that a simple, streamlined, but appropriate light with some detail would be more appropriate here.

There are two existing pole lights on the sidewalk at Park Street.

One basically at the corner of the Redlands Club and one a little further north by the Levy Building.

The one by the Levy Building will most likely need to be relocated because it's right in front of the steps that go up to the plaza.

So it's not in the best spot.

Some discussion will have to be made as to those two pole lights, which are clearly in the public domain of Court Square and match the rest of the pole lights in the neighborhood.

You know, they're in the public right of way.

I would not change the lights in the public realm to anything but what they are.

If they have to be moved, they have to be moved.

But that's the public realm.

And actually, you've got some details for those lighting that we didn't really have a chance to your bench lighting and possibly the ballers.

Ray, I mean, I guess just to clarify, I find the lights that are around Court Square some of the most horrendous in town.

The quality of light, I'm not talking about the form factor of the fixture itself, but rather the quality of the light, the lamping is just really terrible.

It's probably, I don't know, 5,000 Kelvin at least.

And the reflectors are just ridiculous.

And so having said that,

You know, I fully expect that what you guys are going to be doing is doing something more in the 2,700 to 3,000 range, perhaps, and also more of indirect lighting.

So I guess my question is, and this may not really be yours to solve or answer, is just how that all works together with the rest of the campus, just because it's going to stand out as being decidedly different.

We haven't spent a huge amount of time on it to date, but I see three different types of lighting in the plaza area.

One is the light which emanates from the lobby and possibly from the portico, which would be the predominant lighting, I think, in the plaza.

The second would be the

Additional pole lighting and we've recommended at this point two pole lights one between each of the pairs of trees on the north and south side of the plaza and then as Eric had just mentioned we're thinking that light would be integrated into the bases of the two benches and we haven't really detailed the curved wall but there would be lighting

Right, right.

Yeah, I don't, I, you know, my

Because you have indirect lighting, you have that kind of lighting, and then obviously the building will also throw some light.

I suspect it'll be, I would hope it'd be really the most sophisticated lighting in that immediate area, frankly.

I just think it's unfortunate that you're gonna also be having to deal with the lighting that's currently in place, so.

No, I think that's a thoughtful comment.

That's a much larger issue than what we can deal with.

So those are our lighting ideas to date.

Yeah, thank you for that question.

We have not detailed those yet, but the intent is that they be elegant and slender and well, the intersections being well addressed in terms of the way the column meets the ground plane, the way the column meets the

the Portico roof and those intersections, not in an overly articulated way, but just in a simple and elegant way.

Good question.

Well, if more questions come up, we can always ask them.

Are there any comments from the public?

All right.

So I wanted to thank our designers.

This is just, it's a shoehorn into this property.

I'm a practicing attorney.

and my office happens to be across 7th Street from this property.

So I really know this area pretty well and I will practice in both of these courts, which is kind of exciting.

So thank you for creating the public plaza.

I was on the BAR when we last built a courthouse in Charlottesville and that was the Juvenile and Domestic Relations courthouse.

And I begged for

a little bit of public space in the front those two or three steps which really aren't steps and they got collapsed into nothing and now there's a balustrade and you can't get to them but I've seen people sit in them but there needs to be a public space where people can meet their council, meet their families, you know, relax

And that's a really nice space and I love the programming and the hardscape that you've done so far.

The bluestone is beautiful.

And the low walls are really well done.

So I think that's a great public gesture.

I appreciate that you've made this new courthouse subordinate in height to the Levy building and also corrected the hyphen and have got the cornice sort of subordinate on the high street side so that it's not jutting into the historic cornice.

That's a great thing that you've done.

and thank you for stepping back this building also on the high street side.

Walking along the historic levee building is sort of taking one's life into your hands.

It's about two feet wide there and I try to avoid walking down there if I can.

I always think that some car is going to come

over the not very high sidewalk.

Get me and you've got a brick wall.

So my only my one comment or question to you is I wonder what you can do about the facade on the East Jefferson Street side that you say by code there can be no fenestration.

Can there be more detail?

Can there be more interest there?

From what I can tell from the

from the diagrams, it's 50 feet long and two stories high.

And for the city of Charlottesville, that's a huge plane that doesn't seem to have much articulation or interest in it.

And I wonder if there's, without being cute, whether there's something you can do to reflect the Redlands building or some other utilitarian building on that side.

And the only other comment that I have is with regard to the columns on the new courthouse building.

My first impression was live at Lincoln Center.

I don't see I like the two story height of the columns.

I just don't know what the columns are.

And you've got this

Ample cornice that looks historic but then these skinny leg columns that and I'm again not not encouraging you to create you know a neoclassical

But I just wonder if there's something we can do to that'll share some language that we have on the levee building right next door because you're always going to look at those facades together.

So I just, that's my only challenge to you is to see what you could do there and, and it could be something very creative.

But I think this is a great first iteration.

If I could just make a comment about working with the county and the city.

Cheri, two of the items that you mentioned, both of the government should be commended on making good decisions to allow the height of the building to be what we're showing you.

And for that public plaza to exist, there were, for each of those options, another scheme with a different solution that was three stories above ground instead of two.

And

had the plaza on the Jefferson Street side as opposed to the Park Street side.

I have a question as much as a comment and I imagine this is Elliot's territory, but

I think we shouldn't do that.

I understand the

questions and thoughts about the blank wall, but because of the restrictiveness of the space and also even more than that.

There could be really beautiful planting growing up the wall, but I doubt the maintenance capability to really take care of it.

And because of the narrowness of the space, I think the plan shows three foot, eight inches between the edge.

There really is so little land there.

I think the details that are shown on that elevation may not have been prominent enough the way they were displayed in this sketch in that it picks up on the monumental order that Steve was referring to on the north and east elevations where we have the window infill between pilasters

and that sort of bay breakdown of rhythm of space and breaking down that horizontal distance into a series of bays maybe isn't showing as well in that drawing as it could.

