Board of Architectural Review Meeting   11/17/2020

Good evening and welcome to the 2020 November Charlottesville Board of Architectural Review virtual meeting.

I'm Robert Watkins.

I'm city staff and I'll be moderating the virtual side of tonight's meeting.

Before I hand things over to Carl Schwartz, our chair, I'm going to go over a few guidelines and housekeeping tips to make sure that tonight's meeting runs smoothly for everybody participating.

So first, for everybody who might be watching at home, I'll introduce the meeting participants who are online right now, since they're not sitting on a dais.

So we have Carl Schwartz, the chair.

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

Other BAR members who have joined us include Cheri Lewis, James Zehmer, Ron Bailey, Tim Moore, Sonia Lengel, and Jody Lehendro.

Andy McClure,

who's an additional BAR member won't be able to join us this evening.

We're also joined by Jeff Werner, who's city staff.

Throughout the meeting, applicants and other participants of the meeting will join as needed.

So just a reminder, typically we've had short breaks periodically through the meeting and it'll be at the discretion of the chair to call them.

For members of the public who are on the call right now,

who'd like to provide comments.

There are several places in the agenda where you can speak.

At the beginning of the meeting, we allow 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.

In order to provide comment, we ask that you register for the meeting if you haven't already, and then 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.

Or if you're calling in with your phone, you can press star nine and your hand will raise and I'll unmute you.

Then our timer will begin and you'll have three minutes to speak.

For applicants who are online already,

You're currently in the meeting as an attendee, which means you'll have limited audio and video capabilities.

When your project comes up on the agenda for review, I'll promote you to panelists so you'll have mute and unmute capabilities and we can see you.

When I promote you from attendee to panelist, you'll be booted out of the meeting temporarily, and then you'll automatically come back in as a panelist.

So just hang tight.

Also for applicants, during the staff and applicant presentations for each project, for the most part, I'll be sharing my own screen to scan through pages of your application you submitted for visual aid.

While the BAR deliberates, I'm happy to share my screen again to reference specific pages or drawings.

For applicants and BAR members, if you'd like me to go to a specific page, just please give me a verbal command to direct me to the page number.

Finally, it's time for me to hand things over to our chair, Carl Schwartz throughout the meeting.

Please feel free to ask me any additional questions if you have any.

Well, good evening.

Welcome to this regular monthly meeting, 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.

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.

The times noted below are rough estimates only.

If so, use the raise hand feature or press star 9, and I will unmute you.

Great.

OK, so the only item on the consent agenda is the minutes from, wait, yeah, the August 18, 2020 meeting minutes.

I have a question, actually.

So there are some tiny little things in there that were, I think it was just either me mumbling or some architectural terms.

I don't think they're important enough to change, but is that something that as a board, do we fuss about things like that?

There is a reference to the recording, if there's any discrepancies.

I think it's all in your comfort level with... Usually, I think the more important thing is that our motions are stated correctly or anything that was controversial is covered.

But I'd leave it to your judgment on that.

And we're always with our folks that are taking notes and minutes, a lot of these terms are new and it helps

If you want to let Patrick know, you know, Cornice, how it's spelled or what even it is, that's helpful.

This was not meant to be a, I wouldn't, we do great minutes, really fantastic minutes.

Thank you.

If you want any changes, if you could point to the page number, I can make the changes and then I can also, I can upload the minutes.

I'll upload the minutes tomorrow.

James will second.

Thank you.

I will call the vote.

Ms.

Thank you.

Mr. Lehendra.

Aye.

Mr. Moore.

Aye.

Mr. Zehmer.

Aye.

Ms.

Mr. Gastinger.

Aye.

And Mr. Schwartz.

Aye.

All right, I'll get started.

This is a COA request for 751 Park Street.

It was built in 1904.

It's in the North Downtown ADC District.

It is a contributing structure.

It's the only framed colonial revival dwelling on Park Street.

It's a two-story, three-bay house.

It's oriented east towards Park Street and has a porch that spans that facade.

The building has an impressive classical cornice and asymmetrical slate roof.

It's primarily hipped.

Volume is interrupted by several gables, dormers, and extensions.

and the house was built for William Keller who was a prominent shoe merchant in the city.

The BAR reviewed this particular request in February and the applicant requested deferral and the request is to allow the removal of the porch stair in the entry at the north elevation.

This is that small side elevation replacement of the entry door with a new vinyl clad window.

and where indicated on the drawings, replacement of the aluminum siding with painted lap siding.

And I think Jeff had clarified on the material they're going to use.

And I can't recall if he said wood or cementitious, but I think it's wood.

As I mentioned in 2009, the BAR unanimously approved the COA for alterations to the building's exterior.

that included the removal of the north porch and its replacement pretty much as presented.

So that was approved, but in the subsequent work that work on the porch was not done.

The design guidelines recommend that repair of deteriorated wood siding and to replace only when it is beyond repair.

The applicant is proposing to use salvageable material to the extent possible.

Regarding the demolition of the north porch stairs and the entry,

We reviewed that and used the demolition criteria from the guidelines.

Sorry, my dog is barking because he wants to eat again.

The staff first suggested should demolition be approved that we think that what's been submitted with drawings and photographs is more than adequate documentation for the VAR records as we typically request.

And just two clarifications that I got from Jeff, make sure we note this, the existing downspout at the porch roof will be extended down to grade.

And there's a note on sheet three of the drawings about the extension of the cornice.

That same note applies to the extension of the cornice on the corner.

So what's different about this for the last time is we were talking about more extensive removal of the siding and work.

this is all focused simply on that corner where this porch and entrance is located.

Okay.

And Jeff Dreyfus requested to share his screen through the application.

All right.

Thank you all very much.

Jeff Dreyfus, Bushman Dreyfus Architects here in Charlottesville.

I'll let me see here to share my screen.

Here we go.

Assuming everyone can see that.

We'll run briefly through the proposal.

As Jeff noted,

Our request differs from when we were in front of you last February in that we are not looking to remove the siding on the rest of the house.

We've decided to focus the request only on the demolition of the existing side porch.

And as Jeff had noted previously, this area right here, it was approved in 2010.

And at the time, the cost of it was just too great to do with the rest of the work that was being done on the house.

And an interesting note to

bring to everyone's attention is that at that time, one of the neighbors who wrote in support of this application noted at the time that the tenants bought the house, even then the porch had already fallen into disrepair and was not used.

So this hasn't been something that's been new to Mr. Tenant's ownership of the house.

So very briefly,

The overall idea here is removal of that side porch.

We'll talk about some of the reasons behind it in a moment.

And here with it being removed, replacing, that is a, there's a stair landing just below, whoops, sorry, this window here.

And so the smaller window underneath that landing, there is a powder room back there.

So the idea would be to put that in a new vinyl clad window.

I'm sorry.

The house as exists has aluminum siding on it and we understand that when we start to remove the porch we're going to be exposing some material underneath there and the question came about how do we patch and repair that.

And so our proposal is the entire area that is dashed red, which is between the large bay, protruding bay here and the area here on the left.

Reside that with wood.

Now, when we take the aluminum siding off, we don't know what the condition of the wood underneath it will be.

We will salvage as much of that as we can.

And what we can't, we will replace with wood of a similar, the same dimension so that we go back with lap siding.

The same would be the case on this other side elevation.

You can see here the porch and the stair.

remove it, we would propose not just a small patch, but the entire area on that side of the house to go back as wood.

There is, I will say, a small area right here, where when we get to the photos, the roof intrudes upon the bow front slightly.

We would hope to be able to salvage enough aluminum siding to be able to patch that area seamlessly.

Also, there's a small area on this side of the house as well.

That is the request.

A couple of reasons that we have come to you again.

Since that time, we have had a structural engineer review the condition of the structure.

And the report was attached to some supplemental information we provided you all with.

And his determination is that the porch is structurally unsound, not usable as it is, and would in fact require complete reconstruction.

The other reason that we're here

to talk with you is the belief that this porch wasn't necessarily, it's not a given that it was original to the house.

We do understand that the Sanborn map from 1929 shows a porch in this location or an appendage in this location, but it's not definitive on whether or not that existed when the house was constructed in 1904.

The railings

around on this particular structure.

This is some of the supplemental information we've provided you all with.

You can see the railings on the front of the house, the front porch here, classical detailing, and then the railing and balustrade on the side porch, which is much more Victorian, seemingly of a different era.

Again, some of the details of those two, and then also

This is a very odd intersection with the bow front of the north side of the house intersecting with the cornice of the roof quite inelegantly, frankly, given all of the rest of the beautiful detailing on the structure.

It just seems to have been an afterthought.

And one other railing note is that the interior railing of the house, this is the stair railing,

very clearly relates to the front of the house.

The balustrade there, very different from what's here.

So again, the railing on the porch seems very incongruous with the rest of the house.

The structural engineer's report attached here and at the very conclusion of it, recommending if any works to be done on it, it needs to be a complete replacement.

So

All right.

Well, first, let's see.

If you're a member of the public and you have questions, please raise your hand or press star 9 if you're calling in.

I had one.

No.

