Board of Architectural Review Meeting   6/16/2020

Okay.

Hello, everybody.

Welcome to the June 16, 2020 meeting of the Charlottesville Board of Architecture Review.

Due to the current public health emergency, this meeting is being held online via Zoom, obviously.

The meeting process will be as follows.

So it's be a little more precise, perhaps, or less extended than we normally do.

So for each item, staff will make a brief presentation, followed by the applicant's presentation, after which members of the public will be allowed to speak.

Speakers shall identify themselves and give their current address.

Members of the public will have, for each case, up to three minutes to speak.

Public comments should be limited to the BAR's jurisdiction, that is regarding exterior design of the building and site, i.e.

nothing to do with the interior, parking, traffic, none of those things are immediate concern.

Following the BAR's discussion and before the vote, the applicant should be allowed up to three minutes to respond for the purpose of clarification.

Also during the comment period, we often have a little bit of back and forth with the applicant just as an acknowledgement of that.

Thank you for participating and let's roll.

So first item on our agenda is election of a chair.

I'm currently the acting chair as our former chair retired from the VAR.

So now it's time to select a new chair.

What have you agreed to do?

Okay, and Brett, you are the vice chair, is that correct?

And Brett, you are correct.

Okay.

Okay, so right now, do we have a quorum, Jeff, I guess?

Oh, that's right.

He gave, he didn't give me any indication that he wouldn't be here.

So he might tune in at some moment.

Jeff, what do we, do we need, do we need a full house for this?

We have a quorum.

Yeah, I'm sorry.

We needed a full house.

Okay.

So I make a motion that we nominate or actually approve Carl

Aye.

All ayes and no nays.

We are now officially, Carl is in charge and Breck is second in command.

That's correct, and I understand your question better.

I couldn't find anything that said that we had to have all members.

All we need is constitutes a forum, and that's what, or a quorum, and that's what we did.

All right.

Yay.

Quick comment.

I think when we vote on things, if everyone could visually raise their hand for yay or nay.

I think it would help.

Like the Romans?

We got in trouble for that once, I think.

All right.

So are there any matters from the public not on the agenda?

I'm not seeing Julie in the list of attendees and she expressed interest previously.

If you are an attendee right now and you have a public comment to give, please use the raise hand feature and I will unmute you.

Correct.

All right.

So then we have the consent agenda, which is basically just the minutes from February 19th of 2020.

Does anybody have any corrections to that?

All right.

All in favor?

Aye.

Any opposed?

All right.

The consent agenda is approved.

Earl, I would recommend for future votes, and this was fine just now, but for future votes as chair or maybe as staff, we can call a roll call so we can get a verbal yes or no from each BAR member.

I think that'll be easier for Patrick taking minutes.

I must, I don't know, all right, I had 1532, Virginia Ave is a deferred item, but let's just jump ahead with this and then go to 1532.

Do we have, is everybody here, is Erin here?

Do you know, Robert?

I saw Erin.

I'm going to promote her to a participant in a moment.

While Robert's doing that, let me just jump into this.

This is 503 Rugby Road.

It's a modern building construction in 1980, and it is a non-contributing structure within the Rugby Road University Circle Venable Neighborhood ADC District.

Last September,

You all approved a COA for renovations to the exterior of the building.

Since then, the applicant has requested some modifications to that design that you approved in September of 2019.

And so they are replacing the brick near on a concrete retaining wall, replacing with painted stamp brick formwork, reducing the height of the dining terrace site wall to four feet in lieu of five feet,

replacing concrete pavers with scorched concrete at the dining terrace, replacing the bluestone pavers in the sunken front yard along the site wall, replacing it with grass, replacing the bluestone paver walkway with crushed stone in the north side yard.

The porch will remain a bluestone paving.

The parking lot at the rear will be asphalt in lieu of concrete.

Removal of 10 L2 step light fixtures and elimination of the pergola over the lower side terrace.

Then there is an option to delete the pergola or defer it.

This would be the pergola over the Kappa beach, as it's called.

So just I'm offering this and

Erin can speak to it if it requires some wording in the motion.

There's the deletion of two sets of shutters on the west elevation, which is the back of the building, and deletion of two sets of shutters on the north elevation, which is the side moving away from the university.

Modify the south-facing window wall, raising the sill of the windows at the second floor lounge.

Substitution of asphalt shingles

standing seam metal roof.

And again, this is proposed as an alternative that they they'd like to have available to them.

Aaron can discuss that.

There's an addition of a window at the house director unit entry porch on the front elevation.

The addition of mechanical louver under the overhang at the rear elevation.

And this wasn't noted as a note, but at the parlor terrace, there's a replacement of the low wall at the railing.

And for all of those PEC staff, we didn't have any issues.

I think the shutters you should discuss.

I know that was a question that some of these details came up in the discussion last summer.

The design guidelines relative to the asphalt shingles, design guidelines discourage, but they do not prohibit the use of asphalt shingles.

So the post shingles are dark, somewhat textured, which is consistent with the design guidelines.

And then by and large, we're recommending approval of these requested revisions.

OK.

OK, so Erin and other representatives of this applicant, if you can unmute yourselves and speak, I can navigate to any page of this application as you need.

Great, I'll start.

Again, my name is Erin Hannigan from Mitchell Matthews Architects.

And like most projects these days, we're facing budget issues and we've attempted to address our budget issues with some changes that we don't feel modify the overall intent of the project.

and don't change it significantly enough or go against the guidelines.

So the minor changes that we're asking for, we can discuss anyone in particular.

I heard

Staff mentioned a minute ago that you'd want to discuss the shutters.

The thinking behind the shutters is that the west and the north elevations, those are really part of the addition.

And that most buildings on the street only carry shutters on the front facade.

And if they do carry shutters on more than one face, it might be the front and another main facade that's on a corner.

If the building's located on a corner property but otherwise the majority of them are missing shutters on the other faces and that goes for the contributing properties within the larger district as well as the University Circle sub-district.

The, I'm trying to think,

I guess I'll let you guys ask questions, but the 16th item that we didn't list on this sheet that was about the wall being replaced with a railing, we ended up actually going back and including reverting that and going back to the wall instead of the railing.

That's great.

All right.

Well, do you guys want to go?

We can just go down the list.

That's right.

Thank you.

Well, I guess it's questions.

Not seeing anything.

Well, I think it probably makes a lot of sense just to go down their list and see if there's any.

Just check them off one by one.

So I do have a question on number one, replacing the brick veneer on the concrete retaining wall.

Correct.

I'm Mary Wolf with Wolf Jersey Landscape Architects.

So I think the first six items

relate to our work.

But the idea is to paint the stamped brick white like the rest of the house.

And there would be a brick coping on top of the wall that would be real brick.

And that would be painted as well.

Rick?

Could you just describe, Mary, a little bit more about the extent of that wall?

And there's also a low wall in some of the, in the front yard.

No, no, this only applies to, are you all looking at the plan?

We're not sharing a screen anymore.

If you look at number on this first on this list page number one.

So there along the north side of the building along the property line.

For some reason, it doesn't show up on my shared screen, but it's the number one area right along the property line.

So it extends from

There's a brick pier at the end of the front terrace.

The wall starts there, goes over to the property line and then all the way down to where you see the labeled bike lockers.

And where it butts into the pier, it's very low.

You would just see the top of it pretty much there.

And that would be actually a natural brick cap.

And then when it turns the property line, it starts to get higher.

It steps down about midway so that there

The planters, you see where the number five is.

That's one elevation.

And then as you go further down the property line, it steps down.

And just again, we're not changing.

We're not changing the elevation of the wall from the previous proposal.

It's just the material.

Page 11 and 12 would be a good place to look, right?

Yeah.

Like our comments?

Yeah.

Yeah, I think we should be.

OK.

Yeah, I mean, in some cases, we might be concerned about stamped concrete.

In this case, I'm satisfied that it's fairly

Yeah, I agree that with the because it was already a white painted brick.

If it was a red brick or something, I would have had a problem with it.

But I think as it is, I have no issue.

No?

Reducing the height of the dining terrace site wall adjacent to the parking space to four feet in lieu of five feet.

Does anybody have any concerns with that?

Replacing the concrete pavers with scored concrete at the dining terrace.

Replacing the bluestone pavers in the sunken current yard along the site wall with grass.

Replacing the Bluestone walkway with crushed stone in the north side yard, the fortress to remain as Bluestone.

Paving all the parking spaces with asphalt and with concrete.

Just to clarify, it's not removal of all of them.

So both the dining terrace and the front seat wall.

Yeah, I was looking at that.

Is that actually the plan view?

Sorry.

Got it.

So there are a few taken out on the front and then the bulk of them are around that stairwell coming down on the one side there, I guess.