So that definitely can use some development.

And just to respond to the comment about green scape on that side and picking up with what Elliot was saying, maintenance is a separate question.

but if we were to consider something like a green screen with which is basically a stainless steel trellis which is attached to the building an example that you might be familiar with in town here is the UVA parking garage on Culbreath Drive near the drama the fine arts complex there they have a green screen on that elevation that's sort of facing University Avenue and you know that takes less than a foot

So there are ways to do it.

That's a conversation that needs to happen, though, because those vines need to be maintained and trimmed back and kept out of the building.

So that's a whole other question.

An architectural solution is also a possibility.

It is well off the street also, so I'm not quite as humbled about it.

But I would like to follow up a little bit on what Cheri was saying regarding the front portico.

I mean, there is sort of that Edward Durell Stone sort of aspect to it, but it also seems like going back to even the city hall down on the mall there has more of like the, I think they're probably one of their concrete or limestone columns, which are very sort of in kind of like a lot of Elil Sarayanan's work in Cranbrook.

So I could see sort of balancing it a little more that way in terms of the materiality of it where that would speak to the masonry of the old buildings too without getting into any kind of derivative or traditional language as opposed to doing steel columns.

It does.

Yeah, it does.

And that's a very good comment.

And I did notice that about the city hall, that it's sort of that mid century, mid 20th century

yeah, Saarinen-like slender limestone columns.

It may be beneficial just to close it out and I agree completely with Eric that we'll go back to study this, but if Robert can share, I believe it's page 42 of the deck,

It's one of the elevations.

And just to point it out to folks, because I agree, we didn't really spend any time on it.

Right there.

And if you could zoom in on that blank wall.

and then we'll put this to bed, but just I wanted to point out, so there are again, these sort of light dimples that are probably two to four inches.

So the cornice line runs through that transom divider line runs through, and then you have these vertical bays that sort of dimple in, and that runs around both those sides, which so that you don't,

necessarily feel like it's a blank wall per se.

It's an articulated architectural wall.

And then the other piece I'll point out is that the slender columns are held up that they hold up just that that fin of white there that you see with the red behind it, which so it's just it's sort of like a shelf that just comes out as a very thin screen portico element.

And it's not

that heavy piece, which is back where the masonry is.

And I'll stop there.

I'd like to follow up on both those items.

I think for this elevation that's shown, I think if it were just that facade that we were looking at that was without fenestration,

it may not be an issue.

I'm concerned about the perspective that most people will have coming from Court Square where we see two of those walls of almost equal dimension without windows in creating a pretty kind of bleak space.

It stands in pretty stark contrast to the really ample and kind of beautiful space that's created at the beginning of the entrance to the building.

And it's just kind of

It's a little jarring for that streetscape.

I just worry.

I do agree with Elliot that I don't think green green screen or vines or planting is very viable there.

It's a south facing facade.

Everything is going to get fried against that brick.

But I just hopefully we can find some other other ways of bringing some humanity and scale to that space.

Regarding the portico, I kind of like the slenderness of the columns and the way that the building transitions to a more contemporary facade while still nodding to some of its surrounds.

I think to me it's more how that awning attaches to the building.

There are some sketches in here where it feels a little bit of

including this one that's on the screen now, where it's almost a separate architecture.

That seems a little bit more believable in a way.

Other drawings show the portico as only four bays coming out.

But when it's pulling directly out of the cornice, that's where I think it feels weird.

when it seems to be almost a detail of the, like almost a plate of the cornice has shifted out and then the architecture changes to a different detailing.

I think that there could be a way that maybe it has a, that facade has a, separates itself not trying to resolve everything with that same cornice line.

I've got a couple of other comments jumping around.

I'll just note while I've got the floor, but I'm concerned about the tree on High Street and maybe we've talked about this already, but it seems almost inevitable that that tree in front of the Jessup house is going to get whacked.

There's, it's going to have to be a retaining wall there right within feet of that tree and that's

It just should be noted that would be a pretty significant loss for that property and for the streetscape.

And it's still being shown in some of the renderings as kind of a mitigating factor for that garage entrance.

So I think that's just something to come to terms with and figure out how to resolve.

In some of the renderings, I feel the foundation of the building is

It is being articulated, but it may be a little bit on the verge of being underrepresented or maybe better put, not in proportion to the way that the cornice is articulated.

The cornice is quite significant.

It just looks like that foundation is getting either really thin or not having the same level of details as many of the other

Pretty significant attention to the foundations around and the other buildings around Court Square.

I don't know that it necessarily needs a water table or limestone detail, but it does seem like it needs some thickness or some variation from the facade.

And then to the plaza, which I think is successful, it really does demonstrate

and openness, I think there's a humanity to that space that is possible.

I don't know if it's totally there yet, but it's pretty, I think that's the intention that's legible and I think we can get there.

The trees, I do worry that the back trees really seem to be in conflict with those back two columns.

and they may be too close.

I don't know if the trees either could shift closer to the street and participate in the street a little bit more and give the architecture a little more breathing or if two larger trees would be actually be more successful than trying to get the four in there.

In both cases, I wanna make sure that we provide ample soil volumes so that they can really succeed

I think, and lastly about that seating, there are, I think that that seat wall on the street could be really well used if it detailed well.

And so I think I just encourage you to approach it with the same kind of humanity that you have for the plaza, that the surface is something that's,

that feels that you could sit on it.

I worry a little bit that it might be really glaring hot most of the time, but if not wood, a stone detail that is comfortable to sit on for both sides.

And that those two brick walls, they're kind of undercooked yet in these renderings, but they could

You know, run the risk of being a little bit clunky and you're trying to mitigate a lot of different brick everywhere.

So I'm not sure how you do that.