Clearly, in this elevation drawing,

here, we do show an existing window that is there and it certainly appears to always have been a window, not a doorway.

Great.

And a question, if I may.

I visited the site, and as I believe, that porch cannot be seen from Park Street.

That is correct.

It sits within the crook of the building here.

So perhaps from an angle here, you can, but there's also a very large shrub right here.

Again, please raise your hand.

OK.

All right.

Yeah, I'll just say that, you know, initially when we first reviewed this, I had some questions about the necessity of removing this piece and what role it might have played in the history of this structure.

I think given the added information, I feel that it gives us a little bit more

cause to approve it.

I have a question for Mr. Dreyfus.

Since finding out nearly a year ago that this porch, there was some question about its historic connection to the house and that it could vary and there were members that felt like it was historic and that it's been there since 1929, which makes it historic.

No, nothing was done.

It's been in, as Ms.

Germano, one of the neighbors pointed out in her email, it was, she called it derelict condition before the tenants bought it.

So I disagree completely with where this is going.

This is an important porch.

It's historic.

The gentleman who built this house lived here until the 1950s.

There was no major change to the building in the 1920s.

And we know by the Sanborn maps that it's been here since the 20s.

And it faced a road, the side road.

It was an important part, elevation of the house.

as the bowed window of the dining room on that elevation that indicates for that side.

And not doing anything to protect it in the meantime is called demolition by neglect.

And this should not be torn off.

It's a convenience.

And it's important to the original layout of the house and to the entrance to the house.

It violates our demolition.

So we have two obviously very different viewpoints on this.

Maybe a straw poll just to see where we are if we want to continue discussion or make a motion.

Could you just raise your hand if you're in favor of approval of the application?

That's myself, Cheri, Ron, Tim, Breck, Sonia.

So James and Jody, I believe you two are, am I correct that you two are the only ones who are in favor of denial?

Does anyone want to discuss this further or should we move to a motion?

Jody, I don't want to cut you off, I'm sorry.

I did, yes.

Okay, is this porch not salvageable?

Is it what?

I mean, I don't really, I think, yeah, I think it's probably salvageable.

I don't think that I think that's, I mean, anything salvageable with enough money.

I think, really, it's more a question of,

I mean, I think this is always a conundrum with the older house, with houses in general nowadays is that, you know, it's like it starts out as a colonial ends up as a Queen Anne.

But... And I'm not trying to put you on the spot, Tim.

I'm questioning the engineer's assessment.

I have salvaged far worse things than this before.

I disagree completely with the engineer's report.

So I don't want that to be, you know,

And Tim, I wasn't putting you on the spot about what your feelings are about this.

I think it's salvageable.

But yeah, I mean, it's maybe a little bit like George Washington's axe.

I don't support demolition because of the poor shape that the structure may be in.

Mr. Leandro would say that I support it because I don't feel that this porch is an important significant part of the district, nor do I think that the features are

are special or notable compared to all of the other significant and notable features on this property.

I mean, this house is important.

There's a lot of things that are unique about it.

It's the only colonial revival that's made of wood, but I do not believe this porch is original.

We do know that in 1929, there was

some sort of structure there.

From the Sanborn map, there are no stairs shown.

So what kind of structure was there and what kind of, we know it was a either slate or tin roof according to the Sanborn map.

We know it was one story.

This landing is actually one and a half stories off of the ground.

I did do a site visit as others did.

But I would support demolition of this because I don't think that this landing and stairs show any significant features that relate either to the property that it's attached to nor to the district.

I do think that that cornice jutting into the bowed siding tells me that it was a later addition.

I just can't believe any architect or builder who built

This very attractive property and structure would do that at the get-go.

So I don't think it's original.

I do think that it's old.

I don't think it's notable.

And I do think that I would support demolition of it under our guidelines.

Well, I did want to just sort of chime in a little bit.

I think part of it for me is that it's a little bit, it's vestigial, it's on a secondary street.

I don't think it's, it doesn't enhance the building in any way, but I think Julie recording it, certainly making clear that it was there, that I think it's important to the timeline of the house to acknowledge that it was there, but I don't feel that it is.

intrinsic to the historic integrity of the house, but I think having it recorded is conversely, you know, the one that was the house off by the court where that doctor's office was, that was such a significant space on so many levels, even though again, it was pretty goofy, relatively speaking for the house.

But I felt like that had more, you know, this is almost like, I guess my equivalent would be

Are we, you know, once we work our way around handicap access with biometrics and all that in 20 years, you know, is our handicap access points going to become, you know, historic?

I don't really think so.

And I think this had that kind of, there's an overlay of just pure functionality to this that, you know, I think it's interesting, but I don't think it's critical and it clearly sticks in the owner's craw too.

And we're not particularly,

You know, we want to encourage people to take good care of their houses, not feel like, you know, we're going to make them jump through hoops at things that seem somewhat arbitrary, for lack of a better word.

That's my perception.

And I understand where the Jody's coming from 100%.

I'm ready with a motion, if the chair would recognize me.

Having considered the standards set forth within the city code, including the city design guidelines for rehabilitation, I move to define that the proposed exterior alteration and demolition satisfy the BAR's criteria and is compatible with this property and other properties in the downtown ADC district.

And the BAR approves the application as submitted.

I would say that just to make sure that

Submittal includes the restoration of the siding as noted in the most recent materials that the applicant sent to us, that sort of what was in the red hatched on the materials to make sure that the place where the cornice penetrates can be repaired and restored, restored being an important word to me.

And I would also ask that the applicant owner document

Thank you.

Jeffrey, is that, are you, Jeff and Mr. Tennant, is this okay with the documentation?

You know, I'll ask Mr. Warner just what we have documented in the past.

It does seem like the photographs with the submission are extensive.

And if those would go into this file and be kept for a while in the city records, that probably would be sufficient.

I'm fine.

As I stated, I'm fine with what they've done.

Just so I know you still need to vote, just so you know, when we have a partnership with Preservation Piedmont on things that are demolished or razed, they have a permanent archive

through UVA.

So when these things are submitted, they are also archived and maintained in that way.

I think we already have a second.

OK, then I will call a vote.

Mr. Schwartz?

Yes.

Mr. Gastinger?

Aye.

Mr. Moore?

Yes.

Mr. Bailey?

Yes.

Mr. Zehmer?

No.

Ms.

Lewis?

Aye.

Ms.

And so

That passes, Jeff.

Mr. Tennant, if you could pull down the sign, I appreciate that.

And I just want to add that Jeff and Mr. Tennant, thank you.

Just so we're clear too on when we look at things in an ADC district or an IPP, it's all four sides, 360 degrees of a building.

So there's really, you know,

We often get calls and people say, well, I'm doing it on the back.

You can't see it.

Doesn't matter.

It still comes in.

It's only in the historic conservation district that we've diminished the importance or we don't review what's not visible.

OK, the next project up.

Well, I'll re-add him later.

Thank you.

All right, so we're on to 731 Locust Avenue.

This is a good example of one where we would, I should have stuck this on the consent agenda to be honest.

So this is a COA request.

It's within a historic conservation district.

This is 731 Locust Avenue.

constructed in 1917.

It is in the Martha Jefferson Historic Conservation District and it is a contributing structure.

It's a two-story, two-bay hipped roof.

It's stucco.

It has central cross gables with box cornice and returns.

The hip roof porch encompasses the entire facade and wraps around the north elevation.

The porch is supported by simple Tuscan columns and balustrade.

The main entrance is in the north bay of the front facade.

A two-story addition and attached screen and porch are located at the rear.

There have been no prior requests for this address.

The request is fairly simple.

There is an existing standing seam copper roof on the house, on the main house, on the porch, and on the addition to the rear.

And due to its installation, they'll be replacing that on the

and its entirety except for the front porch.

And on the main house or the main portion as is described, replace the standing seam copper with a standing seam painted metal.

On the back portion, which is the addition, replace the standing seam copper with asphalt shingles.

And there's replacing the eave-mounted gutter and downspouts as needed.

And there's

I highlighted the image in the staff report, but you can see, so nothing on the porch.

The main portion of the house, the original house would be put back into any seam metal and the rear in asphalt.

And normally within a historic conservation district, I wouldn't even, the back roof section wouldn't even be reviewed, but since this is all one submittal, we'll put it all together.

And

The relative to the request, the BAR, consider allowing asphalt shingles in an entire roof.

The applicant did ask that I raise that.

I think I expressly can't support that because one of the main features that the folks in when they established the district, the people in the Martha Jefferson neighborhood, they identified standing seam metal roofs as one of the architectural character defining features that they wanted to see preserved.

So you all can discuss that option, but that's my suggestion on that.

And then finally, the guidelines for projects within a Historic Conservation District are by design less rigid than an ADC or for an IPP.

The overlay is intended to preserve the character defining elements of the neighborhoods and to assure that new construction is not inappropriate to that character while minimally imposing on current residents who may want to upgrade their homes.

So within a historic conservation district, there are buildings that may easily qualify for ADC district or as an IPP.

In fact, there are some IPPs within the conservation districts.