Okay, I understand.

This is one that I feel, you know, I don't know if it,

How much it's worth dwelling on it, but the facade that is left when this pergola is removed is fairly stark for, I think, a pretty prominent side of the building.

The pergola provided some relief, and without it, that door feels pretty secondary on the escape hatch that it is.

But I'm curious in what the other

Sure.

Rick, would you let me know?

Page 11 of the application.

Page 40 of the BAR packet.

It would seem to me, Mary, there's a tree just to the south.

West of that stair, how big a tree is that?

Just where it says steps in the, I'm looking right now, I'm looking at the plan on page two, bike terrace, and I'm seeing the, there's a tree indicated there.

Well, that's the idea.

There's a power line down the Lambeth Lane there.

So, I mean, ideally we'd love to get a taller tree there, but we have sort of a medium sized source of the bile.

It is an emergency egress door.

It's coming down the stair tower and it doesn't have hardware to allow entry at that point.

It's only really exit.

So certain doors have access control on them.

That is not one of them.

Hey Robert, you might scroll down to the next sheet that there's renderings, I think that also helps show this, or maybe that's two sheets down.

Personally, while I agree with Brick that it does look a little empty there, I think had this been presented to us in the beginning, I never would have noticed it was missing.

I think the tree would mediate a good bit of that concern as well.

And if it is, if the tree does, once the tree does get a substantial kind of renders the fertile kind of move anyway, I don't know.

I mean, I agree with Brett that it's kind of stark looking in a head on elevation, but I don't know if given that it's back

from the face quite a bit.

And you have the planting bed and the tree.

I think that it wouldn't really be all that.

I don't think it's a critical loss.

It's put it that way.

And I'd say knowing that it's a door that is not going to be entered from the outside

You almost want to not call attention to it.

That was the intent that it would be, I think, if I remember.

I think that would be nice.

Any other strong opinion?

I can't see everyone.

All right.

So delete the perdola over the Kappa beach.

and proposed as an ad alternate to retain.

Does anyone have any concerns with first it's deletion or with just letting it be an ad alternate that they could put back later?

And Robert, you have to tell me if someone raises their hand because I can't see everyone.

I don't see any hands raised.

All right.

Delete the two sets of shutters from the west elevation, or we can combine that with also delete the two sets of shutters from the north elevation.

Any strong opinions?

I thought it was a little odd to, it seems like the same window type should get the same treatment, but it's not a deal killer to me.

No one else cares.

We will modify the south-facing window walls to raise the fill of the windows at the second floor lounge.

No, I did have one comment.

As far as the shutters were concerned, given that the place where the shutters are being deleted, I just wonder whether in that case the shutters shouldn't exist on the

rugby road elevation for that pump out just to be consistent?

Because it's back.

I mean, I know it's facing rugby road, but it just seems a little strange.

But on the other hand, it's not an elevation, not side elevation.

I don't think anybody's ever going to really see it, to be honest.

I personally prefer to keep it, but that's just me.

The massing of the adjacent building I think is going to block view to the two in the rear that we were deleting on that north face.

So we didn't think it was going to have much impact to have them there to begin with because that's so far back.

along that side elevation.

And that elevation does break plane with the corner that is closer to Rugby.

And so we kept them on the front mass of the building that feels more like the original structure.

And then the piece that is the addition that is popping out that Northwestern corner is the four sets that we're removing.

Which is why I was wondering if it should lose the shutters on the Grumpy Road side on that same bump out.

Looking at, let's see what's going on.

I'm looking at page 11, the upper drawing.

I'm just wondering, since that bump out is back,

True.

Carl, I just wanted to let you know that Ron has his hand raised, if you don't see that.

There we go.

Unmuted, right?

All right, good.

I actually agree with the notion that you may as well remove all the shutters.

I just think that that is a more consistent look and not retain any of them at all, especially since the set, the ones that they wanted to delete are essentially not gonna be seen by anybody anyway.

Yeah, we failed to see that that one was included.

So the pair that we're talking about is above the new window that we've added, right?

Since we don't have a visual up on screen, if we're looking at page 11, the top right image on that page, there's a window added at the base of the building.

Yeah, that's correct.

I'm looking at it.

So you're treating that sort of the front portion of a as a building itself and then treat that the same throughout the additions to the rear tree separately.

Is that how I'm understanding it?

So actually, Robert, if you had this up on your screen, Aaron can actually pick up

a pointer and I believe see under view options.

Okay.

Can one sec.

Okay.

I'm sorry, Aaron.

Yeah.

Robert.

Yeah.

Move the little hand.

Move the little hand.

There you go.

Yeah.

Under view options and she can mess with it.

Oh, sorry.

Like under view options, you can click on like you can do request remote control or you can do annotate like I'm doing annotate right now.

I just drew it.

See that?

Yes.

The thing is, that's true to the screen and not the drawing.

So it won't stay on the drawing.

I just took a picture of it to capture it for posterity.

Excellent.

All right.

So I think we're settled on that.

modified the South Station.

No, we did that.

So substitute asphalt shingles for a standing seam, for a standing seam metal roof.

Anybody want to, or I'll comment.

The guidelines definitely, well, they're fuzzy.

They do not rule out asphalt shingles.

They just say use a dark color if you use them.

I see no disagreements.

All right.

Add a window at the house director unit entry porch on the front east elevation.

All right, and add a mechanical louver required for ventilation under the overhang at the rear west elevation.

All right, so it sounds like the only two points of contention were the deletion of the pergola over the lower side terrace.

And I think we suggested that

You would paint the door white to match the brick.

Okay.

And then for the shutters, it was to remove the one set that you circled.

I'll make a motion.

Having considered the standards set forth within the city code, including city design guidelines for new construction and additions,

And for site and design elements, I move to find the proposed design modifications satisfied the VAR's criteria are compatible with property and other properties in the rugby road, University circle, Venable neighborhood ADC district.

And the VAR proves the application is submitted with the following changes.

Eliminate the shutters at the rugby road facade of the addition bump out.

on the third floor.

And we don't really have a comment about the brick wall, right?

Do you second?

I second.

Sure, I will go in the order that I see on my screen.

Ron?

Tim?

Yay, I approve the motion.

Carl?

And Breck?

Just quickly, I have a motion by Tim, second by Breck, and all were in favor of the motion.

Correct?

Congratulations, Ms.

I recommend that before we move on to the next item on the agenda, Sonya had recommended we take a five minute recess about every hour and it's been about 40 minutes.

So I recommend that we do that now.

Are you done?

Well, it was beautiful until it wasn't.

And I'll tell you when you get back.

What?

But one of our neighbors gave me a ride most of the way down Silver Lake on the way back.

Yeah, the only thing I'm missing is a hard hat, you know?

Got these hand puppets here.

I know where Breck and I will be after the meeting, if anyone can find their way to that location.

Hey, by the way, I did check that property on Locust, surprisingly, is not an IPP. 734.

I guess you guys saw that Andy is having internet issues.

He said he'll log in when he can.

All right.

OK, so welcome back, everyone.

And before we get started on the next agenda item, I just wanted to let Kevin know that I'm going to promote you now to panelist, which means that you're going to be booted out of the meeting and then you'll come back in and you'll be able to mute and unmute yourself.

Robert reminded me that we had moved 503 ahead on the agenda at Erin's request due to a

something that she could not change.

Good.

I don't know anymore.

I, you know, I'm stir crazy like the rest of you guys.

I just, this has been strange.

All right.

Well, they're there.

I'm going to, I'm going to and congratulations, Kevin,

Not a new dad, but a dad again in all of this.

He has an extra child in the house again now.

So very quickly, I'll introduce it, and then we'll go to the discussion, if I can.

Yeah, here it is.

Sorry.

OK.

This is a COA request for 1532, 1536 Virginia Avenue.

This is a 0.76 acre parcel on Virginia Avenue and it is within the Rugby Road, University Circle, Vanderbilt neighborhood, ADC district.

There has four existing structures.

Three of them are to be raised, 1532, 1534, and 1538.

Two of those you did approve the demolition of, one of them is not contributing.

At 1536 Virginia Avenue, which is constructed circa 1920,

will remain.

In February 2015, going back, that's where the BAR initially denied the demolitions of 1532, 1534, 1536.

Fast forward to August 2019 last year, you all approved the demolition of 1532 and 1534.

Last November, the BAR held a preliminary discussion on this proposal, and at the December BAR meeting, you all accepted the applicant's request for deferral, and so here we are.

This is a COA request for the construction of a four-story, 20-unit residential building with a partial below-grade parking plan, or parking area, excuse me.

The plan includes site work and landscaping.