But the one on either side of the plaza, I think that the, you know, the detailing of getting those right, it will be pretty important.

That's it.

Well, those, those were really good comments.

I'm glad you brought up.

Am I allowed to respond?

I'm glad you brought up the tree at Jessup.

I think the Jessup house on the high street side, we will look into that.

It's not on the property, but I think it is a significant tree and I agree that we should try as hard as possible to save it.

I think the curb

And the hardscape has probably limited the amount of root growth in that area.

So it might be possible to do some protective preventive root pruning of the tree before construction, maybe a year before fertilize it, adapt the tree in order to do what it's needed.

That was a thoughtful comment that I hadn't really thought about.

And, you know, we started with three trees on either side of the plaza, two were about 20, 22 feet apart.

We were using the trees, the four trees as kind of a framer of the ellipse.

Having one on either side makes me concerned, but I understand what you're saying.

So I feel we have the right number.

We've been working hard with Steve and his team on the right type of tree and size of tree.

Well, some of the renderings make me even ponder if those outer columns are that necessary.

And we've also explored moving them, which we're concerned about, you know, a little bit north to Levy and a little bit south to Redland.

So it's

a process that we'll go through in the next phase of design.

And we've had that discussion internally about the three bays versus five bays.

I also would like, just sort of following up on Brett's comments about the enthalature on top of it.

That does seem, I don't know if you need it from a functional standpoint, but does seem kind of

superfluous and maybe fighting the portico a little bit, you know, that upper parapet.

Again, just going back to some of Saranin's buildings, you know, it's really all about those tall thin columns holding that slim, that slim entablature and there's nothing implied about something bigger and fatter behind it.

Anyone else?

Because I'm dying to jump in.

I'm waiting my turn, too.

So why don't you go, Jody?

Waiting for others.

So if you don't go, I'm going to go.

Well, if it's just using you and I, I'll go.

You need to be the last word.

Robert, could you go to page 96?

How to start.

I'm comparing the courthouse site with this site, the Levy site in the new court

While the design inspiration has focused in this presentation on the columns, I think the real character of the existing courthouse complex are the trees.

Is the fact that in this downtown area, all of a sudden you come to the courthouse

and it's some buildings in the midst of a copse of trees.

It's like a park.

And that's the real significant to me character more so than the columns.

And that's what surprises me about the design schematic that we're seeing is the sparsity of plantings, of trees, of having

pedestrian experiences along Jefferson and High where there's not even a window at eye level, that you're looking at blank walls that are right next to you.

There's no trees along those pedestrian ways.

It's something that, well, that most other commissions that I'm on

really are concerned about creating an important pedestrian experience.

And I understand that you got more square footage, you've got to cram into this site, but it really does not capture anything of the character site-wise of the existing courthouse complex.

And the medium-sized,

trees on the plaza that are feathery.

I don't understand why there aren't canopy trees, why there's not more plantings.

The plantings in that alcove between the levee and the quartz, those bushes are mostly there to keep people from going into this dead end area.

They're not even, it's a defensive mechanism.

not there for appearance.

So I'm really surprised with the lack of plantings and how unconnected it is with the existing courthouse complex.

The columns, I agree with Breck.

I'd love to see, I love the foster design for the Cuddy Art Museum.

I'd love to see something slender, modern, stainless steel.

It's designed to do only what it needs to do.

And a thin canopy.

I love the sort of historic progression between the buildings and the columns and something that's transitionally

transitions to a modern expression.

That's it for me.

I'm not sure I'm going to wrap it up.

But yeah, I need to first agree with a lot of what's been said tonight.

But I wanted to say, you guys, you've hit a home run on the massing, and at least you can feel good with that.

You know, I'm worried about Jefferson Street.

You know, it's already kind of a really bad street, and it has one solitary little tree on it.

And it's going to, I'm not sure this really improves it.

It's going to be a pretty severe street that if there was any way to, you know, get another foot or two out of the building right there, so that you could put a tree or something on that street, just to make it not feel so

So severe, I think that would help.

But generally, I mean, actually, to be honest, if you, I mean, you've shared your floor plans, it makes it pretty clear that stuff isn't easy to shuffle around.

You have two very large courtrooms in there that you're going to deal with.

But if, you know, the third story mechanical penthouse is going to be, you can gray it out, but it's going to be a feature.

And it's tall, it's big, it's going to show up.

I'd rather see you put a small third story on the building and lose a little bit of the footprint than keep it all at two stories with this giant mechanical thing on top.

So if there was some way to shuffle the square footage, I think that would be beneficial.

I very much agree with what's been said about the columns.

You know, it seems like a really, you've got a good idea.

And I know you've got a puzzle.

You've got a very traditional, very old, very historic site to deal with.

And you want to do something contemporary and you're trying to do two things at once.

And I'm not going to say you can't, but I don't think you are successfully doing two things at once right now.

and it might just come down to the detailing, but it's, I mean, the way everyone is, people have said this already, the way that the

Entablature of the little portico meets the large entablature of the building.

Seems a little strange to me because it looks like you're putting a very traditional cornice around the building.

And then I'm imagining a thin metal piece for the top of the portico, but I'm not sure how those two come together.

The monumentality of the building, the two-story stacked windows,

I feel like that's a good idea in the sense that it's a public building.

It should be monumental.

But if you look at the context and all the other buildings on the site, they really read more like large houses.

They're much more residential in their massing, in their fenestration.

and it's similar, a comparison I'm thinking of would be, you know, like on the lawn.

Jefferson's buildings are very residential appearing and then you get to the south end of the lawn and those newer buildings down there are, you know, they were dying to be more monumental looking and they do this kind of two story or in one story form and I've always felt that was very, the proportions just don't,

mix well.

They feel, I don't know, I apologize to Jody.

I know they're kind of sacred to UVA, but they've always stuck out to me as being uncomfortable with the way that they're proportioned.