But regardless of that, in evaluating proposals within conservation districts, we'll remind the BAR that you only apply the design criteria for a conservation district.

I know that's long-winded, but it needs to be said.

So with that, I think it's pretty straightforward.

Do you have any questions?

You're on mute.

All right, then do we have any questions from the public?

Again, it's not visible.

It's behind.

Yeah, I see that the owner, Roberta Williamson, is raising her hand.

The house addition, the two story addition in the back was added in 1995.

The porch off of that addition was added in 2002.

If that helps.

Wow.

No, the original house, the original house, there was very little roof left on the house.

There were gaping holes in the roof.

And so we put a new, we put a roof on the house that had to be replaced when the addition was built in 95.

It was in shreds.

It was blamed on the maple trees, but be that as it may.

And this roof that was placed on the addition in 95 was replaced with the porch addition because everything leaked.

And I wish that Michael had brought some of the pictures of how the

How the roof has leaked to the inside of the house since the last replacement.

That's all.

I just wanted to clarify because there was something in the staff report.

It says that the staff recommends approval of the asphalt shingles on the back roof of the house, but then it goes on to say, which includes the rear portion of the main roof.

And Mike, when I talked about this, so there's I may have left a note in there inadvertently.

I think I did because Michael, I see the there's the the rear triangle on the main roof.

And I'd suggest that if it helps, you know, that if there's a it helps with your budget, you can asphalt that.

Maybe that's a way to do it.

I changed the image.

I didn't change the text.

Robert, go to the color graphic on the staff report.

Please.

So the application is for what's shown on the screen, but the applicant just wants to bring up the question in case we'd be OK with it to do the entire roofing asphalt.

My, I just have a question and it's really for Michael.

The trees aren't a concern.

It's the poor quality installation on the roof.

That is what's causing our it's and it's supposed to be a double lock standing seam metal roof.

And it is a single slot standing seam metal roof.

So

In numerous, numerous locations, there's water finding its way into the house.

All right, well, are there any comments from the public?

Is there anybody who would be amenable to the asphalt on the entire roof?

Just get that out of the way.

I'd rather not.

I think it's a little funny how the guidelines are

and conservation districts on why you can rip all the trim off the house, change off windows.

I think you could probably rip the siding off and redo it.

But it is pretty clear that standing seametal roofs are part of this.

So I checked the conservation district guidelines that are not just for Martha Jefferson.

And it said, let's see.

I think under building materials, yeah, long lasting durable and natural materials are preferred, including brick, wood, stucco, cementation, siding, and standing seam metal roofs.

Of course, the languages all should encourage things like that.

I say it all the time, we need to, I'm going to forget, but at some point, if we're ever updating guidelines, the language in these might be good to look at.

All right, what about asphalt shingles on the rear roof?

Who would be in support of that?

I think that's easy.

Thank you.

I'm sorry, Mrs. Williams.

Sounds like you got some bad luck.

I'm really sorry.

Is there any further discussion we need to have?

I don't think the guidelines actually specify the hips and ridges.

We do like them to be not large and chunky, but I don't think that's actually in the guidelines.

I was just going to say the other thing is that, you know, technically copper wasn't really, copper is a late 20th century

Fixation on the part of Charlottesville and Albemarle County.

Yeah, yeah.

I'll make a motion.

Having considered the standards set forth within the city code, including the architectural character defining features for this district, which is the Martha and Jeffers Station District, I moved to find that the proposed roof replacement and that would be standing seam metal on the main roof and asphalt shingles on the back roof are compatible with this property and other properties within this district and that the BAR approves the application as submitted.

with a mere suggestion that there be no chunkiness on the eaves and ridges for Mr. Moore.

Thank you.

I'll call a vote.

Mr. Schwartz?

Yes.

Mr. Gastinger?

Yes.

Mr. Moore?

Mr. Bailey.

Yes.

Mr. Zehmer.

Aye.

Ms.

Ms.

And Mr. Leandro.

Aye.

Passes.

Everything's good.

Michael, hope that helps and pull that sign down wherever Robert put it out front of the house.

Ms.

Williamson.

It's on a telephone pole across the street.

I have a leaky roof too.

So I'm

I would present on it.

That's the way the city does everything.

That's right.

Yeah.

I don't know what they did.

You know, someday I'm going to have you all over here.

And if you can explain to me how the pieces and parts fit together, I'll buy you all the wine you want.

It is a,

It is a confusing place.

But yes, my roof leaks.

I have to replace it.

But that's like $35,000.

And I mean, I guess now that our little one is done with college, we can start putting money into the house.

Thank you.

We have.

Fred.

And this is a B-A-R, or B-A-R, of course it is.

This is a certificate of appropriateness request for, I believe it's now has an address of two, what is it now?

I think, yeah, 230 West Main Street.

And this is otherwise known as the code building.

Also what you'll notice is in lieu of kind of continuing

original BAR numbers.

This is a new request.

This is a separate request for this project.

And code building was initially encompassed multiple structures at 215 West Water Street, 218, 220 West Main, and 230 West Main.

Site is now a single parcel, 230 West Main, except for the preserved facade at 218, 220 West Main.

which was constructed in 1901.

The entire project is new construction.

This request was the reason it has a BAR number of October.

That's what the 10 is in the middle.

But Mr. Wolf asked me to pull it from the agenda prior to the meeting.

So this is the first time you're seeing it.

There's a request to install a street level

metal gate at or near the Water Street entrance to the code buildings in our courtyard.

And I looked at, and I included in the staff report, some of the more recent similar requests for the installation of security type gates was one at 500 Court Square with Monticello Hotel, which you all approved a year and a half ago.

In 2004, the BAR approved a security gates in the brick arcade along North First Street for the First Methodist Church.

And for both projects, staff presented the design guidelines for walls and fences, which is applicable, so we think it's applicable for this request.

Additionally, staff suggests the BAR refer to the design guidelines for street level design materials and textures that may be helpful.

Mr. Wolfe, I think, has provided some additional information about color and detail.

Excuse me.

And as I noted, the gate will likely require an amendment to the site plan, including reviews for compliance with zoning, building code, public safety requirements, et cetera.

So just to be clear, the PAR may approve this.

The construction of the gate will still be subordinate to what's required for the site plan and any building permit requirements.

And in the event that those reviews result in anything that significantly alters this design, we may require that this come back to the BAR to review those changes.

So just laying out that possibility for you all.

With that,

OK.

Sure.

Yes.

Hi.

Good evening.

This is Weird.

Nice to see everyone.

If I can start by just pointing out, we have taken and run this past Brian Haleska, who said that there would be no site plan amendment required.

So that's good.

OK.

I've also worked closely in speaking with Francis Vineyard, just making sure we understood

The implications from a building code standpoint, particularly this obviously could impact egress and so we made sure that we had that covered.

That all being said, you know, this has been a tremendous project and we have been moving along at a good clip and everything's going very smoothly.

One of the great things that we were excited about in this project when we designed it was the owner's willingness to commit

to such an important kind of site amenity for the building, but also to be shared with the community.

And as such, I would start by saying we did not design this space to close it off.

We want it to be used.

We want it to function the way we had hoped.

We love the fact that it could improve connectivity between the mall and Water Street.

So it has all types of great benefits to the project.

That being said, as I wrote in our intro, security has always been some concern on this, particularly when you open up and expose the private site internally, the courtyard to public traffic and particularly traffic, I think late hours after hours overnight.

And so we've been thinking about different ways to tackle this.

And of course,

As we got further into design and construction documents, we have consultants that have been working with us on a whole number of things, not the least of which are security consultants just talking about how we manage traffic in and out of the building, how we manage and monitor traffic on the site.

And with their suggestion, the owners became quite convinced that it was important to be able to have

At least as a preemptive measure, the possibility of being able to limit passage through the site overnight and after hours late at night.

So I'd like to begin by just saying it's our goal that this would be built and installed and never closed.

But we won't know until this is open.

It's going to be a new kind of space.

It's a new kind of building and I think that

The ability to monitor how that goes and then from time to time, if it's needed for the owner to have the flexibility to to limit passage through their site was important to them.

They have committed to, and I think this is important that you know

on any given day, whether it's a weekday or weekend, the gate would be left open.

If it were to be closed as part of some process or need, it would certainly be open during the hours that people would be downtown using the mall socializing.

So it's not just work hours, but it would include after hours when people were using the movie theater and going to dinner and things like that.

The other thing that I think is important to note is just that

The character and the tenants in this building are not going to be, it's not going to be a typical nine to five office building in and of itself.

It's got a variety of tenants doing a number of different types of businesses, many of which will work late into the evening and early early in the morning.

And so just as a matter of the building functioning and functioning for its own users, that can't be closed.

But we took this approach realizing that A, that the mall is a very special streetscape and we did not want to put anything physical there.

but we felt like putting something at the water street edge would be a successful way to provide a visual deterrent to signal or signify to somebody that passage through the space was not permitted when that gate is closed and we'll probably have some type of signage or some type of very discreet thing down at the mall but it seemed like a reasonable way to make that

to limit the passage through the site after hours and overnight and help the owners feel comfortable that if they need to in the future, they'll be able to address security concerns with people being on their property or passing through it.