The existing house, again, at 1536 Virginia Avenue, is to be retained and incorporated into the plan.

and we had in your all you should have in your staff report some of the discussion items that came up in the December meeting prior to the applicant requesting a deferral, questions about the parking area, movable benches, question about the EFS design.

And so I also want to just a quick note, as you know,

We can't or we no longer do COAs on a partial basis.

There is no partial approval.

So if there's a determination that additional information is needed or clarification is needed, then the recommendation would be for the applicant to request deferral.

Of course, the BAR could move to defer, which would then bump this forward a month.

If the applicant requested deferral, it is there

They have the opportunity, they can bring it back when they wish.

And just also there is a site plan review going on concurrent with this and that if there are changes, any subsequent design changes that result in alterations to the site plan, then those will have to be done.

So that's more a note to the applicant, but I think they're well aware of that process as well.

Does that make sense relative to the old question of partial and multiple COAs?

Kevin.

Good evening, everybody.

My name's Kevin Schafer, and I'm a project manager with Design Develop, and I'm the applicant representing the developer Bo Carrington, who is a principal at the locally-based Seven Development.

We want to begin by welcoming all the new members of the board and thanking you all for the volunteering for this service.

It's been an odd start to your term, but we're hopeful we're able to settle into some normalcy as things progress with the city.

It's good to see the familiar faces of the returning members as well.

Thank you for your continued service.

And finally, many thanks to the city staff, Jeff and Robert, for their guidance through the submission process and the thoughtful, thorough staff report.

I wanted to start today by recapping the lengthy process that's led to the submission in front of you.

As Jeff mentioned, the demolition permit for the structures at 1532 and 1534 Virginia Ave was approved 10 months ago in August 2019.

Following that approval, our team wanted to bring the board into the earliest stages of design.

So we presented our initial plan in a preliminary discussion at that November 2019 BAR meeting.

The feedback we received at that time was positive and several members of the board commended how our design incorporated many cues from the ADCD design guidelines to provide a cohesive holistic project.

While they noted the need for more detail, the board expressed appreciation for breaking down the scale into two separate building forms.

They appreciated the varying dynamic roof form, the use of recessed exterior balconies to further break down the mass and scale by varying the surface plane of each facade, the introduction of a masonry base, the reduction in blank walls through changing materials and appropriate amounts of glazing, the orientation of the project towards the street, and finally, the approach to maintain the rhythm of the existing street wall.

With the board's warm reception to our design,

We elected to proceed to a formal submission at the following month's hearing in December.

Prior to that December submission, we listened to the recording of the preliminary meeting several times in an effort to further distill the bar's comments.

In short, we felt that the board offered great advice in the preliminary meeting, and we took it to heart as we prepared our December submission.

At our first formal hearing, we were encouraged by the positive discussion.

There were still some outstanding details requested by board members, but it seemed like a certificate of appropriateness for massing and scale would be awarded, which was common practice in complex projects like this one.

As Jeff mentioned, it was at that meeting that city legal staff stepped in to forbid the use of partial COAs and that led to this project having the unfortunate distinction of being one of those first projects held to kind of a difficult or at least different approval process than those in prior years.

The board members gracefully navigated these new rules, though, with the following amendments to the motion of our deferral.

Mr. Schwartz moved with the understanding that the BAR is comfortable with the massing, the general material palette, and general site design, but the application is still lacking in detail and specificity.

The BAR would like to approve the applicant's request for a deferral, and Mr. LaHindra seconded.

I'll be happy to discuss that sequence of events in more detail, but I think other board members may be even better equipped to speak to it.

But all that's to say that this formal submission in front of you is addressing the outstanding questions about specificity and detail in order to garner our certificate of appropriateness today.

This project has also had the unfortunate distinction of being one of those submittals delayed by COVID, as we all know.

While we would never expect you to grant approval prematurely due to a pandemic, we do want to express to you the severe impact of the delay.

As a project that will be marketed primarily to students, aligning the completion of this project with the start of school calendar is absolutely critical.

Mr. Warner has already pointed out several items requiring clarification during his introduction, and I'd just like to review some exact quotes from the previous meeting minutes to illustrate how they've been addressed.

In this submission, we've endeavored to answer the typical condition exterior details and provide more specificity on the proposed materials as requested.

Our proposed material palette can be found on page 10 of the BAR booklet, and more information on the specified windows and exterior doors can be found on page 11.

Typical details, including our cells and headers at both the brick base on page 12 and the lap siding on page 13 can also be found on sheets A3.3 and A3.4 in the submitted drawing set.

We've specified aluminum trim for the lap siding at corners and cells and J-trims and headers, all of which show up in our renderings as well.

Beyond those typical areas,

Board members requested additional detail on the construction, materiality, and specificity of several of the exterior elements, including the railings, the central stair, the pergola, and the exterior decks.

In response, page 14 of our BA or booklet diagrams the construction of the exterior decks.

Page 15 illustrates the construction of the front pergola.

Page 16 has drawings and renderings articulating the construction of the central stair and typical railing construction.

And page 17 describes the construction of the central open air breezeway.

There was also questions on the exterior lighting, which has been specified on pages 18 and 19 of our VAR booklet.

Cut sheets for each fixture and a lighting plan have also been provided in this submission.

Mr. Moore had specific comments about exhaust vent locations, citing the Lark on Main, which was formerly the Uncommon, as an example of a successful massing with unsuccessful exhaust vent locations.

So page 21 in the BAR booklet, as well as elevation sheets A2.1 and A2.2 show how our exhaust vents have been thoughtfully placed and organized in such a way to be hidden from view as much as possible.

There was a question about the roof and the location of mechanical equipment.

In particular, Mr. LaHindra noted that there's going to be rooftop equipment and parapets hiding that equipment, which is very different from the drawings that he was looking at at that time.

So in response, on page 20 of our BAR booklet deals with the location of these rooftop units and sheet A1.5 in the drawings shows our roof plan.

No units will be visible from the pedestrian point of view.

and renderings found on pages 22 through 25 of our B-A-R booklet, including the one that's on the screen now, demonstrate how the overhang and the angle of the roof hide these mechanical units.

Also, Mr. Schwartz asked about the eave thickness and its perceived thinness.

So in response, eave details have been provided on pages 12 and 13 of the B-A-R booklet.

Moving to the landscape, we heard several comments about the importance of these street trees and also fielded some questions on the plant species selection.

Mr. Gassinger advised that plant selections are okay, but they may be deployed in the wrong spots.

The trees in the front yard are going to function to break down that scale and to bring it down to the scale of the pedestrian.

And Mr. Schwarz echoed that there needs to be shade trees along the street.

So in response to these comments, we've revised our landscape plan.

We substituted the former Princeton century ginkgo biloba street trees for much larger London plane trees.

We had red maples in the planters at the sites there that have been substituted for service berry trees.

and the boxwood shrubs in the front courtyard have been substituted for rows of oak leaf hydrangeas.

In the rear of the building, the swale plantings have been refined to promote biodiversity and screen parking.

Overall, the revised landscape plan responds to each of the board's comment and to the board's credit, creates a much better project.

We're really pleased with how the front courtyard continued to develop.

Beyond the previous comments from the boards I've addressed, staff has pointed out three additional areas for discussion in the report.

Regarding the parking area, parking is all tucked below grade and is minimally visible.

The additional consideration that has been given to the existing swale in the rear will provide a dense and diverse palette of shrubs, bushes, and switch grasses.

Screening both the interior garage lights and headlights from the rear of the site

That rear of the site only faces the railroad tracks and a steep grade up to Chancellor Street as well.

Regarding the movable benches, we felt the simple aesthetics of the movable concrete bench would help create the boundary of the courtyard while engaging the pedestrian on Virginia Ave.

This staggered pattern reinforces the rhythm of the building facade and provides relief to what otherwise would be a straight round of oak leaf hydrangeas.

If the board prefers to eliminate the benches, the applicant would accept that preference.

However, we feel the elements are an asset to the pedestrian experience and not a detriment.

Finally, regarding the use of the EAFs on the upper floor walls, we've discussed this previously, but we're happy to readdress it and explain our reasons for specifying it again, especially with so many new board members.

Our previous discussion centered around the fact that the EAFs has improved over the years and that even though EAFs is still technically listed as a discouraged material in the ADCD guidelines, this may be an appropriate solution here.

However, if the new board is uncomfortable with efes, we are happy to offer a smooth fiber cement panel as an alternative.

We could match the joints shown on the elevations by using 4x10 panels.

We would suggest a low profile recess trim and suggest painting both the trim and the fiber cement panel in the Benjamin Moore early morning mist, which is what's specified on the efes now.

The fiber cement panel could prove a better choice from a durability perspective, so we're open to whichever material the board would prefer in this instance.