And if you look at other buildings around town that do the same thing,

I'm thinking of the CenturyLink building, I'm thinking of City Hall, and I'm thinking of the federal courthouse.

And these are probably my three least favorite buildings in the entire town.

And I feel like they were, architecturally at the time, someone had a really fantastic idea, and it just came off very austere and out of context.

And I think in this instance, the only

Guidelines I can point to for this would be context.

I feel like it's you are creating something that might be a little bit too severe for the site.

Let's see, that was a. If I may, Carl, I appreciate you bringing that up.

We we have been looking at both.

We kind of started with a

Georgian 12 over 12 or whatever the number is, divided lights, double hung type thing with brick between and not vertically pilastered out.

And this was sort of the next iteration, but I really appreciate your

I'm glad you said something because I think I need to be on high alert.

And I guess, Carl, most of the buildings that you referred to are of a smaller scale.

And so they're dealing with these issues, but the buildings aren't so big yet that they couldn't have been overcome in it with a different sort of architectonic language.

Look at Lane High School, also known as the county office building, right?

It does have some moves on it aside from the front portico.

There are some windows on the north side that are set into the brick that are multi stories tall, where there are some more monumental moves aside from the front portico that are not just five foot by seven foot punch double hung windows, you know, in in a brick wall with little eight by 10 lights.

So they're there.

And, you know, I'd say that's a pretty successful traditional design on that building.

So we're trying to do something that is a little more sophisticated than just a small repetition or multiple repetitions of a small scaled element in a planar facade.

You know, and because it is a big building.

I think it's worth pursuing.

I guess what I'm I guess I'm throwing out a word of caution, but, you know, it's

Be careful with it.

It is coming off as rather severe, at least in my interpretation of it.

I don't think there's any, I'm not telling you to go completely traditional.

If you wanted to do a more contemporary building, I think you could as well.

What I'm struggling with is you have a, there is a historic kind of mashup going on right now that I don't think

Carl, what about, for instance, how about McGuffey?

How about what?

McGuffey, you know, where you have a series of large windows and then you also have more residential scale windows.

It is what it also is.

They're not the vertical.

It doesn't read as, you know, turning two stories into one.

Although the large center windows do stack.

the large, the large sets.

The, you know, the Monticello Hotel does the monumental scale, but it also has a whole lot more richness of material that I'm not sure that this project is going to, to achieve.

Right.

Or I don't think you guys want to go that traditional, I'm assuming.

That was just me throwing that out there.

Yeah, we do have 10 pounds in a five pound bag for sure.

But the one place that you invite people to is that plaza, that recessed plaza.

I wish we had the space to do that.

The landscape across Park Street is gorgeous and there's a huge amount of soft land soil in order to enable the trees to grow really tall.

We're planning to do silvacells and connected pathways for roots, etc.

to get as much

But as we spoke about earlier, the space is really tiny and pointed out, it's the same width and size as a downtown mall.

Yeah.

But that's also, there's no sense of entry along the center of

downtown mall.

That's not the point of downtown mall.

One thing I would also like to point out is that, you know, the buildings, when they were built,

did not have big trees.

So, but that's happened because it's been 200 years.

So, you know, just something to consider.

That's right.

The honey locusts are, that's the same species that's scattered around the perimeter of court square, correct?

Like I'm looking at, there's various tree wells.

That's Sixth Street, yeah.

Well, is there a way to squeeze in a, I mean, the sidewalks are really narrow, so again, I think you'd be shaving a couple feet off the building, but to squeeze in some

You know, we would have had the buildings been further from the back of sidewalk and had this, not even that, had the sidewalks been wider, we definitely would have planted trees in the sidewalk.

I don't, I'm not anti street tree.

We're pro all of that.

It just isn't the room and I wouldn't

There's just no room on Jefferson or High or Park to do street trees, given the current footprint of the building and the width of the existing right of way to do it.

It would be beautiful if there could be, but there isn't.

We could remove the parking

between Redlands and Leavick.

What do you think of that?

It was certainly helpless.

Oh, I see what you're saying.

I thought you were talking about buying the parking lot for the Redlands Club.

Yeah, I did too.

Well, we'll keep looking for opportunities.

So if you're extended, if you stay at your line of trees, if you actually had bump outs or, you know, pulled away some of the parking there in front of you, you could actually get trees out of the street, right?

I'd have to check to see if there are utilities under that, but

Right.

It would, because that whole sort of quadrant just bakes relative to, you know, anything just given.

I don't want to throw any water on the fire, but it just, yeah, we do get into, and this was,

I think we've talked about this briefly a couple of weeks ago and sort of staying within the parcel footprint.

But if there are questions and ideas within the public right of way, I guess Eric and I can kind of communicate on how best to communicate that up.

But

The difficulty here is we do have a cross-jurisdictional project and I guess I'm not trying to dissuade the discussion, but can we kind of table anything outside of the parcel and focus on

I guess the design, or unless that's critical to the design from the perspective of the BAR.

I think the concern has been stated.

I just, in general, I like the design better than apparently a lot of you do.

And I will say this, that if we're just doing more white columns with brick buildings, McGuffey or whatever, I'm against that.

I would like something to be a little more in this direction that we have here.

So I'd like a contemporary building as opposed to something that recapitulates something that was built 150 years ago.

Both to offset the fact that we have these

Fantastic historic resources there, but also say that we're moving forward.

We're not just staying, trying to recapitulate what has happened in the past year.

So I actually am fairly favorable to this design.

And I agree with the consensus from tonight's discussion.

I do agree with Brett in terms of scale.

But what jumped out at me first was Tim's concern, and that was the lighting.

I'm very familiar with Park Street and the lighting.

It's very classical.

It's a classical aesthetic, obviously.

And the lighting, the contemporary light fixtures that you guys have in the material page, it simply reminds me of TV torches.