That's it.

And hopefully, Jeff, we didn't scroll all the way down to it, but I know in the PDF that I'm looking at here, we've got

Yeah.

In essence, the gate will match the color of the metal cladding on the building and the fins, all of which have been approved previously.

The goal is for this to be discreet in and of itself as much as something that's 10 by 10 can be.

And, you know, we look to pick up important sort of datums and lines in the building facade that were already existing when we determined its height and everything else.

the previous scheme, which we just, the engineering of the pivoting gate panels that then within it had a pivoting door was just too much for everyone to tackle on the engineering side.

So it's a steel structure painted two by three, two frame with a three-eighths inch by one and a half inch steel solid bar pickets.

Can I say one other thing, just in case anybody has any Andrew Benanti, who is a owners rep and, you know, in charge of the project from the development team, CSH is also attending the meeting.

Great.

I am a little curious, it sounds like you haven't actually figured it out yet, but the signage you would put at the mall, you said discreet.

I don't.

I think that we're working with Econograph and Gropen and they are doing a signage package.

So I assume it'll have something to do with that.

But I don't at this point even know if, I think if it's needed, it may be a temporary sign that gets put out there and then taken back home.

I don't know that would be permanently affixed to anything.

It would be, it could be something as simple as, you know, when you go to the park, it says, you know, the park is closed after dusk, or the park is closed from this hour to this hour.

Something that just tells somebody, you know, this semi-public space is now closed, you know, if you're not, if you're not a tenant in the building, so.

Hey, Fred.

I, as you know, you're well, really well, you can hear me all right.

Can you guys hear me?

Okay.

Fred, you guys, you know, what our capacity to really affect long term operations is pretty limited or non existent.

And I guess the question is there's nothing really, if we were to approve this, that would keep either the current owner or a future owner from also closing this gate and never opening it.

I would let the owner speak to that.

I don't think, as I said at the beginning,

given the value of that space and given the importance that the owners placed on that as one of the amenities of not just the building, but as something that I think Jeffrey and his team see as a sort of, as an amenity that they're creating that's an urban gesture back to the city.

I can't imagine that there would ever be a desire for that.

It's just not in the spirit of what we've done.

I mean, the fact

The fact that there could be a need for it, I think, is probably highly limited and questionable, but it would be virtually impossible, not impossible, to go back later and try to retrofit this in versus build it in and engage with the structure now that we have at the time that we're doing it.

It actually makes more sense to put it up now and just simply never use it than to try and come back and retrofit it in.

But I can't, you know, all I can do is say what I've been told by those guys, which is in an ideal world, this thing won't ever be shut.

But if we find that we have an issue at two in the morning with people feeling safe or unsafe coming out of their workspace,

because people are flying through there and it's turned into something that it's not intended to be, which is a communal space for the enjoyment of the community, the citizens of Charlottesville and the tenants of the building.

They need ways to be able to manage that, I think, as part of their private property.

And I think what we're trying to do and try very hard to do with that design was to make something that's

as transparent as it could be while achieving what they needed to achieve so that we did not disrupt or lose the visual connection through and the transparency that we have through that space between Water Street and the mall.

And I think that actually we had a long discussion about why you wanna do it at both ends.

And I knew full well

Doing something like this on I think the mall side, which I tend to consider more of the front of our site, was certainly not in the spirit of what we were doing, but doing it on the Water Street side next to our service elevator and our loading dock and our garage entrance.

Seems like if there's a back or a more service oriented side to the building that this was the side that it made sense to try and tackle the problem and then achieve what we could by again, as I said, you know, sending that sort of visual signifier clue to somebody who's a pedestrian using the mall who might just say, oh, we can't go up there tonight.

The gate's closed, which, you know, is it

It's a more subtle way of telling somebody, no, you can't come in here.

You said it would be difficult to install later.

Is it possible to install the attachment points now and the gate later?

It may be.

I mean, we're so we're not necessarily what we're doing is we're embedding the vertical posts.

So they are flush with our cladding, which is brick on one side and metal on the other.

So of course,

It's a gate and not even can the two sides be the same.

So we got two different details there.

But that post goes down and it'll have a plate that goes into the structural deck that's below the pavers.

And that portion of the design won't be visible, but it's gonna have a serious base plate and some gusseting and some other stuff.

It may be possible to do something like that.

I think that from the owner's perspective, if they determine somewhere down the line in the first six or 12 months of being open that they do need to close it overnight, I'm guessing they probably won't.

They'd like to have the opportunity to be able then to do that as opposed to wait the several months to turn around and then have something fabricated and installed.

I think given the space, it's a generous space.

It's 21 feet wide.

It's almost 20 tall.

So there's room to work, but working in that space will be a lot easier doing it now before all the

platting and everything else is up and the pavers are in.

And then you're trying to put weight on the paver system with some type of genie lift and other stuff.

I have a question and this may be premature, but do you have any idea of what kind of security monitoring they're planning to do?

Is it going to be permanent?

They do have some cameras.

So there is video monitoring and they are going to have some security detail overnight, I believe.

Andrew can correct me, but

from a management standpoint.

I don't know if it's 24 hours a day, but certainly they'll have somebody there who, you know, gives them the potential if they need to ask somebody not to loiter or whatever.

I have a question.

What's the

Yeah, so originally what we had tried to do there, so the reasoning is to prevent somebody from reaching through and being able to grab the panic bar and just disengage it and open the gate from the water street sign and just walk in.

So this is a little bit of, you know, in the sense that those gates, those doors have to work as exits.

Anybody who's already in the courtyard space needs to be able to get out without any special party.

So, but, you know, somebody pointed out, we had picket space more closely, so somebody's finger's going to get through.

And then somebody said,

Well, what happens if somebody just takes a piece of string or something and throws it over and pulls it like that?

I was like, great.

Okay.

Well, where you activate that, it's going to be biased towards the side where it latches.

And the spacing on the pickets, I think you'd have to get your hand through and around.

Gotcha.

And then the only other question I had was,

Do you have a sense of what the caster is going to be made out of?

Just, and really it's more a maintenance type of thing.

Interesting.

You should say that because our structural engineer has said, uh, I think that the, um, the diagonal bracing, uh, the rod that you see is going to do enough work that he felt comfortable.

It could hold up that.

that corner without the caster.

And so it may be something that would go away.

And I agree with you, there are casters that have a spring mechanism so that they are able to adjust a little bit with slight variations in elevation or, and certainly that would also help.

I was just worried about,

Rick?

So because of the panic bar, you really can move through this at any time of day, no matter what, going from north to south.

That is true.

Right.

You need to be a rule follower and see the sign at the mall saying that the courtyard is closed.

What it does prevent is somebody coming from Water Street in at the top and cutting down.

I don't want to say it's an unfortunate byproduct of the building code.

It's a necessary byproduct of the building code that we can't lock that space off unless the building were closed and given the way the building is going to operate.

I don't know that we can ever count on it being closed.

I mean, it's fundamentally a sign, really, right?

And I guess it would choke down.

You couldn't have a whole bunch of people come through at once, but it's fundamentally a sign saying stay out.

It's not a bona fide

Should we move on to comments?

So I just have a question for the applicant.

We have a pretty on target guideline and that's on walls and fences.

I think it's the elephant sitting in the room right now.

10 says if street front fences or walls are necessary, desirable, they shall not exceed four feet in height from the sidewalk or public right-of-way.

We have a sidewalk restored there and it is a public right-of-way.

And

Even if we say that this is a side or rear yard and give it a little bit of ease, that height is still limited to six feet.

And from what I can tell, this is nine feet high, which is double the amount that our guidelines, double plus a foot, the amount of our guidelines would allow.

So I just wondered if the applicant could tell us how we should ignore that or why we should ignore that guideline.

Thanks.

Just to be upfront, I think that the overall height, because we're picking up, like I said, certain datums that are baked into the building with mullions in the curtain wall and other things, so the overall height is ten six and the door is at nine.

So, and part of what is driving the height of this thing is the sort of the scale of that opening, the public scale, which is rather monumental in itself.

And we have a, we have a first floor level, which down on the mall is, is 17 feet tall.

So, you know, there's, there's a lot and the things that we've done internally to the building that then start to make a four foot gate, not only

maybe impractical for the limitation of somebody moving through the space, but also, I think, seem oddly out of scale with the rest of the building.

In other words, like a four-foot gate or fence might make sense as a distinction between a yard and a sidewalk or something like that.

But I think if somebody wanted to hop over that, they would hop over that pretty easily.

I did not view this as a fence, I guess.

And in fact, when I look at other gates that we see that are used around town in many instances, often a little bit smaller openings that they're closing off than this.

they're typically taller than four.

When you think about service alleys and things like that, or the gate that prevents the opening that is connected to the back of say the Paramount theater that's over on, I think that's third street.

I would call it an architectural element.

I mean, a fence, to my mind, is not basically a part of the building.

I mean, this would be like taking St.

Paul's Cathedral and making all the doors four feet high or something.

The scale thing is really an issue there.