One area of comment that I should address is the driveway side.

There were some questions about that from our previous meeting.

We have a shared 20-foot access easement in that location with the adjacent lot.

We have minimum driveway and access aisle widths that must be maintained.

And I'm thinking that the renderings may make the asphalt look worse than it is in reality, as that drive aisle is only about 22 feet wide, which extends onto the adjacent property for a couple feet.

We believe that's the best location on the site for a vehicular access drive, as it gives us the most side yard setback to that adjacent structure.

I'd note that this is a one-way street and that much of that side elevation will be blocked from pedestrian view by that adjacent three-story structure at 1530 Virginia F and that the drive aisle will be no wider than it is today.

So to conclude, I'd like to again, thank city staff and the board.

I'll encourage the board to consider some of the quotes about our previous submittal made by members of the previous board.

Mr. Starafan mentioned that the changes we made from the preliminary discussion are successful.

The transition to the small house with the stair is a good way to solve that.

Mr. Ball had stated that overall the massing looks really nice.

Mr. Ernst stated that the massing is in a really great place.

Mr. Ballot stated you have done a great job with this presentation and it's on its way to being a very successful project.

So with those in mind, I'll be glad to answer any questions you may have or to continue to discuss the specifics in any way that may be beneficial.

All right.

I'm not seeing any raised hands.

I'll give it a shot.

Two things that immediately come to mind.

I don't find the EIFUS problematic, given that it's up on the upper floor, so it's not going to get damaged.

And it's certainly having insulation on the exterior.

And if it's a higher quality product like stone, I don't really have an issue with it.

I think it's really a question of the hardy panels.

I guess I would prefer the smoothness of the stockout myself as opposed to having it broken up with a whole bunch of joints, although you do have to have some expansion joints with the EIFS.

Either way, I could go either way, but I'm fine with it.

I still think, and I understand the issue with the driveway, just seems a little daunting, just seeing the building coming straight down to the asphalt there.

But I think, you know, there's a good, a partial contributor to that, obviously, is the neighboring property with all the asphalt.

but the driveway is still, I don't know if there's a solution to that but I think the courtyard in the front works a lot better than it did before and I appreciate the vent management.

I think that actually did the trick.

I think that really works.

I also think that the mechanical equipment is not an issue given the

profile of the roof and that sort of thing.

So I think my only really real, and I think also scale-wise, I think the building, as we said earlier, I think does a good job of relating to the street, which is kind of a mishmash anyway.

I think it works.

I can go next.

The wood material?

The front parking garage extends into our front setback a little bit.

And so we're going to have about 10 feet of a deck there above our parking garage.

And so that creates a nice front patio for those ground level units.

That's where those precedents come from in the landscape precedents.

And that's really the only place that's used in that front courtyard is where it's directly above our parking garage.

It's functional there.

So what is that?

Is that wood?

Well, it's not wood.

Four inches.

Generally I'm supportive of the project and I think the development has been really thoughtful and I always appreciate how you guys take really careful consideration both of past comments and for our guidelines.

The only real question I have is regarding that material and while I think it can be used successfully, especially in the

in that, we'll call it the front yard.

It does seem to be, we do have a guideline regarding paving materials and I just had it.

That suggests that in our guidelines, section two, chapter E,

The first point is to use traditional paving materials like brick stone and scored concrete.

I do have some concern about how that will weather over time.

It's the same material as what you're using on the balconies, right?

That's right.

That's correct, yeah.

No, that's it for me.

Oh, sorry, one more, one little thing.

You've noted species Oakleaf hydrangea in the landscape plan.

Could be a good selection, but you would want to make certain to get a cultivar that is gonna be small in stature, always if you want it to be in keeping with the renderings.

If you were to get the species, it could be eight to 10 feet tall.

So I just had a quick question.

I don't know if they would be required or not, but I appreciate, first I want to say I appreciate your preparation.

It is a great presentation.

Thank you.

I just wanted to, I was curious about the rooftop units.

I appreciate them being set back from the evening.

I don't know if there's a requirement that they would need a railing or anything from a safety standpoint for main maintenance on those units.

Yeah, that's a great question.

And as long as a mechanical unit is not within 10 feet from the edge of an eave on a flat roof, a railing is not required.

And so I see the hatch.

I'm looking at page 20.

I guess I see the hatch on the one building.

Oh, that's the elevator.

I see the hatch on the one building.

Yeah, great question.

Another, that other side has a walkway that is adjacent to that roof eveline.

So you can just put a ladder, a maintenance person can put a ladder up against that eveline and not require punching through our roof.

Question.

Mr. Chairman.

Just one thing, Kevin, I was just looking, just kind of glancing over the light fixtures again.

So the digital package that would specify color temperature and all that sort of stuff, is that something we have somewhere, Jeff?

I mean, I see the fixtures, but I'm not seeing what they're

We submitted cut sheets with each fixture.

I mean, it's funny how your mind goes after three months because I know this is part of the site plan review as well.

Okay, I mean, the model, you know, as far as the light distribution, the model looks promising.

You know, just some of the things like the wall pack could make me a little nervous.

And, you know, for the exterior sconces, I think that's a great kind of fixture type.

Again, it's just a question of glare and also whether there's some degree of control on the exterior fixtures.

you know whether they're dimmable or you know with LEDs there's not much option for relamping them it's really a question of getting the lamping right to start with and or having dimming controls but for instance at night you know with the you know what's the control condition with the garage surface the ceiling mounted garage fixtures at night are those do those dim down you know are they you know they have motion detectors on them you know kind of what's

What's the ballgame as far as that kind of stuff?

Because I mean, that basically could still look like it's going for a liftoff if they're on all night long.

Or at a high lighting, since it's an open garage, if it's at a high value.

So I'm just wondering about if there's any intention as far as controlling those lights is concerned.

Yeah, I know we've submitted cut sheets.

And if they weren't submitted, Jeff, then I'm happy to submit them.

We have them.

No, I'm sure.

and, you know, I think the city has spillover requirements that we must meet in terms of light that cannot go beyond our site and things like that.

Spillover requirements are just kind of an antediluvian is the problem.

I mean, I think one of the things, you know, if you if you have, for instance, a motion detector, you have like a low level for the

under garage lights.

And when somebody walks in, you know, it bumps up.

Something like that.

But I mean, this is still a neighborhood and having a parking lot on all the time, I think would be detrimental.

You know, having controlling that light coming up from under the building would seem kind of important to me.

I mean, I think the bulk of the fixtures look fine to me.

I just, and I know you have the Kochis, it would be good to see those, but I'd also like to

If this would help, and I'm going through several things here, but it is something that the specificity you just got into would be a condition of a COA and then

You know, it would be staff review, it would simply then the building permit plans would have to comply with that COA.

I mean, there's a lot of information here, Kevin.

So it's not a particular deal.

My problem is, for whatever reason, my computer just probably the same thing that others are having.

But my computer won't let me now.

I'm access to the internet, but it won't let me open my files, my regular VAR files.

I want to just make sure I understand it.

And I'm just looking at the model and just thinking that there just seems like there's some potential for basically being a bit of a spaceship at night.

You know, that's all residential.

There's not a lot of lighting there in terms of the houses.

And then you have this glow suffusing from underneath.

I just think that's something we'd want to be aware of.

It's not the first time parking lots have caused problems like this.

I can understand the consideration.

I do think the renderings may be a little disingenuous without landscape.

And also there's street lights on the street and everything like that.

Yeah.

Well, hopefully we'll do some of the street lights too.

Okay.

That was just looking at it.

Go ahead.

Yeah, we did.

And it just proved to never be visible.

And so then it was adding screens to a EBDM roof.

I guess and I'm very convinced that you won't see them from Virginia Avenue.

Yeah, so we've walked the site, obviously, many times.

But one of the things we've always studied is that view from Chancellor Street.

That Chancellor Street, as it turns the corner right there, has a eight foot tall black fence that is, at least for six months out of the year, completely covered in ivy.

Beyond that, you've got a really deep

barrier with the railroad who don't keep their landscape in the most pristine condition along there.

So there's a lot of scenarios up there.

I have some images from Chancellor Street in the winter.

And I think even in one of our submissions, we included renderings that were from that corner.

And I actually shot through the fence because I wanted to see exactly what it would be like.

And it's a long ways away.

And I think we're still higher at this building than at that Chancellor Street elevation.

I think you're looking in at about the second floor windows.

And so I think that page 24 in this presentation gives you a pretty good sense of that elevation of Chancellor.

And so we felt through those studies that the screens just became unnecessary.

Well, I'll go.

Yeah, kind of on the mechanical units, I just want to say, I mean, I believe you that they wouldn't be visible.

And I think in this case, if we were to approve them, this would be somewhat of an exception.