And that is the last thing Charles still needs, is a reminder of TV torches.

Remarkably, I think the best questions or comments both have come on the issues that we've grappled with the most.

Steve and I have gone back and forth with sketches about what the portico looks like, what it's made of, how it's detailed.

and designs a process.

We've looked at the pedestrian walls right up at the edge of the sidewalk and how to articulate those with these.

These walls really want to be as a rusticated base with large storefront openings in them.

We'll try to make it as pedestrian friendly as we possibly can.

I mean, those are really the two sort of biggest issues.

Elliot and his team have really focused on the materiality of Court Square and in that overall site plan that we've been looking at trying to show the public plaza as part of Court Square with its materiality and the sort of contextual materials more so than the details so that we're going to modulate those traditional materials in the paving and the low walls

and then let it sort of grow up into a more contemporary building in the facade.

But sort of the ground plane is a little bit more contextual.

And those are all the items that everybody has commented on tonight.

And those are the real design puzzles.

Those are the challenges that we're trying to solve.

And I think all the comments have been spot on.

And we'll go back and look at some of these things and take it through another iteration

Be back again in two or three months when we're, you know, ready to give you the next round of developments.

But yeah, I think we have what we need.

You know, we've looked again that four, five, six different iterations of trees in that public plaza.

Maybe they can be moved in board two more feet, a little bit bigger.

It's a balancing act between, you know, having a canopy that you can be underneath that provides security and visualization to the entrance and meets CPTED requirements, you know, crime prevention standards of visibility and things like that.

Same, same comment with respect to those low brick walls, you know, we're designing a secure facility here, not

of recreational parks.

So there are some other standards that we need to adhere to also, and all the comments will feed back into that sort of design iteration cycle.

I think tonight we've received a lot of really good information.

We've got what we need.

So I would break in and first introduce myself.

Most of you probably don't know who I am.

I'm Lance Stewart.

I work for Albemarle County.

I'm the

Director of the department that's managing this project on behalf of both of our agencies.

And I really appreciate the comments.

You know, it's been really helpful to hear so many opinions that are so informed about what's happening downtown and the context.

But I was struck myself as I was watching the presentation and I'd seen the slides.

about the comment about possibly removing some of the on-street parking on the front facade of the building in order to potentially accommodate some street trees.

And seeing that slide, there was something previously that was wrong in my mind, and I realized that that's what it was.

So I'm leading up to just a

An open question, and maybe it doesn't have to happen now, is if there's anything that you think that the county and city whose project this is might work on together or explore to potentially expand the bounds of the site to achieve something important.

And if you don't have an immediate answer now, but maybe work through Jeff to make some suggestions about how we might

really frame this, what I hope will be an historic building that's here another 100 to 200 years from now in the way that it could be.

I think what Jody said about the trees, I think if you were to bring another pair out and bring the building out to the street and not have it behind a parking zone, I think it would engage, start to engage with the other side of the street.

And then also, you know, and the lighting is kind of part and parcel of the same thing.

It's really outside of this project's purview, but, you know, I think

At some point, I don't know, given that they're LEDs, it'll take a long time to replace the lamps inside of those fixers.

I don't think it's the fixers.

I don't have an issue with its lamping.

But those two things, I think, if you go to Savannah or Charleston and the lighting levels are very much sort of soft and in the low Kelvin range, you know, it's very inviting at night, whereas Quartz Square kind of looks like, you know, from

Michael Jackson thriller video because it's that sort of blue light.

And I think it's very unflattering to a really beautiful part of the town.

I think Jody's intuition about the trees is right.

Quick question for the board.

As they're going through more iterations of design and trying to figure out the portico and developing this more, is it safe to say that no one would be opposed to more contemporary features being added in if the building became less traditional?

Or is everybody, how do people feel on that?

It's helpful to hear.

I think where we're attempting to strike the balance is remembering that this is not

A building that is its own.

It's part of a campus of courts and we don't want people to, I want people to intuitively, instinctively know they're in a courts complex.

And so, but that said, I appreciate the comment and just knowing that if we go that direction, we're always going to be looking back and say, okay, does this building still belong to this place?

It's wonderful.

You guys, I mean, this is,

As we saw with Beth Israel and the security work necessary down the street, we've seen the reality of our times and the reality of how it affects design and equally on the inside.

Courtrooms are very

important places in how they're designed.

And Eric and I had a link to chat about the other day.

You have to do it right.

And so you truly are kind of have to make the inside right.

And then you put the caramel coating on the outside.

And then throw in that we've got two jurisdictions working on this.

So it's, you know,

Maybe after this we go and work on world peace somewhere.

I think if you all are comfortable with it, and our guidelines do, you know, specifically relative to facilities like this, you know, recommend, you know, I want to say swinging for the fences, not the right

but it's certainly encouraged to be different and to be new and to try contemporary.

And so I think that's within the design guidelines.

But I mean, as long as Eric and his team and Lance and all feel comfortable with what the discussion was, just realize we've got,

The applicant should request a deferral, correct.

I'll second.

Thank you, I'll call a vote.

Mr. Moore.

Aye.

Mr. Lehendro.

Aye.

Mr. Edwards.

Mr. Schwartz.

Yes.

And Mr. Gastinger.

Aye.

Is that everybody who's left?

Oh, and Mr. Bailey, sorry.

Yes.

Thank you.

Oh, god.

Yeah, and so, you know,

God, how can Cheri so much miss out on a great discussion about ethos, her favorite topic.

After Jeff Bushman, Jeff Dreyfus explained it so clear.

So, you know, I know it's eight o'clock and I sensed from our plenary discussion that this may not be a lengthy discussion.

Do you guys want a break or do you want to wrap this up?

Five minutes, Tim?

Okay.

Lance is sticking around because he wants to know if he can do this.

Sorry, Mr. Stafford.

All right.

I'm good to go.

Thanks.