But I was thinking the First Episcopal on Second Street, where

Madison designed those iron gates into the side yard.

I think those are eight feet or something like that, for instance, those cast iron gates.

And it was, I mean, basically it was treated more as a doorway than a fence function.

And it was, you know, directly attached to the building.

At Court Square,

I know that thing, particularly the almost used to be the drive through was, I think, might have been 14 feet tall.

So the idea of an enclosure, yeah, it does step away.

I think the idea using the gates and fences more fits with the what's the material, what's its shape, how's it fitting in there.

But I would agree that for these

I would say that by definition fences don't usually move.

This is on hinges and has casters.

But we don't have a guideline that goes to movable gates or security gates.

I think it's a valid question, Cheri.

Can I interrupt a second?

Yes, we're still in questions.

Any other questions at the moment?

Please raise your hand if you have any comments and I'll unmute you.

I don't see anything.

I would just say that when you look at the plan view of this, I think the fact that it's held back from the facade of the building makes the height not as much of a problem for me.

It would be up in your face if it was right there at the facade, right at the opening.

But the fact that they've held it back, I think, acknowledges that

You know, I guess one thing, and Fred, I'm sure you guys considered this, I suppose one option would be, you know, if you didn't, if you wanted something that just didn't appear, you could also do a, and I'm not saying it's aesthetically a great idea, but I mean, you could technically put in a roll down door with doors in it, but I don't know how you do the, you know, you wouldn't be able to get the height in it.

Yeah, we considered, I think that might have been the owner's presumption that that's where this would have gone at first.

I just was curious.

So I didn't want those two things to come off too similar.

And I think that they,

Carl, welcome back.

Okay, all right, good.

So we skipped ahead, thank you.

I'd just like to say, considering that

The sole purpose for this gate is security, that it could have been a whole lot worse to provide just a solid door for security, period.

And I'm very grateful that the architect and the owner has decided to do something that's attractive and expensive.

and compatible with the design.

I'm going to disagree.

I don't support this as is.

I think that when we were reviewing this building at the beginning, we too were very

appreciative and recognized the immense contribution that the passage through this building was going to make to the city, that the public accessibility of that courtyard and passing through to Water Street was something that was always applauded, I think, at every presentation.

And if there was some way to know that this was something that was only going to be used after 2 a.m., 6 a.m.,

I think we all might have a different feeling about it, but we really have no way of knowing how this could be used by future owners or even with the assurances of the current owners.

And it would really dramatically impact the visual character of Water Street.

There's the Water Street

facade already is pretty, I think we throughout the review of this building we were concerned about its scale and its severity.

and we weighed that against some of the elements of the building like the passage through and like the way that it stepped down to the mall and the courtyard.

And I just feel like in lieu of really good guidelines that give us something to go on related to security fencing, I think this is really something quite different.

We look at some of the guidelines that we do have about

the impacts of proposed changes on the site, adjacent buildings, structures, public space.

And I think this says something that's quite cold and off-putting to our public spaces, potentially, especially when closed.

I do think it's designed well to be very minimally impactful when open.

We just don't know when that will be.

I'll jump in.

And I completely agree with Breck on this one.

I mean, it's not that I don't trust you or the applicant to want to make this open as much as possible.

But again, we have no control over that.

We have no control if the project is sold in the future.

And I think, you know, to add to Breck's point about Water Street, you know, during a time of night when the street is probably it's

At its scariest, this fence could potentially be closed, or the gate would potentially be closed, making that street even more foreboding, when instead having a big wide opening right there, I think would go a long way to making the street feel more active during those late hours of the night.

um we do and I'm sorry if someone has already mentioned this but I know there are some examples around town where we have approved gates um you know I guess in the a long time ago before me the um there was a gate approved at the um uh First United Methodist Church um around their little playground um we have approved a gate in front of um the uh the bar at the um

on Court Square, Court Square Tavern, and also in their little alleyway down to their trash enclosure.

I think the difference there is, and we've brought this up before when someone, the Paramount asked if they could gate off their front entrance.

And the difference is that those other spaces where these have been approved are clearly private spaces or they're clearly utilitarian and service spaces or in the case of the bar, it's a door.

You know, I think there's another gate over in front of a hair salon on the mall.

But again, it's a doorway.

You've only got a couple feet until you hit an actual door.

This is clearly a public space or intended to appear as a public space.

It's not a place you would expect to find a large gate like this.

So that's where I don't think it qualifies for an exception to our guidelines.

And Cheri made a good point about the guidelines that she read off.

I mean, those are

Maybe it's not exactly a fence, but it violates those guidelines, the spirit of those guidelines quite significantly.

So yeah, I'll stop babbling, but that's kind of where I'm at.

Sure, Fred.

Yeah, sorry.

When they are considered 500 court square offenses to charity, it's

I think my internet is a little weird.

Okay, good.

I know when I was last in the BAR, we also approved the Sallieport that's next to the Levy Opera House.

It was being used as the JNDR court there, as the court.

And then we approved the gate at the back of the Albemarle County office building, actually, on High Street.

They created a Sallyport there to transport detainees.

So we've looked at these before and we have applied, from what I can tell, the fence criteria.

I'm not saying it's perfect, but I think the fence criteria here is applicable because this, I mean, it is private space.

This owner could close this forever and it will be a fence.

There are no guarantees about

hours that it will or won't be open.

I tend to agree with my colleagues.

It's really not so much about the materials and what it does.

It's really about the lack of pedestrian flow and the promise of this application.

And I'm looking at minutes from the August 15th, 2017 meeting that was just a preliminary discussion.

I know that's not binding on the applicant, but I think

there was this sense from the beach saying they wanted this space building to Australians, not just building users, open it up to the sky, celebrate it more on Water Street.

And I mean, you've got a street wall on Water Street that's prettier right now.

And I laid it down water and I found this, trying to get back to the mall, maybe I found this,

West Main, somewhere.

And I find this closed.

I've got to go around the block.

So I concur.

I do think our guidelines go to flow, pedestrian use, connectivity.

And I think this gate flies in the face of that.

I simply, and this is, I'm not trying to argue one way or the other here, but I was just going to point out that one of the precedents we looked at when we were talking about this, which is another public space in New York, if you know Paley Park, Paley Park has a large gate that is at its entry.

And it's a pocket park with a beautiful LA of trees and a wonderful water feature at the end of the back wall.

But there's an example of a public space that is controlled to some degree by the ability to close it at certain times.

And that was a precedent.

And in fact, at one point was very literally the details we were looking at for how the gate could function.

So I just, I hear what everyone's saying.

I'm not trying to argue or push back on that.

I genuinely feel as you have said that this is an important amenity and one of the great aspects of the project and that we're very proud of the connectivity and openness.

And all I can say is that I believe that it is our client's intentions not to then subvert

what was a considerable move to leave that much space unbuilt and create that semi-public space.

At the same time, I fully understand their desire to try and control if need be movement and passage through what is still private property for them.

So it's kind of, I think at one point we thought that could be done more with manpower

staffing, but I think that the realities if we've, you know, that there could be times where you might need to be able to be, to have some more robust way to limit passage through.

And I, that's, I think what is in the thinking behind this.

It's not, it's not to then come take away or subvert what is, you know, a very sincere urban gesture to begin with is as a kind of

Just to explain something of how I'm seeing the application, what I could tell when this building first came to the BAR, since that time, our culture's view of security has changed.

We are now putting up planters around the university to keep cars from running into statues.

There's a different attitude, and I'm assessing and evaluating this application in light of that kind of attitude and the kind of caution that is now going into how we think about our public spaces.

And Jodie, is there a guideline that addresses security issues that gives us a little bit of, that would give us a little boost on that?

I think our ordinance does have language about public necessity.

I can look in the, while you guys keep talking, I'm going to look in the Secretary's standards, see if there's anything that addresses this type of thing.

But I think Jody's spot on.

We've got things that have changed.

But I think our guidelines are written to the extent of the design

the aesthetic, the visual aspects of a private space.

We do have guidelines for parks and things with the public facilities that we can control, but this is a private space.

So that's where I threw in also the street level design and hopefully that maybe provided some guidance.

But no, this is one of those,

The same thing with Quartz Square.

This is one of these where there's just not something clear.

So the easiest way I've just defaulted is to say, what does it do visually?

What does it achieve, not achieve, as far as an aesthetic related to this building and to this design?

So I personally would rather you stuck in a string of bollards or something.

But maybe you've got enough support.

I hadn't, because my computer blipped out.

I'm not sure who all spoke.

Right now, has everybody kind of made up their minds?

Who would be in favor of this application as it stands?

One, two, three, four, five.

Thank you.

Mr. Gastinger?

No.

Ms.

Ms.

Mr. Moore.

Aye.

Mr. Bailey.

Aye.

Mr. Zehmer.

Aye.

Mr. Leandro.

Aye.

And Mr. Schwartz.

Thank you.

I would just like to make this a comment.

involved when we were talking about that gate at First Episcopal.

And one of the things that they were claiming at the time was somewhat security derived because they have Tiffany windows on that side of the building that aren't visible from the street.

But they also were being a little coy about some of their logic anyhow.