Because I know that I've been particularly picky, for instance, on West Main Street, when you have, you know, you have an eight story building that has mechanical units centered in the roof, the developer will swear to us, they're not visible.

But you know, there's places in the city where they're pretty clearly visible.

and we have this discussion a lot.

So for me to approve this, this would be making an exception to that.

And I think you've demonstrated with the renderings.

Well, quick question with the renderings, the mechanical units are modeled in every single one, correct?

Yes, sir.

And I noticed that a lot of your views are above the street.

So it is

Yeah, it appears they would definitely be hidden from the pedestrian in most cases.

I really, really appreciate all the work that went into this packet.

I know there was a lot of at-risk stuff that you put in here because it's really complete.

The wall sections are very helpful.

I feel like from some of your axons or your perspective views through the staircases,

I learned something from that.

It was interesting.

I really appreciate all the effort you put in there.

I'm with Tim on the ethos.

I do not think that fiber summit panels have been done successfully in this city.

I think the ethos would be a much better solution for that.

It is definitely not the same material that we think of from the 90s.

So yeah, in general, I think

I think this is great.

I struggle to find anything that I really have a problem with.

And I would echo

Carl's assessment.

I'm very grateful to the applicant for taking our comments seriously and addressing them and being thorough in considering them and resolving those issues.

I agree as well.

I think that Jody and Carl are right.

It looks like a great project and you've taken all the comments to consideration.

Are there any thoughts on the board about the end grade wood?

I guess my own feeling is that I really like

I like it architecturally and how it reflects the balconies above and continues that theme down.

And I just like it architecturally.

I agree that it's very aesthetic.

It works very well with the project.

I'm less concerned about its proximity to the grade because it'll be, I think it'll weather the same as the balconies would in that case.

I think my only concern is I don't know how Trex works.

It'll be, you know, the main entryway.

It'll be walked on very frequently more than someone's typical deck, but

Kevin, can you speak to that?

Yeah, Chex has project examples of commercial projects where it's been used on outside decks at restaurants or things like that.

It comes with, I want to say, a 15-year warranty in terms of both fading and color and keeping its color.

I can certainly confirm that warranty.

I think it actually works really well to help reinforce the grade change there and it makes it feel like almost like a bridge or a porch to get over to the building.

So I think it really helps set the building back from the street a little bit further.

and recognizes and acknowledges the great change that's beyond.

I actually knew some folks who lived in those houses that are getting torn down when I was in school here and they called it the hole.

So that's exactly what it is.

That's also an enormous improvement over what was there.

For sure.

Just as James said, I like the fact that it extends the language of the decks and the stairs and all that into the building.

I think it carries it in.

I'm fine with it as designed.

Um, I think it's just helpful since it is, um, kind of, it's unusual for per our guidelines for us to have that conversation.

Yeah.

Yeah, I made a note in my guideline, copy of the guidelines, in that page, Brecht, that you noted, just so that we could discuss it, that if there is a contemporary design, maybe it does deserve a different look.

But probably something we could express better in the guidelines.

Thank you.

Well, if I could... I mean, I'll do it again.

I'm fine.

My acronyms have gotten sloppy on them.

What is it?

And the color rendering.

The CRI is the color rendering index.

I would set the minimum at 3,500 as opposed to 3,000 just to give them some flexibility.

I mean like the garage, the ceiling fixtures in the garage could be $3,500 and that'd be fine.

For instance, I think like the sconces and things that are supposed to pull up the color of the building, you know, I would say those would be $3,000 or even $2,800 or so or $2,700.

And then the color rendering just wants to be relatively high so they actually, the color you expect and have depth to them.

You know, I think the controllability of lighting when you have this big a building just seems like, you know, that's something we have talked about before.

It makes sense to me.

Because if you get something slightly wrong in terms of, you know, allowing you to like dim or have control where it dims down in the stairwell, but then as soon as somebody comes in and lightens up, I mean, that all just seems

very doable in this day and age with the LEDs and just a smart way to deal with your lighting.

Well, it sounds like you might be doing a motion.

Oh.

Well, so I'm thinking maybe the lighting

I mean, Kevin, you guys still have to do the site plan approval, right?

Are you still doing that?

So possibly, Jeff, this is a question for you and Kevin, I guess.

What's the likelihood that this is going to come back to us at some level?

So as far as site plan is concerned, it looks at simply that

and what's happening at the property line.

And then I have where, you know, for instance, an entrance quarter project, something that doesn't come to you all, I'll look at that, you know, and comment on the color temperature, things like that, dimmable.

And I apologize, I'm not, I just, I'm not sure where I put it.

I know I looked at it, or at least I believe I looked at it.

But so as far as the site plan goes, we're very much hoping that what happens here lets them go forward.

And this is somewhat of a vicious cycle, and I think everyone in NDS has known it and realized it, but there's no easy way to grapple with it.

You know, provided that that lighting, I can say it won't, as far as site plan's concerned, what Kevin's drawn works.

Right, and the only thing I offer on that is, yeah, I've seen, go ahead, except for the garage, right, and I made a note of that.

I have, we're reviewing a bank over on Long Street, and there's also a similar one on the corner where they're just using very high color temperature, and I've questioned them on it, but I went through all of their specifications and found some of the fixtures aren't even dimmable.

So they can go with the lower color temperature, but some of the fixtures aren't something you can adjust.

So that's the only caution I would offer with using that.

I mean, for instance, somebody in the garage, if they weren't dimmable, you could still have it where they're on multiple circuits.

So you can actually kill a certain number of the lights when you want it to be a lower level, and then you pick them up where they have multiple

lamps in them.

And so you dim them by literally turning off one set of lamps.

So would we request that there are, you know, the exterior lighting is controlled and that they can, that they have some means of manipulating, you know, the, particularly the lighting coming out from under the garage, I believe.

I mean, I think the other lighting,

I mean, you could, I mean, you could include, you know, sort of, I keep thinking about down there on 550 East Water Street, what your language was, same thing with the bank ATM place here on the mall.

You could have that and then Kevin and I worked together and if,

If we can't find fixtures or the fixtures don't fit that, then, you know, maybe it's something I, you know, we have to, to revise, you know, and, and it would be something we would check in the next couple of days.

I mean, I don't doubt Kevin's intentions regarding the lighting or that they want to do a bad job of the lighting.

I'm just thinking it does seem to be one of those things that has bitten us a couple of times.

I mean, I go back to the standard.

Those lights are just ridiculous still.

I mean, they had a canopy.

I mean, they could have put the lights in the canopy and those could have just been totally

you know, like three watts.

They didn't need, you know, right across the street is far better lit than the standard is, for instance.

So I'm just a little leery.

This is a, you know, this is a quiet area.

I think the bulk of the lighting looks fine.

I just think it would be good to have some control, controllability, especially with regard to the garage lighting.

So I guess I'll make a motion and suggest that

Well, it would be, you're putting constraints on the lighting that you would specify.

And if the lights can't meet that, then we would have to modify something slightly.

So it wouldn't be,

If it makes a difference, we can happily make the colors dimmable, or the light fixtures dimmable.

And if there's a specified color range you want us to stay within, we can.

And we'll work within the fixtures that we have currently specified to make sure that those are possible, that it's possible to do that in.

Yeah, I mean, I'm not trying to make some incredible, I mean, I just wanted to flatter your building and I want it to work right in terms of the neighborhood.

So that sounds great.

Tim, could you also add something about this smaller cultivar of oak leaf hydrangea, if that's agreeable to Kevin.

No, it can be that it can be that species.

There's just several cultivars that are dwarf, smaller stature.

So it's just so that they can be maintained at five just or six, five feet or smaller.

Yeah.

Okay.

All right.

Um, so I'll give us take a shot at the cultivar and the motion.

Um,

Having considered the standards set forth within the city code, including city design guidelines for new construction, I move to define the proposed residential building on this property.

It satisfies the BAR's criteria and guidelines and is compatible with this property and other properties in the Roe v. Roe University Circle Venable Neighborhood AEC District.

That's a mouthful.

And the BAR approves the application as submitted with a couple of provisos.

Select a cultivar that can be maintained at five feet or shorter and provide a control schematic for the exterior lighting.

And that gives you some latitude in terms of how you control them, but dimming would probably be the best.

but you know you might you know some of them might just simply be on timers where it's very bright has a motion control you have a secondary level of lighting that's not and then the big ones come on when somebody walks in or drives a car in just like to get a little more sophisticated about this stuff in general because the lighting is really with it with the advent of LEDs generally things are tending to be way over there so anyway that's my motion with a little

I'll second that.

I ask one clarification.

OK, I will take votes.

Mr. Bailey?

Mr. Schwartz, Mr. Moore, Ms.