I appreciate everybody's time, though.

I can't tell you how great it is to hear a different set of perspectives.

Hi, Lance.

Good to see you.

Really appreciate it.

So Carl, your call.

So 803, according to my computer's clock.

So I'm curious, could anyone hear my cat singing during the court's discussion?

I heard a cat briefly.

She does this thing where she very suddenly decides that she needs to be petted, and she really needs to be petted.

She'll scream at me.

She wanted her opinion to be heard.

Oh, God.

My dad always said, what's a metaphor?

There you go.

There you go.

See, I

After dad died, I said, I'm going to keep passing these stupid things on to the next generation.

That's my gift.

That's mine.

Oh yeah, like that.

Oh yeah, what's a metaphor?

Cows and horses.

I'm getting, actually speaking of distraction, my daughter's in Morocco and sending me pictures of her with camels.

So it's kind of like that.

There, that's on my list of things I never thought I'd see.

All right.

Mr. Stafford is the applicant for this, right?

Representative.

I'm looking at it.

I suddenly thought of what my father would say.

Anytime you would say so, he'd go, so, so buttons for the Red Cross.

There you go.

All right.

So, um,

I don't wanna just go too deep into this one, but there's a hotel located at the corner of Ridge and Cheri.

This was phase one of William Taylor Plaza, which was a project and it creates me, but I don't know all the details where the city, I think,

transferred the owners or sold the property to private entities, which developed the sites.

And phase two is, of course, the residential component to the north of this fronting on Ridge Street.

And this went through the BAR process, was approved in 2016, actually in 2015, and there's some clarification, 2016, subsequently it was constructed and the

the project, if not the building, have changed hands twice since then and currently owned by Gateway Terrace Partners and operating the Fairfield Inn and Suites by Marriott.

So about a year ago, Doug contacted me about some issues with the stucco on the hotel needing some repairs and

things went back and forth and then COVID hit, sort of set it on the back burner.

And then earlier this year, he and I have been communicating about it.

And I see some misspellings in there that's struggling, but after some back and forth and I had some things I shared with you all in the BAR, I just suggested to Doug, why don't we just sit down with the BAR and have a conversation about this.

And,

You know, get a solution that works.

And as we said earlier, this is not a formal request.

This is normally what I would treat repair and maintenance.

But I think it's just a little bit unique in that the repair might

altered the reveal of the windows and some details that we've discussed.

So I really, you know, this is not a presentation with an applicant making a presentation.

We're all sitting around the table with the drawings in front of us and I hope it's more of a discussion that Doug and his team can leave

you know, either knowing that there's a repair they can move forward with, or if there's something else that you all would like them to explore, then what is it that maybe they could bring back to us?

So I'm gonna leave it at that.

And so I think Doug's ready to answer questions, and I would prefer maybe if the BAR would jump in, if you've got any questions based on what I've shared.

But I'm sorry, I didn't introduce Doug.

Doug is at the bottom, at least he's at the bottom left of my screen.

Thanks, Jeff.

I'll just I'll quickly introduce myself.

In addition to what Jeff said, I'm with Griffin Stafford Hospitality.

We're based in Charlotte, actually live in Concord, northeast of Charlotte.

And that's where I'm doing my Zoom call from.

But as Jeff noted, we purchased the hotel in January of 2018 from the

Company that purchased it from the original developer in 2017, I believe it was.

And we've operated the hotel since we purchased it.

And before we purchased the hotel, we would go through a due diligence process to not just look at the financial documents and other relevant information, but we also typically will hire a company that can do a property condition assessment for us.

And when we purchased the hotel, we knew that there were some issues.

The stucco finish on the, hard coat stucco finish on the hotel we knew was problematic primarily from an aesthetic perspective.

Fortunately for us, we really don't have any issues with moisture penetration into the wall cavities.

As a matter of fact, I was telling Jeff we hired an investigative forensic inspector who is based in Virginia Beach to come in late last week and he actually did some cuts into the stucco and cuts into the exterior drywall in a number of the guest rooms to determine if we did have

any moisture issues.

Unfortunately, we did not have anything in any of the areas that he inspected.

He also was able to determine the moisture-resistant barrier that was installed on the sheathing of the building.

And it is a non-woven polyethylene wrap, similar to a Tyvek.

So we do have that on the building, and we feel pretty good about it.

We think the building is good and watertight.

The issue for us, we think long-term, is just the aesthetics of the building.

If you look at it, if you walk by it, it just does not look good.

Now, the masonry, the brick, and the cast stone features look fine.

And of course, the fiber cement plank detailing looks pretty good.

It's just the stucco areas, and we want to improve that.

And we've had a lot of experience with these.

I know it's not the most loved material in the world, and I understand that.

But the experience we've had has been pretty good because we are pretty diligent in the way these things are handled, especially at ground level.

I heard you talk about the ground level.

issue of it being durable.

And we're pretty firm with our architect and with our EAFS installer, and certainly with the manufacturer of the product, that we want to make sure that at ground level, it's reinforced.

And of course, you can do that and make it much more substantial.

And we have some areas where it is going to be at ground level.

Not a lot.

It's going to be right up against the sidewalk some, but not a lot.

But I'm happy to answer any questions.

Well, I think as I was saying during our pre-meeting,

It looks like you guys have definitely done your homework.

I got to trust that you want this to last and not fall apart.

So while I was a little concerned in the beginning about the idea of sticking Ethos over the existing finish, it looks like you guys have fully figured that out.

So unless anyone on the board disagrees, I think our primary concern is, do we have any concerns with just the

The thickness change and the idea of, well, you've given us an answer for the ethos at ground level.

Personally, I'm not concerned.

I'm looking at your drawings and I feel confident that you guys are going to make this work.

And I actually like the idea of having recesses at the windows.

I mean, it won't be much, but it'll be better than flat.

I was kind of just overwhelmed by the amount of information.