But I think Jody's comment about having the ability to control bigger spaces right now does seem to be a bit problematic.

I mean, look at the whole thing that happened at Lee Park a couple years ago.

I mean, that was a mess.

So I mean, some of that may make sense from crowd control.

But I share everybody's fear that somewhere down the line, somebody post-Jaffrey is going to decide, oh, this is our private space.

Just offering from the Secretary of Standards, it's really written in the context of historic sites, historic structures.

It does not recommend against installing protective fencing bollards, stanchions, et cetera, only that they be as unobtrusive as possible and that they not negatively impact the historic character of the site.

So probably secretary of standards needs to be looked at as well, but all right.

It's on the construction fence.

There's a notice sign, so if you remove it.

All right.

Yeah.

All right, Fred.

Good night.

Yep.

He just texted me that he's

He said his house is moving.

So no sympathy for me.

So given that our chair is just, OK, shall we take a five minute bio break?

We can reconvene at 7.15.

We're taking a five minute break.

So, and since he had gotten booted, took that as a moment.

Yeah.

Thanks.

Yeah.

I can, I can reopen everything for the third time.

Oh.

Is it your cats that are disconnecting you?

Well, so the plug was loose and they like to pull the plug on the back of my computer and I apparently kicked it and just knocked it out entirely.

But there's also, I didn't realize this, a tiny little toggle switch on the back of my computer that is not the power button, but it does the same thing.

And they have flipped that before.

Are you just now seeing the attendees list, Carl?

Yeah.

It's always been there.

So Carl, are we having a grilled cat for the weekend?

I think I've got a recipe.

I tell you what, I've had something scratching

I don't you guys read my I was one of the winners in that two sentence story contest, a scary story contest and wrote about the scratching in my wall.

So.

I don't like Chinese dish with cat.

But I will say winning that did make me a published author.

And then the Seville had someone read it.

So I guess I'm also a playwright as well.

That's pretty cool.

It was odd being down in Clemson and like I said to some of you, the people had to just stand right next to you.

It was really odd to be next to people and actually

You know, being in the company of humans, I know it was dangerous, but it was just like it was almost refreshing in a sort of bungee jumping sort of way.

Well, it's not refreshing, but sort of that, you know, you know, you shouldn't do it and it's dangerous.

But yet, you know, you know,

I don't know.

You find out if the rope was bad.

That would be refreshing.

Good.

This is a COA request for 946.

Okay, 946 Grady Avenue.

This is the former Monticello Dairy building.

It is an individually protected property.

That's why you all have been reviewing it for the past few years.

The original central two-story portion of the building and one flanking portion of it were constructed in 1937.

The East addition was built between 1947 and 1964.

and then there was an additional West addition that was added in 1959.

So, and you all had prior, previously BAR has approved some of the reconstruction of some things, the restoration, the rehabilitation of the building and the new addition to the rear.

And a lot of that has been underway, some of it's completed.

This is a separate COA request for a portion of the Northeast

I'm sorry, northwest corner of the building.

Excuse me.

And the request is to modify some, reconfigure some openings on this north elevation, which is the top here, the existing Gravy Avenue facade to flip a door and a window from one opening to the other, not change the design of what's there.

And at the west elevation, that's along 10th Street.

That's what you see at the bottom of the screen, excuse me, to replace existing storefront entry and install a new entry in an existing opening.

So there will be no new openings, but the light configuration differs from what is there and what is there is what was approved.

However, the light configuration still aligns with the adjacent windows that aren't going to leave.

I looked at this and if you all in the end of my staff report, I looked at it in the context of what had been approved for these elevations and whether or not this significantly changed anything.

And I was on the side, on that 10th Street side,

that there's a door with a panel.

It's being replaced with a full height door, but still, like you said, maintaining the alignment of the lights.

I'm not concerned with that change.

This isn't replicating anything original.

And there is the one original window that's still there on the far.

Robert, if you'd go to the west elevation.

So there's the window, yeah.

The remaining window on the far left, that's original.

And the intent was to align the lights and the windows of the doors with that.

That's maintained.

So I'm OK as far as my recommendation with that.

And then on the north elevation, I think there was the question about we're essentially creating a new masonry opening and patching up

one that had been there.

But otherwise, as far as the alignment goes and using the original material, I'm okay with that.

I know some of you had asked about the changing of the masonry openings.

And I can't really offer an opinion on that.

I think it's probably subject to what the interior use is proposed for this, so that may be guiding some of this.

But I'll leave it at that, and if you have any questions, I can answer them.

Thanks, Jeff.

I think that was a pretty clear explanation.

As Jeff said, my office is working for the tenant of this quadrant of the building, the low portion on the northwest side of it.

And so this request and this idea to make this adjustment is born of the interior program that we're working on.

Of course, that was all absent.

when the kind of general design development of the building took place and all the work went into that design and then also getting approval from you all for where the building is.

well, for the current state of the approval.

And so our desire is to really just change where we have passage.

And this is in such a way that it reinforces some of the programmatic layout that's happening on the interior of the building.

We are

To the extent that you've reviewed and profiles and materials and colors, all those parameters would of course be maintained and duplicated.

The door system that's in place that would be relocated that you're seeing in the bottom of the screen now, that's all new construction, new material.

The windows themselves are original and those would be, I think they've already been given a good look from a window contractor, the door and window contractor.

They're good candidates for relocating those windows.

Those openings all have good quality storms on the interior.

And so all that stuff would just be switched over.

Let's see, so my kind of institutional knowledge of the development of the design and of course the process, the last time the building was before you for approval is a little bit outside of my scope of recollection or even involvement.

Joshua Batman, who is the project manager of this, he's with Stony Point Development who they're developing the project.

He's online now.

Well, let's see.

First, if there's any.

Thank you, Robert.

Are there any questions from the public?

Okay.

So it's shaking heads.

Are there any comments from the public?

Again, I don't see anything.

Yeah, I'd say this project has been exemplary in a lot of ways for the way that they've adaptively reused and rehabilitated the structure.

I think everything that's being proposed here is in concert with the spirit that it was restored in the first place.

I don't think it really damages that.

Well, if anyone, if no one disagrees, would anyone like to make a motion?

No.

Thank you.

Okay.

Having considered the standards, Robert, you'd think I've memorized this by now, but I dump it every time.

I didn't consider the standards set forth within the city code, including city design guidelines for rehabilitation.

Thank you.

Mr. Bailey.

Mr. Schwartz.

Yes.

Mr. Zehmer.

Aye.

Mr. Moore.

Aye.

Mr. LeHundro.

Aye.

Mr. Gastinger.

Aye.

Ms.

And Ms.

All right, Robert Nichols, if you find that the sign that

Robert Watkins put up if you could pull that down or ask the guys at the site to do that.

It's on a telephone post.

And before we move to the next one, I just want to comment that, you know, Breck, you said it well.

I've characterized to people when we talked about this current BAR and the prior is that we've had a lot of decisions where we're allowing the extended use of a building, we're allowing adaptation that

Oops, I kicked him out.

So no, I'm sorry, Robert.

That's right.

Well, but we got Jeff Dreyfus back.

Did you miss us?

You know, I knew I'm always guys off to excuse me.

I don't know.

Yeah.

Now it's just a

No, actually, I'll send you the photos.

It was so bizarre.

Everyone was just spread out in this giant hockey arena.

This is a COA request for 612 West Main Street, as they're calling it.

It's formerly at 602-616 West Main is the address.

And I want to

Make sure we're clear on that, that this is a COA request.

They have formally submitted an application.

And so this is, I'm not calling it a preliminary discussion, because that's not what it is, although we will get into how we can characterize the discussion.

The existing structure there was constructed between 1959 with

Editions up through 1973.

It's a concrete block automotive service building.

It is within the West Main Street historic, or West Main Street ADC district.

It is a non-contributing structure.

Important to emphasize that because the demolition of the existing does not require BAR review.

There, we have, the BAR reviewed this,

Back in April 2019, there was a preliminary discussion, if you will.

In June of 2019, the BAR reviewed the special use permit request, which was a function of additional residential density.

And the BAR recommended approval of that SUP, and city council ultimately did.

And the motion and I refer to that is that this redevelopment will not have an adverse impact on West Main Street ADC district relative to the special use permit request.

With the understanding that the massing is not final, and that must be further discussed, and it will require complete, full design review at a future BAR meeting, which process we're beginning now.

and then there were a series of conditions for that special use permit that you recommended and were included in the language that city council adopted.

That the garage entry shall not be accessed directly from the building street wall along West Main Street.

The building's mass shall be broken down to reflect the multi-parcel massing historically on the site as well as the West Main Street context using building modulation

The building and massing, this is a condition that the building and massing refer to the historic structures that existed there around it in this area.

That the Holsinger building be seismically monitored during construction and there is a detailed criteria that's included in the SUP that I included in the staff report.

And finally that there shall be pedestrian engagement with the street with an active, transparent and permeable facade at the street level.

As I said, in October 2019, council did approve that special use permit.

Then in January of this year, we did have an additional discussion with the applicant, primarily looking at the massing scale and some design elements.