Lengel, Mr. Gastinger, Mr. Zehmer, and Mr. Lejandro.

We can see you.

Thank you guys.

Thank you for all the comments and feedback and back and forth through this process.

All right, Kevin, we'll talk soon.

Thank you.

I'm so hungry.

Just I don't know.

They have like their roommates.

Yeah, that's what I got too.

Just as long as it wasn't fish.

Not fish.

Welcome back everyone while we're waiting for everybody to sign back on.

Greg, I'm going to go ahead and promote you to panelists.

That's all of us, right?

What's that?

It's everyone now, right?

All together.

Are you ready for me to introduce the next contestant?

Sure.

All right.

This is a COA request for 416 418 West Main Street.

This is a building constructed in the 1940s and retains much of its original character, which was as a car dealership and showroom.

It is a contributing structure within the downtown ADC district.

Hopefully, Carl and Tim and Breck, you're more familiar with this one.

Back in January 2017, the applicant requested a deferral and

There was a BAR denial of a request for a new roof addition specifically because the hip roof was not compatible with historic building and historic district.

In July of 2017, the BAR approved the applicant's request for a new roof addition with the stipulation the applicant submit color renderings for the BAR to approve prior to the COA being issued.

This is coming before you.

because of the deadline or the COA had, sorry, I'm not thinking, expired.

And before a new building permit was issued, the applicant proposed replacing the existing flat roof and roof monitors with a new sloped roof and new windows.

Staff's comment is that, again, the project was previously reviewed and approved by the BAR.

but the COA expired in January, 2020.

You all have the minutes from 2017.

So you know about that discussion.

And because this was previously approved staff is recommending approval.

Any questions?

Hi everybody.

I've been silenced so long.

So I'm not going to go over too much and I'm happy to answer questions.

I figure it might be the most appropriate way to address this.

As Jeff said, it's been a long haul for this project, both in the original BAR, COA, and then afterwards, you know, some distractions and other projects got in the way and then some delays that the

and when we put together the construction set for permit with the holidays came in and the structural engineer so we ran out of time before the permit was issued.

So it's coming back up and I think that's where it is.

Everything seems to be fine in neighborhood development except for a property line issue the owner needs to address in the COA.

At that meeting,

As in the report, it seemed like just about everybody felt that perhaps the colors could be darker and this proposal attempts at that to set it back more from the building and delineated a little bit differently than the historic part of the building.

To hear about the roof, I think there's different approaches to that.

With this proposal, we also show more context if you flip through the proposal and see the other roof forms.

In some ways it seems to you know with in the section that's put in this proposal the roof frames and pitches the West Main Street is generally proposed to be flat or behind purpose but there's also in D large-scale and multi-lot buildings should have a varied roof line to break up the mass of the design using gable and or hip forms

There are several reasons for doing this roof form and creating sort of a vaulted space interior with the trusses to create a more interesting space, but also to keep a low visual line on it.

I think in the proposal we show it at six foot and you really don't see the roof that much from most of the pedestrian experience.

I know since then there's been a couple of tall buildings down the street that can look out over it.

And by the way, our mechanical is placed where the other mechanical is on this complex on that bigger dome roof behind it, which would be the Galleria of the Main Street Market area.

And so I think it was approved four to two at the time.

And the two that opposed happened to be the only two that are here today.

Tim Moore was not present at that meeting.

And if I could borrow from the previous applicants, Kevin reading a quote, just to read the quote that was in approval, so to speak, and then I'll quit.

Balut, I'm not sure if I'm saying his name correctly.

He said, I feel that the proposed design is compatible with the guidelines.

The original volume of the building is not being touched and is still identifiable.

The addition on top is different enough to meet the Secretary of Interior standards.

It is utilitarian in aesthetics and use.

The vaults lend to the utilitarian logic.

The fact that the building is being preserved, the cap is intact, and the details are utilitarian, like the mullions on the windows.

addresses all the concerns we have raised as a board.

I feel like it's appropriate, it's funky and utilitarian and overall compatible with the site.

I just kind of one thing, Greg, I mean, I'm fine with it.

I wasn't at the meeting though.

The one guy was just thinking,

I could see possibly that lower gutter being not quite, how tall is that?

Is it a foot?

It's pretty beefy.

I'm just wondering whether it might, that box, Dave, let's see.

That's 10 inches, actually.

Cancel that.

I was thinking it was a little bit bigger than that.

I'm trying to find the section two.

I'm kind of like Jeff.

If I look at a section two, it looks smaller to me there than it is, than it is up in the drawing above.

The drawing above looks like it's a foot by foot.

Well, it says 10 inches though, over there on the side.

I will make sure it is.

And you know, we wanted a little bit of volume.

On sheet 145 of our board packet.

I think it's another couple of pages down.

It used to be bigger, so it's... Yeah, I mean, 10 inches doesn't... It seems right.

It just looks a little beefy, but I'm not sure that it actually would be.

I mean, the model would be a little deceptive too.

I mean, it looks fine.

It's just funny.

It looks better in the height in those one-inch scale

And it does the three-quarter, but maybe that's because of the additional detail inside of it.

But I get that you need it for the slope.

Am I right in seeing that the colors you're proposing are not actually represented on the 3D views?

Or am I misunderstanding?

Yeah, it's not that accurate.

So you see in the last page, which still, you know, what can be put into a document and what everybody's screen shows.

You know, that's why we try to put the exact

Color.

And I even have the dark bronze here for the aluminum storefront that I can add that for specifics, which is quite a bit darker.

It's not as red as what you're seeing in the document.

I think overall,

At the end of the meeting, the sentiment was to make it darker, to, you know, just kind of tone it back a little bit.

And that's the direction we were trying to go.

Yeah, that had been discussed.

I think at least one member thought maybe it should be lighter and tie in more with the building.

Even a few weeks ago, a week ago, I had flooded those renderings around to you, Tim and Jeff.

And then we kind of came back to stay and just, you know, keep it all that same color language as new.

Is the current parapet concrete or clay?

It's metal.

You can see if there's a brick.

I don't know if you can make it out.

It's metal currently.

I'm probably one of those that would prefer if and think it would be cleaner if it

The colors remained associated with the historic structure and that the color and materials of the addition rise behind it.

I did vote against this project previously.

I think there are

Guidelines within the Secretary of Interior standards that do suggest that you don't want to be up on the facade of the facade line.

So anything that can be done to either set that back, which I understand is not really feasible with the space that they have, or by differentiating that material so that it has a clarity about what's addition and what's the new structure.

I think I'm going to maintain my vote to not approve this.

And again, I know that you've worked with a lot of members of the DAR

you know a couple years ago and sounds like you've still been working with a few of us now and this thing has been through many different iterations but I just I still find it foreign to what's going on there and I know that there's already a lot happening on this property so it seems to make sense that you could add something different but it just it the form does not feel compatible with what

what's currently there and maybe it's too, I mean, I don't know.

It could be some of the stuff that you're kind of decorating it with, the horizontal, the bins, both vertical and horizontal.

What's that?

I was raising my hand.

Oh.

I actually think that this looks pretty good.

I think it maintains the, if you will, sort of industrial commercial character of that building.

I think the addition works very well for that.

I don't see how, I think it fits the context of West Main Street

Very well indeed.

And I think that it will improve actually the experience of walking down that street.

I'm thinking about Brett's question about comment about the color of the parapet line.

I mean, it's too bad the parapet wasn't terracotta or something to begin with on the top.

That would make this distinction much clearer.

I guess my thing is either way, wherever you make the break, it's hard to make that break.

I think it's weird for the glass unless you do something with it to make it significantly behind that.

Yeah.

I mean, it's set back far enough that, I mean, it would read as somewhat recessed, but that's obscured by all the

the vertical and the horizontal fins.

I believe that came from a desire to have more articulation and then

At the same time, with that much glazing, we wanted to have some solar control as well, primarily on the south and east and west.

But it's not oriented directly in the cardinal directions.

We get some morning sun coming in.

So we did kind of offset the facade to Main Street asymmetrical with that in mind.

So sure it is elements that are, I wouldn't say decorative, but they are, you know, serving a purpose as well.

It would make it more recessive.

You get the three horizontal lines and the verticals with the glass would definitely feel recessed because of it.

I don't know.

I think in terms of this building,

You know, I think it's a new way to terminate it.

It doesn't bother me.

And it's definitely a different language than what's going on down below, but that's obviously new also.

I think having it pop up like that, you know, ideally it would be back more, but I don't think that's possible.

But I do think, you know, I think I don't have a problem with the root form and I think it does have a

quasi-industrial sense, which seems appropriate to me.

So I don't have an issue with it.

I think it could be, and certainly it'd be nice inside.