I don't know if anybody could maybe distill it down to the basic.

I mean, I understand the detail is going to change.

Let's see.

I don't see exactly what you get in front of you.

We've got approximately 71 pages.

I know.

I apologize.

You did give us a sheet of details on, I think it's sheet A455.

That's probably the best one to look at how the efes will be installed.

Just an important point, too, the existing stucco will be just as you would with a building that is where you're installing efes on sheeting, where the sheeting is waterproofed with a liquid waterproofing.

We'll do the same on the stucco.

And then, of course, we'll have a drainage plane.

And then, of course, the EAF system installed.

So the whole concept is to essentially install all of these.

The hard cut stocking system we have right now is drainable.

This will be a drainable system on top of that.

So it's sort of an extra step to make sure that we don't ever have a problem with moisture.

The other thing that I think is pretty important about it is the fact that, as you noted about the reveals, it will give the building some interest.

I'm not an architect, but I'm sort of an amateur when it comes to design.

My partner's more of that than I am.

But I think it will make the building look a bit more substantial in those areas where you do see the stucco currently.

where we have coping.

Obviously we're going to put new coping on so that it covers over the additional thickness.

So is it safe to say that the

The existing drainable stucco will no longer be draining because you're probably going to, it'll be embedded in the new construction.

Carl, I think so.

It's interesting because our forensic investigator said, gosh, you've already got a drainable system.

Why are you looking at an additional drainable system, which

Right.

I guess I can.

I mean, I'm assuming you guys are obviously you're confident that you're not trapping water.

That's correct.

And that's why we brought Stanley Jaskolski in because we wanted to make sure that

as much as we possibly could that in the building there was no moisture penetration that we could detect.

And he had his moisture meter and was checking everything and he feels pretty good about it and we do too.

And that's important because as you said, we're gonna keep this hotel for a long time.

We like Charlottesville a lot personally, as well as business wise.

So I just have a quick question.

I'm not really seeing a drainage map, per se.

It's a good question.

OK.

And then what creates the drainage plane between that

Glad you were asking that question.

I've got with me, he's not as registered as a participant.

He's as an attendee.

But Randall Coward, who is with Perix USA, which is the EAFS manufacturer, it is a, and I'm not the expert, but he can explain it better than I can, but there is a behind the

With the adhesive?

Yes, that's correct.

Running adhesive is strips and that's holding it up by some, got it, okay.

Because I mean, it kind of looks like that, but it doesn't explain how they're getting there.

Because another way to do it is like with an expanded mesh or dimples.

or something along those lines.

Okay, yeah.

Lost you guys just for a few seconds there.

And it sounded like when I came back in, you guys were spot on with that.

It is the base coat adhesive material that's going to bond the insulation board to the weatherproof product.

It's going to be a vertical notched trowel configuration.

And that's going to fur the foam off the wall and create the drainage plan.

and that will be vertical from top to bottom.

And there'll be termination points at all horizontal terminations, the window heads, door heads, base of the wall and any other horizontal terminations.

So the system will be encapsulated into a starter drainage track that has weep holes in it.

The system itself, every

What doesn't sound like we've got any

Other concerns?

As I summarized it, if I can find my summary, it really was, unless you think there's something that needs to come back for formal approval, then I think it's sufficient to

to sort of straw poll, however you want to do it.

You know, wish Doug well and say, this sounds like a good plan.

And if you have any problems, call Jeff.

Can just clarify,

Doug, is the principal issue that the existing stucco holds?

It doesn't go into the building, but it holds water and it looks shabby.

Tim, it really is.

And it's not so much a function.

It functions correctly.

It's an aesthetic issue.

To say that the exterior finishing subcontractor

did a good job.

It was terrible.

It functions correctly, it works correctly, but it's just not a quality job.

And we knew that when we purchased the hotel.

We purchased the hotel because we wanted to have a hotel in downtown Charlottesville because we felt like great market.

We love the university, we love the medical center.

I'm a historic nut.

So for me, Charlottesville was a place that, and my partner too, where we wanted to be.

to do business and to have a hotel for a long time.

And so when we purchased it, we knew we were going to have to do something.

And so, as you heard Jeff say, we spent several months after we purchased it trying to decide exactly what we're going to do.

All right.

I was sure that was what it was.

I just want to make sure I wasn't missing something.

Okay.

Yes, sir.

So there's no formal motion or anything we need to do.

Just say, go and prosper.

Man, even my brain didn't come up with that one.

That was good.

Oh, well, I've seen that.

Absolutely.

I have seen that.

And we also have another agreement on BAR.

They're never supposed to ask me about that either.

So it was funny this time.

So, all right, Doug, I think you're in good shape.

Great.

Thank you.

Thank you, Jeff.

Thank you all so much.

Thank you.

Thanks, Carl.

All right, so next, I hopefully have, I sent Robert an email.

Sorry.

All right, so

just, and I know, I don't know who's still on.

I know Mike Rennane is not a familiar name to everybody, but Mike Rennane is the city's urban forester, and he is, he speaks for the trees, and so he has some tree issues on the mall that he had asked me about, and I had, he's unfortunately wasn't able to stay in the meeting, but I,

I thought it was possible to also sort of share with some of you on the mall or some of you on the BA are not familiar with the tree situation, sort of what Mike's role is and what Parks and Recs is in the middle of doing.

I'm gonna just table that for later and just jump right to what he asked me maybe a month ago.

So he said, I'll just read verbatim, we have two dead Norway Maples,

Those are, you can see them.

They're the second one in and the one at the end.

I have a couple other images of it, but they are in fact dead.

And Mike asked that, he said, we could remove them and tack weld a piece of metal over the grate for the immediate future.

or replaced with a chair matching others on the mall.