And now it is back to you for further discussion.

So this is a COA request for construction of a new four-story mixed-use building.

The existing service station is not contributing, as I said, and demolition does not require COA.

I also noted that three prior meetings, the BAR has discussed this project with the applicants, which satisfies the statutory requirements for a pre-application conference.

This application is a formal request for COA.

And per the code, the BAR must take action within 60 days of the submittal deadline, which was three weeks prior to this.

And at this meeting, the BAR may defer the item to the next meeting.

However, at that next meeting, only the applicant may request a deferral.

And absent that request at that next meeting, the BAR must then take action.

And those would either be to approve, to deny, or to approve with conditions the requested COX.

And I've got a lot in here about the discussion.

It follows the language that we've used, for example, with 125 or 128 chancellor.

And similarly, we'll apply it when we get to later discussion about 125.

I've added a list of recommendations just for criteria that you might want to refer to and also

Jeff provided earlier today a list which I sent to Carl and just to kind of the, and Carl if you want I can circulate that, I just want, there was so much stuff flying, but the goals that the designer, the applicant would like to get out of this meeting, the things that they would like to touch on.

So I think there is acknowledgement across the board that you're not voting on a COA tonight, it's certainly within your right to do so,

Maybe the only thing that at some point discuss who would like to defer this if the applicant requested that deferral, then it can come back when they're ready.

If the BAR defers this to the December meeting, then it would have to come back next month.

So just so we're clear on that.

Again, we can review all that with discussion.

lawyers.

Mr. Chair, before we get started, in the interest of full disclosure, I need to state that I provide pro bono preservation advice, guidance to the adjacent landowner, First Baptist Church.

But I do not believe that I am receiving no financial

payment for it and have no financial interest in that relationship.

Mr. Dreyfus, you have anything to add?

When do I not?

Thanks for having me back.

I can probably say that the

the applicant's going to request deferral.

Really, this is in the spirit of receiving input as we continue to develop the project.

There was a hiatus since our, I guess it was our January discussion, a preliminary discussion, simply trying to get a better grasp on COVID issues, but also budget and building size, which I think we've narrowed down since then.

So we went ahead and applied for the certificate of appropriateness so that everyone knows we're serious about the project, moving forward with it.

And honestly, we do expect a bit of back and forth before we'll ask for a vote.

But tonight is really to bring some of you up to speed on the project for the first time.

but also to let you know the direction that we are taking the design and soliciting your input so that ultimately all of this is in the spirit that when we do come to a vote, we will have incorporated your input in a way that is acceptable by the time we get to that vote.

Knowing that the BAR is no longer doing partial approvals, we really want to get this whole thing right

So if you'll indulge me for a few minutes to run through the presentation that we provided you.

I've also got a few additional slides.

Design never stands still when you're on a schedule.

And so there's a little bit more of the project development that I can explain to you.

I will try to touch upon the things that we are hoping you can comment on tonight.

Obviously, you'll comment on anything and everything, and we encourage that.

But building massing.

One of the issues, we'll look at street elevations, side and rear elevations.

Oh, you're back.

Okay.

My internet connection.

Okay, what I will do only because I think the wind is playing havoc with my internet connection.

I'm not on the fast guys.

I'll stop my video if that's okay.

That may save a little bit of bandwidth for me.

So we'd like to touch on building massing, elevations, material options, even color scheme and some details.

So I'll share my screen.

Here we go.

So let's see, let me arrange my desktop a bit better here.

So you guys have already seen this part of the package where it's just the overview of the project.

If anyone has questions about any of this, please please jump in and slow me down.

I may go too fast, but as you know,

The church on the corner, the building owned by the church, their annex building is here in between the site and the church is an alley that belongs to the church.

It's not on the property of 612 West Main Street.

And then the property directly abuts 600 West Main Street that many of you helped us through.

and also adjacent to it are two contributing structures, what was once a mini mart here and also the Blue Moon Diner, which is still in existence and then further down the street is ABC Store and a commercial building on the corner.

Directly across the street is the Albemarle Hotel.

To give you an understanding of the building envelope that we are allowed to work within from the zoning ordinance, this building can only be four stories tall.

The first floor has a 15-foot minimum required height.

And then four floors up, the fourth story, there's a required step back from West Main Street.

The property line being here, there's a required 10-foot setback for the entire building from the property line, from the sidewalk.

And then at floor four, we need to step back 10 feet.

There is the angle that we're required to step back on the rear of the property.

Most of you know that the railroad tracks are back here.

And so,

This is simply the envelope that we're allowed to work within.

In plan, you can see it here.

It also abuts to the east an internal courtyard for 600 West Main Street.

Along here, you're probably also aware that this side of the former mini-mart is painted by a well-known artist, Faith 47.

We'll talk about that in just a few minutes.

That was approved by the BAR some time ago.

As we go up, so you can see here in plan, the 10-foot setback from the property line on the ground floor through the third floor, and then here we're showing the 10-foot step back required on the fourth floor.

Just as a point of note, there are going to be 41 units in the building before I forget to mention that.

So here's one of the Sanborn maps, 1920, showing some of the properties that were here.

You can see the Baptist Church here.

You can also see what is currently the Blue Moon Diner over here and Minnie Mart here.

So the red is simply the footprint of what's being proposed now.

Just a little bit of background for you all.

Our clients, as they think about the image of the building, the feel of the building, it's very different from 600 West Main Street.

The idea is quiet, calming.

We, on the interior, I know that that's not a part of the discussion, but really very serene interiors, even a bit of minimalism to it as we go forward.

Then as we, well, this also begins to, sorry, also begins to suggest that the type of color scheme that we're thinking of.

As we prepare a preliminary site plan, a little bit more of the specifics that we're thinking of here now.

So you can see that the mini-mart building here, the inner courtyard for 600 West Main Street.

We do hope to connect to that internal to the building.

We'll talk about that in a second.

But honoring the 10-foot setback along the property line here, we start to see the building facade right here, and then we step back at about 28

plus feet from the property line here, plus another three feet or so from the Mini-Mart building.

So we have about a 30 foot wide plaza.

And this is intended to be the entry for the residences.

So the intention here is that the retail, the whole front of the building, first floor front of the building is going to be retail, except for this portion that is the step back here.

will be the entrance for the residences.

Currently, just FYI, these are intended to be apartments, rental apartments, not condominiums.

And as part of that entry sequence, we are still retaining the

The building is not abutting the mini mart, we're not crossing the property line, but we are exposing this portion of the mural, which is the majority of the mural.

That portion which is on the step back of the mini mart is much less important to the composition as a whole.

It's really mostly flora and fauna.

So the thought here is that we will have a landscaped area here,

for the residents to come through, not walled, not gated, but set back from the street.

We're thinking there'll be a water feature in there.

I will say we've got a long way to go with the landscape design, but this is the intention at the moment.

And also thinking of a planter along the street that can allow for sitting, leaning against as people walk along.

Having entries, we'll get to the landscape in just a moment, but having

Limited entry areas through that planter to try to help focus on certain areas of the building.

Currently, as I said, the whole lower first floor is intended to be front part is intended to be retail.

So there'll be a complete retail presence there.

There will be a small service entrance over on this side for deliveries and for move in.

And the lower

The south portion of the ground floor, if I can figure out how to draw here, is going to be studio apartments.

You'll see that as we get further into it.

But other than that, it's retail with this corner for lobby entry for the residents.

And with the lobby entry for the residents being here, the hope is that we will also connect

with the interior courtyard to 600 West Main Street so that the two facilities can share amenities and residents can come and go from within the courtyard back here.

We keep going, very preliminary thoughts on landscape and I'll show some precedent images regarding these planters, but ways to allow

permeating the planters here.

These are just very preliminary ideas, but with retailers in here, not knowing how many retailers will be in here.

The intention is not to provide an open front on the entire thing.

I think that that would feel like a very large gap in the urban fabric, but trying to hold the edge with landscaping along the property line and then setting the building back.

We're in conversations right now about perhaps making the planter less deep in certain areas so that we might be able to accommodate some outdoor dining along there.

It really is not the intention at the moment that this is outdoor dining.

It's more just landscape area.

And then you can see here some of the images, just some of the precedents we're thinking about for the water, for the plantings.

You'll see some columnar trees that we're beginning to think about as part of the design.

even a large stone bench kind of at the center as a place for people to hang out and then some of the materials that we're thinking of for the planters.

A section through the building describes a little bit of what I was talking about regarding retail on the ground floor, stretching back probably two-thirds of the distance and then we are tucking, because of the height of the ground floor that's required,

the 15 foot minimum Florida, well, 15 foot minimum there.

We're working on actually putting studio apartments, lofts, I should call them, not studio apartments per se, but lofts, double height lofts in the back with some really nice views.

You'll see that as we go back.

The rest of the building on the south side steps back considerably.

These units would get incredibly deep and too deep to bring light into the spaces if we tried to fill this whole volume.

What you see here in terms of the buildable area

Let's see, this box here, if I can do it, this box here is really what's allowed.

The gray zone up above is what is allowed for an impertinence stairwell elevator, which we are going to have to have, but that's not really a part of the building massing.