And I don't think it will be detrimental at the street level.

And I'll fond of the purple.

My own opinion is that

I do want there to be as strong as possible a distinction between the historic building and what's done on top.

I think form-wise, it pretty much does that.

And the fenestration does that.

Anything else that we can do to reinforce that distinction through colors, through depth of color, darkness,

So I think it really comes down to what exactly you do with the top of the parapet.

Do you paint that a darker?

I mean, at one point Greg had a light color there, but that seemed to fight the rest of the building altogether.

I mean, is it something, you know,

Something as simple as painting it that burgundy color.

I think it needs to architecturally be a part of the historic building.

So if that's color, obviously the material is different.

Right.

So, I mean, maybe, maybe that is, that's also keen to what, you know, Frank was saying about that piece.

Yeah.

So if you look at, um, again, sheets sheet, like per page 143 on the board packet, they have shown the previous colors.

And then the next slide shows, I guess, current

posed colors.

The previous colors image shows that top of the parapet white and relates more to the new roof.

You see what I'm saying?

And I also agree with the industrial nature of the roof and whatnot.

I think purple could be fine too.

I agree.

I think a burgundy band at the parapet will help

Yeah.

Yeah, that's kind of an interesting development because before, even when I sent those two, the rendering a week and a half ago, showing that band being lighter as opposed to the colors showing now,

No one's brought up, we hadn't thought about that it'd actually be that reddish burgundy which is the highlight color of the building that would snap it out.

I think it might be actually quite nice because it has the color down below and with the little canopy element and then the sort of fun.

Completely agree.

I made the last two.

Go to the staff report.

And I just, you know, this, I will caution here.

I called up while you all were talking, I looked at what was presented back in 2017, and try to see how Mary Joy approached this and pretty much just simply comment was, you know, hey, this is going to allow the extended use of historic building.

I will say the renderings in 2017, it's kind of this

Baby Blue Thing.

I don't know if that's just a bad copy or what.

But... 8.119.

It's... Yeah, so go to... And be very... But my caution is also just to... Let's be... We have renderings.

We've known... When we have series of renderings, sometimes those are... We have some confusion with them.

So if there's something specific that you're referring to,

in the motion about that band, then refer to the page number and you can use the PDF page number and be specific about a detail.

We did, but currently the top of that parapet

And if you guys can see the page number of the BAR, BAR page that would help me because I don't have

Greg, page 15 of 22 is PDF page 138.

That was a rendering.

I mean, that was a perspective.

So this is where my first question comes up.

145 shows the colors that you specify and they are not, they don't match the rendering really well.

So we need to specify exactly or we need to just make clear.

Correct.

There's the dark bronze, which in all of my renderings is showing up very much like a medium gray or dark brown.

So I guess from my perspective, it sort of doesn't matter what the colors are, it's that the

Top of the parapet of the original building should match in color with the belt course, if you will, that separates the first and second stories.

Well, I think when you guys make a motion, though,

The roof is just so much darker.

But just the intent is for them to be as what's written in the color swatches.

And I apologize that the rendering doesn't match it up exactly.

I think I had a hard time with that roof.

you know, in the rendering.

And so, you know, cause that's the actual stuff that we need to source.

The Balsall Gray, you couldn't do the roof in the Balsall Gray?

What are you asking Tim?

Possibly.

I mean, it just becomes all pretty shades, kind of shades of gray.

And I think the intent was to have the roof, you know, be, you know, it's that dark bronze that, you know, is really just a darker gray in a sense of warm gray, I think when it actually comes out.

I'm just saying the real contrast, in my mind the contrast in the elements in the roof system should be fairly subtle and its fundamental contrast to the old building should be strong.

Which I think making that parapet band red would certainly help that a great deal.

I just wonder if the roof is super dark relative to everything else.

It catches light differently because it's obviously facing the sky.

But maybe that's something in the field, maybe have a sample of those that can be looked at in the field just to confirm it, of that roof.

I mean, the grays, I don't have any problem with the gray.

I'm just wondering about the dark brown.

I understand the windows.

That makes sense.

I just don't know whether the roof is going to be, I don't know, because the renderings really don't speak to that darker color.

I don't know if anybody else feels that way.

Personally, I think everything above the parapet should be the same dark color.

And you start varying the colors within that area.

The more you vary the colors, the more you bring attention to it.

Monochrome, yeah.

Yes.

Good.

I'll look at what's available with the roofing material and go towards the dark gray and can circulate that.

You know, a lot of windows are coming out black these days.

The black trim, but it just seems to be too... That might be too jumpy, right?

Yeah.

I can look into that too.

Certainly this bronze sample, which I'm sure you can't really see, but it's all but pretty dark.

That's hard to tell.

I think Jody's right.

I think the more monochromatic the top is, the better, the more it separates itself from the building.

I mean, I think if you did do the red line, as James was talking about,

A significant division right there.

Yeah, the existing didn't really offer anything as exciting or interesting as that.

I think that's a, you know, it's not original.

It's not what is there now.

But I think part of the whole project, you know, makes it the parts.

make it greater, it lands back to the building where it wasn't getting much help.

But I don't know if it would have worked without something above it if you just had that color up there as a termination point.

Do y'all feel like that band of color needs to wrap the building?

As you see on this corner view here, that turns the corner.

I feel like it should.

Trying to take a stab at it.

Having considered the standards set forth within the city code, including city design guidelines for new construction and additions, I move to find that the proposed new roof and fenestration alterations satisfy the BAR's criteria and are compatible with this property and

RAL 7012.

Yeah.

What I'm thinking of in terms is, all right, how do we say this so that, you know, 10 years down the road, there's a repainting request and sort of the instruction that would be given.

And what I'm hearing is that, if I understand, is that there is this distinct color or the band, the parapet, top of the parapets painted thing is there's,

the belt course but what's the what's the color of that that we're because if something changes then well let me set that aside and then the roof and above all of that monochromatic and I guess instructions to the future would be you know in a shade that is is preferably lighter so but you know what is here you know so your intent is is these

colors, and I can confirm that.

And then the the instruction of that being that the preference for that monochromatic and of a lighter shade and the lower portion of the building.

But it's this.

I mean, in the based on the current renderings, it would match the red

Oh, I see.

OK, so that's sort of that.

Yeah.

So it's that.

What we call what you call that feature, that banding that we shouldn't prescribe exactly what color it is.

Got it.

If you look at page 131, if that whole end elevation facing east were red,

You know, including the parapet that would, if the whole building was painted like that, that would completely separate it from the roof also.

Fundamentally, it's got it.

The roof is monochromatic.

Or even if the building was all white, then the roof is dark gray.

You know, it's just, it wants to

No, no, no.

Oh, no doubt.

No doubt.

You all are putting a lot of thought into this and I think it's instructive to have it.

That record is, and I guess it could even be in the minutes, but

I understand this and I can summarize this.

So then as far as the motion goes, if you all, so my understanding so far is with the following modifications, that the top of the original building parapet will be painted to match the accent banding, the same color of the accent banding and the

Roof addition will be monochromatic, that it will be visibly separate from the roof addition.

And to be came at your option is this gray that's per the application.

And then just my note to myself is it's clearly defined horizontal line that visibly separates the roof addition.

So if you could just put that in a

A motion, I think we're okay.

And then I go back to the page we were just on with the colors.

So it is motion and correct me if I'm wrong, James.

That's what I believe we've agreed on based on what most of the renderings show.

despite the fact that the material page calls out a dark bronze.

And we tend to like the gray that's shown in most of the renderings.

I have a point of clarification.

and the Finns.

I think it'd be preferable if it can be had.

I think it's back in there.

So, you know, the dark bronze may be fine.

I mean, having it a little bit darker is fine.

It just makes it more recessive.

Well, I guess I'm sorry I'm being so annoying about this.

I just want to make sure that we're absolutely clear, because we can't do these.

We as a board cannot administratively approve this later on.

So we just want to make sure that what's in that motion is what you want.

I can't see everyone's faces right now, but is

Is everyone who is going to vote for this, thank you.

Do they want to see the windows, the roof, the fins, all of it that dark medium gray?

I guess the challenge is that he's got a material palette on one sheet, but all of the renderings show pretty much everything is gray.

And so it's hard to make that judgment call without having

Oh, Greg, you're going to hate me for this.

What is your, if you don't hate me already, your timeline?

Is this something that you could come back next month, because we will be having a BAR meeting next month, with renderings that would show the colors that we're talking about?

Yeah, I mean, I was hoping that I could circulate it around in the next few days, you know, in that respect.

You know, I think it's pretty simple.

We can visualize what it's going to look like with the band being that same color.

I think that's, you know, that's going to be easy for me to do.

I can do that.