And the preface to this, which you would have been better able to address is Park and Rex is currently, and I don't know if they've released it yet, I know that an RFP had been written

to help a little bit on it, to do a comprehensive tree study of the downtown to really look, what do we got?

What do we need to do?

There are certainly issues we're aware of with the planning space, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.

So to sort of from top to bottom discuss what can be done.

And of course, with the larger problem being we know that

The Basques, as Mr. Halperin called them, are all of the same age, but as you look on them all, some of those trees are 36 inches diameter and some are 18 inch diameter, but they're all the same age.

And so the canopy, some are dominant in the canopy and the others will, in time, fail.

And you can't plant

If a tree can't survive in the understory, you certainly can't go in and plant a new one to replace it.

So there are some questions that the city's gonna have to grapple with.

And I think, I know that that's what the goal of this tree plan is, is to kind of create a matrix of what needs to be done and how some decisions can be made.

So as that is pending,

The question is, all right, well, when we have a tree situation like this,

Should we plant something there or do we wait until there's something determined from this tree study?

So this is not a formal request.

I, again, Mike would have been able to kind of get at the fuzziness a little bit more.

You all may say that you don't, you know, maybe you want something formal to come to you, but there are two dead trees.

And actually, Robert, do you have that, is there the other photo I sent of the,

The infamous, the trash can's been over top of the tree.

You know that one.

Yeah.

That's a really gross trash can too.

I mean, it's yeah.

It's just.

I wondered if it had just been put there by accident and it just simply became permanent like the hotel there.

So I don't know, maybe that's not enough information for me.

Can I add a couple of other things that are at play here?

Absolutely.

The Maples, you know, they haven't, and there is pretty good, anyone who wants to read more about it, there already is a pretty

several tree inventories of them all and even some suggestions about improvements that are available.

The maples haven't done that well in comparison to the will of oaks.

I will say, so that's just one is that there's a species issue with the way that these have been planted that haven't worked.

as successfully.

And then secondly, these are a little bit different than the BOSC issue that you were talking about, Jeff, because these are a single line of trees.

They shouldn't have any problem with competition for canopy space.

All that being said, I think there definitely needs to be, it's just a shame that there's not a plan in place for

I'm a little worried that if we kick the can until there's a

A plan in place, these trees are going to be not there for years.

And I think with the oaks getting ready to to die at some point, I think it would be really important to plant new trees right here.

So at least when, you know, once we start losing some of the oaks, we'll have some mature trees at this location.

It's not going to work like that, though.

I mean, you can't just pop it.

I mean, these these

Both.

And this is not the, it's also a design issue because this is at the intersection with, so it was intentionally a different tree species, not the willow oaks.

So, I mean, I think there's several things.

I mean, if there, I mean, I think if in lieu of a plan in place,

We don't want Parks and Rec making their own call on what new tree species go in there.

Well, that's why it would be they make a recommendation for something that would live.

And then we review it as far as to the design.

Yeah, it is, my understanding is there are, it is a problem with the tree pits and a similar problem does exist on the mall at other tree locations.

So there's a replacement with something, vegetation,

You know, I don't know.

This probably is not a simple question at all.

And I guess, you know, maybe one way to answer was, well, whatever you do, don't put a garbage can on top.

But I don't know, the cost of putting in four new trees so that you have a

the same species there that potentially are going to be removed later by not going to, that's not going to go over well.

Let me ask Mike, what's the timeline?

What are we looking at?

And what are the options?

You know, when he says for the immediate future, what does he mean by that?

And I think that's far more helpful than,

No, no, the tree study, if I understand it, so the RFP has been issued or will be issued, or it's been, I don't know what the status is.

I know it's in motion, but then I don't know the timeline of that.

And then certainly if,

You know, Brett, you asked a good point.

The question is, okay, well, if A, if this tree pit isn't sufficient for a type of tree, maybe that's the question I would say to Mike, is there something it's sufficient for?

I know we can't go in and just like piecemeal start inserting new trees into this historic landscape.

All right.

I would guess it's one to two years before tree studies done.

Yeah.

No, I, that's why I, I maybe disagree with Jeff.

I would, I would, I would rather put in a stay with the same species, even knowing that it may come out in three or four years.

It's not a big, huge investment.

But I don't, I don't see.

They're not going to fix the tree pit.

They're not going to, and I don't think just putting in a random species that's not in keeping with the larger design ideas is an option either.

Yes.

OK.

That's my understanding.

It's designed all at once.

I have the drawings.

It doesn't indicate species though, but at least not on the drawings I have.

Can I see the slide again, the pictures again?

The tree report that I remember reading mentioned that these were getting baked in the sun, that it was too hostile an environment for the species.

It might be just as good to just leave them, to just remove them and have them covered for the time being, but... I just feel like as a city, we plan and we plan and we plan and nothing ever happens.

I know, but Carl, I don't know that what you put in there is gonna necessarily be guaranteed to do a lot better.

In the meantime, could we get those giant planters they have and maybe stick some crepe myrtles in a pot or something?

I don't know.

So looking at the pictures, don't you agree that all four of them need to go?

They need to be treated as a group for sure.

I think some more research is necessary and a little conversation with Mike and perhaps the tree commission.

I'd like to know a little bit more about the condition of those tree pits.

I mean, we don't really know other than that the trees are not surviving right now.

Sorry, I think Mike's more responding to his boss at Parkinson Rec saying, these trees are dead, what do we do?

Well, they do need to ask us.

Well, just to be another minor point regarding the downtown mall is, you know, we were supposed to see engineer a redesign of that crossway, crosswalk or car crossing down by the Violet Crown almost four years ago.

We haven't seen anything yet.

Other than, remember, they put in the speed bump and it was too high.

and people couldn't even drive across it.

So they ground that down, but then all the bricks and stuff failed there.

That was a lot more than four years ago.

That was before.

Yeah, it was a while ago.

Anyway, they were supposed to come to us with it and they never did with this pollution.