I could have done it while we were talking and sent it to you guys.

and then everything else, I think is gonna look like the way the renderings are.

And I apologize, the chips aren't looking that close to what they should be, but I think the rendering, see, like I keep holding this up, that dark bronze for the window frame, I think looks more like what the rendering is.

It's sort of a warm, dark, medium gray, than the color that's showing up on my screen.

Everybody's probably looking a little bit different than each different screen at this.

Reneries are tricky.

That's why I think that the actual samples, and I can somehow send these out, is pretty common, this dark bronze.

I think if the vertical pieces and the roof and the gutter are all going to that dark gray, I think it would be

Even you know acceptable and perhaps even preferable to have that dark bronze in the recessed Plane where the windows are sitting.

I'm inclined to agree.

I mean, I guess the other thing really is I at this point I would say I wouldn't trust renderings.

Let's just get a couple of pieces and pull them out there and let them sit.

Let's see them and and

You know, I mean, we do that all the time with the real samples.

I just think it would be better off, you know, and also we can meet outside, you know, everybody can go look at it outside.

You know, that's not a problem.

I mean, our next BAR meeting, as far as I know, is another Zoom conference.

That's going to be what, you know, who knows what everybody's screens look like.

Jeff, can we... Carl's room looks green right there.

I mean, I think Tim brings up a good point, you know, often in VAR meetings, the architect would be able to bring samples to the meeting.

Yeah, there's, so I'm, you know, rolling around the ideas of, you know, expressing an intent that

that can be met, you know, with that, you know, the monochromatic was helpful.

The idea that it is of a gray, you know, I'm trying to think of things that get you where you want to go.

I keep thinking about those sample panels we went and looked at down there at 600 West Main and there was quite a debate about that of, you know, what was approved as the selection of materials and et cetera, et cetera.

So, I mean, if there was a,

were or was, I don't know the right grammar, if there was a way to state the intent and a palette that you all would like to see in the field.

I mean, I just don't want to have to come back and I mean, it's, you know, it becomes that partial COA again, you know, or that partial approval.

It's either, you know,

either we are approving this or we are not.

I think, you know, my gut is, Brett is right, that that will make the windows a little bit deeper, a little more recessive because they're darker.

You know, I think, you know, the most, it's just, we'd have to just see the samples next to each other.

See how much of a contrast difference there is.

And I just don't trust the screen.

And I think it'd be really simple to just put some samples out there and look at them.

It's incredibly easy.

It's just getting us back to the thing that legal doesn't really want us to do.

So I think, I think, I mean, as Jeff is saying, if we can, if you guys can give him an intent, but then maybe we can confirm that, yes, those exact colors are good, but, and they match the intent.

Yeah.

I mean, I,

By the way, I don't know if I'd mentioned it, but Sebastian has moved back to the West Coast, so that's why we're short legal tonight.

He wanted me to say farewell to all of you.

I think that there could be, I mean, it's a statement of that

The color palette will be representative of this and be AR to confirm at a site visit.

But still, it sort of leaves things in limbo.

And I just don't know.

I don't know what to tell you guys right now.

I agree.

I mean, my screen, I can't tell the difference between dark brown and dark bronze.

I just don't know, but I think that, I'm trying to think of this in a kind of an evolutionary way that, you know, there's a, I know there, you know, worked on this stuff long enough, you can't decide anything from small samples.

So there has to be maybe some sort of direction that you wanna go that you can offer.

Other than that, then you're gonna have to, you can decide to defer it.

So if we say that the principal objective here is that the roof is to be recessive and a dark color and the roof system, the entire roof system is recessive and a dark color and the parapets color is to relate to the building below it, the pale

The lavender color isn't a strong enough color.

I mean, if it was all red, you wouldn't have, you would read fine.

But right now the reason, you know, James picked up on that belt line is because that's a bold color.

So you put that belt line around and it ties it into the building proper.

And the point is fundamentally we want a distinction using our guidelines.

We want a distinction between the old and the new, and our preference is that the new

is recessive and dark gray based on a balsa color sample.

And that the rest of it may change over time.

I've got a question and maybe a possible solution.

Jeff?

I review

building permit.

You can, I just, you know, my only caution is we ended up with a situation like at 600 West Main where it was awfully

long way down the road.

And there were questions about, you know, long lead items.

And I just I'm trying to I'm trying to visualize.

I agree.

The renderings.

I mean, we've always had this problem with renderings.

But I've heard, you know, I've heard dark bronze for the window frames and a dark tray for the roof and the other

then there's this distinct banding of the top of the parapet which the color you want to be distinguish it from the clear story above and that it accentuates the accent brick banding on the existing building.

So it's a

That's where I think everybody is on the same page about what the colors are going to be.

I think what you guys just want to do is just say,

The parapet will match the red or burgundy belt coursing on the building and everything above will be similar to the basalt gray that is in the application.

And if you want to say additionally, the windows should remain dark bronze, you can say that, or you just leave it as everything is, you know,

I think that's about how the motion is standing right now.

That's correct.

That's the way the motion is standing.

I think it should go forward.

That was a roundabout.

Robert?

Okay, Mr. Bailey?

Definitely approve.

Okay.

Mr. Schwartz?

No.

Mr. Zehmer?

Yes.

Mr. Lehendra?

Aye.

Mr. Gastinger?

No.

Mr. Moore?

Aye.

Ms.

I'm sorry, Sonya, I saw you were waving your hand there.

I don't think anybody noticed.

No, I probably was like my water glass.

Okay.

Okay.

Thank you.

Motion passes.

All right, Greg.

I'm sorry about that.

I love having the input and getting it right.

I do think it's improved.

All right, y'all.

Okay.

By the way,

I'm looking, I don't think the tin whistle's open anymore.

Look it out my window here.

All right.

Wasn't it something else now?

Yeah, I don't know.

I will say that little, that work in the courtyards going on and it makes me miss the tin whistle all the more.

But yeah, something is going in there.

Oh, Greg, the canopy looks good over there.

He's gone.

No, he's gone.

He's still there.

The canopy in the garden.

I thought it came out.

It's coming out kind of nice.

But we have another application.

Sure.

All right.

Yeah.

Thanks for being patient.

You just want to keep going?

You're muted.

You're muted, Ron.

Sorry, I don't know what it's going to be like with three of us working in the house.

I don't know where Will's going to go.

He's got a bunch of friends.

I think it's done.

He's got a bunch of friends that are, have jobs in Atlanta, but they don't know when they're going to start.

So they're all, you know, itching to go rent someplace, but I said, well, what are you going to do rent a place?

And then you ended up just sitting in Atlanta.

So I don't know, I don't know, but, uh,

I mean, you get out and walk, you're out and about in town.

It's just such an eerie feel.

With downtown malls getting, depending on the time of day and what day of the week it is, it's getting a little bit more, looks a little more normal, sounds a little more normal.

Well, I talked to the Oakhurst Inn folks and they said they're getting, you know, more and more people are reserving rooms.

So, you know, there's more activity.

People are coming into town.

So, you know, I assume that's I don't think they're having freshman orientation or anything, but I assume that's just folks visiting town.

I think it was all storefront.

Okay.

I don't think it was any operable.

Yeah, no, you're right.

Hopefully this one will be nice and clean.

Well, I think we can start 525 Ridge Street.

It's a little dark in my office now.

This is a COA request for 525 Ridge Street.

This is a new construction or this is a new building being constructed on a vacant lot within the Ridge Street ADC district.

Back in 2016 and 2017, you all approved the COA for this work.

It's William Taylor Plaza.

I believe this is phase two.

The applicant has requested that the COA to allow for the, well, sorry, there's the landscaping, the street curb wall that had been approved as being made of core 10 steel applicant is requesting to use concrete instead.

It would be similar to the other walls that are along the public sidewalk

within the Ridge Street District.

I think I talked with some of you about this earlier in the spring.

There weren't a lot of questions about it, but it does still need to go before the BAR, and staff recommends approval for it.

Steve, are you there?

Steve, I'll try to unmute you, and then you can try to speak.

He's put in the chat that he was having some trouble, so let me try.

Can you speak now?

Okay, we're still not hearing you, but you said in the chat, not much to say, so I assume that... How much is D either?

Carl, you're muted.

Yeah, I'm muted.

It looks like we have no attendees, so I guess there's no comments from the public?

Okay.

Sure.

I think it's way more appropriate than the core 10 anyway.

Basically, the core 10 is kind of an odd man out given the aesthetics of the project, I think.

Can I just ask, and maybe he'll answer in the chat, of what the maximum height of the wall is?

He's responded that it varies from 18 inches to 30 inches.

Anybody want to make a motion?

I actually have friendlier service in the court town.

So I'm willing to make a motion.