So you can see how we begin to fill this up.

One thing to note is we are not building to the property line on the south.

We have a five foot six setback.

It has a lot to do with the fact that the railroad tracks complicate construction considerably.

So by staying back five and a half feet, we are not having to cross the property line and deal with the bureaucracy of a building within the railroads right of way.

That's just something to note.

Something I failed to mention also, we do have a parking garage here.

There is no entrance to the parking garage from this property.

If we go back to this site plan, most of you know that there is a parking garage at 600 West Main Street.

It's entered over here, and then the parking aisle is right down the center of that basement.

So we intend to take advantage of that and break through at the basement level

to connect the basement parking of 612 West Main Street to 600 West Main, eliminating one of the concerns that the BAR had, which was a large garage door on this Main Street elevation.

Let's see here, if I go back.

So some precedent images that we're looking at.

Simplicity, quiet as we can, sort of a rhythm to it,

As we look at some of these, color scheme begins to emerge, neutral tones, perhaps dark colors, whether dark bronze or black charcoal, and a lighter color, tan, off-white of some sort.

We're not there yet, but we're drawn to sort of the drama of the dark openings within the lighter framework of the building.

You can see here as one example of the precedent

The idea of the planter in front of the building as a kind of intermediate zone so that we're creating multiple spaces along the sidewalk for the experience, not just of passersby, but for perhaps people in the retail space.

These stone well out of our budget, but stucco is an option we'll talk about in a few minutes and perhaps some precast surrounds.

This is also probably stone.

But we also start to see some examples that are done in brick, lighter colored brick.

But again, sort of a simplicity to the layout of the windows and the openings.

Light colored brick would be ideal.

Frankly, light colored brick is out of our budget.

Within our budget is brick and stucco for the main materials, both of which we like.

If we were to do it in brick, we would like to paint the brick.

And that's a point of discussion we'd like to bring to the BAR.

Red brick, which is obviously the cheapest thing you can find in Virginia because there's so much of it, isn't really what we're going for here.

But we would like to paint the brick, which we know is not part of the guidelines.

We'd like to hear thoughts on that.

We prefer it over stucco, frankly, because of the texture that the brick can provide to the wall, exterior walls.

But this is something that we'd like to hear your thoughts on.

As we go further, entry doors for the residents, perhaps even for some of the service area right on the street, so that we get a sense of solidity to these.

And then also this

On the right is really just the idea of a simple courtyard or space that is nicely landscaped that leads to the door for the residents.

We're not, I said before, and I do mean we are not intending a gate in this instance prior to getting to the residents back there.

This was really more for the idea of the courtyard right off of the sidewalk.

A number of months ago, you all saw some studies from us about the front elevation and how to break it down, ways we were beginning to think about the massing.

We asked for your input and of those,

This sketch seemed to rise to the top for some of the members simply because of the modulation of the building in ways breaking it into bay.

That's a four bay, three bay, four bay modules along the street with the step back at the fourth floor.

And then also we were thinking at the time of setting back that area that would be the residence entrance

Well, actually, at the time, we weren't sure.

At that time, we weren't sure if the residence entry would be right on the street or not.

We prefer to have it slightly set back in the landscaped area.

So where are we now with the development and the thinking of the building?

I think this probably describes much of what we're looking at, trying to break the building massing down

into components here, here, and then a center portion that is set back by, at the moment, it's about a foot four there.

And then you see the fourth floor terrace, which is 10 feet back from all of that.

And then even further back, you can see that entrance portion to the residences.

We are looking at

A very open, glassy retail area.

Again, this isn't intended to be for one retailer, and it's not intended necessarily for five retailers.

That is yet to be seen, but it could be broken up into as many as five, perhaps more if we needed to put demising walls down the center of some of these, which I don't think is the idea here.

calling some attention to the door for the residence, set back a bit.

This is the part of the building with the mural that you'll recall.

You can start to see the color palette beginning to be a light colored material, whether that's brick or stucco, with the darker surrounds.

As we get further into this, you can begin to see how some of the patterning might happen with the windows.

Just a regular rhythm of windows across the front for the residential units.

Operable windows on the lower portion for each of these, emphasizing the view out.

We're also thinking we would like awnings over the retail openings, whether or not those are canvas, painted steel, yet to be determined.

We have a ways to go for that, but you can then begin to see here

We are differentiating the setback portion of this facade a little bit differently than that which is right on the street and thinking of some way to define the entry to the residences.

Pretty quiet, but also staying within the rhythm of the rest of the facade.

This being, you see it further with 600 West Main Street in the distance, as well as Mini Mart and the Blue Moon Diner.

Begin to see how the planter might break at certain points to allow for entry into this zone back here.

Again, where there may be some seating for outdoor dining, perhaps even some bike storage.

We're beginning to think it's going to need to happen behind the planter.

We're also, I guess one of the things, we're beginning to think about landscape and how it can enhance the architecture itself.

Vertical columnar trees along this facade, I hadn't really spoken about here, but so that we begin to help define some more of that rhythm of the smaller units along the facade itself, emphasizing that not just with building form, but with landscape.

and let's see here.

Then as we move back a little bit, we're wanting to look at it in context, scale-wise, relative to the church, the annex building, and then stepping it up to 600 West Main Street, with this being the portion of the building that is closest to the street, back behind there, the terraces up above, 10 feet behind,

and then much further back that piece.

So that really framing, this is the piece that comes forward that we're trying to modulate, not just with the indent of the building, but also perhaps the pairings of windows and groups there.

If we continue around the side of the building, I think it's gonna be a fairly straightforward west elevation.

Probably not many,

Not many openings in that.

We've got lot line issues to contend with, but hopefully within some of those openings, we will have a little bit of glass at the end of hallways, the interior hallways.

But we're beginning to think in terms of some of the details, I'll get back to this in a second, but the windows surround may be a dark steel that comes forward.

You can probably see it in some of these

It comes forward of the brick or stucco surface by about two inches to help frame the opening itself and to give some relief to the facade.

You can again see how the shadows might be played on here, but also another way that we might surround the openings.

And in this instance, we're showing it as a difference on the residential entry.

Perhaps it's a very simple brick detail, turning a brick sideways and projecting it an inch or two

from the facade of the building itself to frame that opening a little bit differently on the portion that steps back from the street.

You can also see we might even pick up with that on the openings for the residential terraces up above.

Just a little bit of a detail.

We hesitate to show it, but this is what we're thinking.

So we're putting it out there.

It's not fully developed.

But again, the black surround or the dark surround for a mostly glass facade for the retail and awning there to provide cover as people come in.

And let's see here.

I think I've got one more.

And this is very preliminary as well as we go around to the back.

You see a very regular rhythm of windows.

This is a residential building.

It's pretty straightforward.

We do anticipate having some balconies on the back.

This is not necessarily where they're going to be or how they're going to be, but we are going to have some.

But what you do see here is this portion, this lower portion here are those

studio apartments, the loft studios, sorry, probably get even higher glass in here as we go further forward so that's a lot five foot six back from the property line but then above we've got terraces for those on the third floor

But one of the things that we are going to incorporate into the building is a green roof on this portion of the, you can see this slot of green right along here in front of this planter.

It's going to allow us to not have to put in the large stormwater pipes along the street that we would have to otherwise.

And this is just one of the measures that we're taking for this building.

in order to have less impact both on the stormwater system and the utility system as we go forward.

But a very simple regular back to this, you can also start to see how we might begin to modulate the side of the building along the alley.

So that's, I've run through a lot.

All right.

Well, thank you, Jeff.

I think, are there any questions from the public?

Please use the raise your hand feature or press star nine.

I don't see any raised hands.

OK.

All right.

I do have an immediate question regarding that image you just had up, Jeff.

The grade for the parking, I'm saying, that's right, you're not bringing any parking in on that side now, are you?

Yeah, yeah.

And then those windows look like, as I think you noted, they seem awfully short given the... They are.

Yeah, this was something we quite honestly put together this afternoon quickly to try to explain at least the massing as it's going to work.

But to your point, the parking garage is below those lowest windows.

It's maybe the top four feet of the parking garage is above the grade at that location.

I presume you are correct, but because we don't know the future of that, we felt that we ought to take that

First off, we're not building, I mean, we're not planting where the trees would ultimately go themselves.

So if the planting in these planters changes in the future, that's fine.

We can react to whatever the city does when the city does it.

But that plan's not been finalized.

I had a similar question.

Absolutely.

I'd be happy to bring it to you all at the next iteration.

I will say, since we worked on it, it's very fuzzy.

And then I have another question.

601.

I know you're building immediately to the left, the forward part of the parking garage.

It's three stories there and steps up to five stories.

I'm sorry.

It's six stories in the back, five stories here.

Yes, yes it does.

Yeah.

Let me see, there may be a view here that gets us more- Yeah, I can see it on page 15.

Yeah, here you go.

Any more questions or can we move on to comments?

Are there any comments from the public?

I don't see any raised hands.

Well, rather than we could do this two ways, we could jump right in, let everyone say their piece, or Jeff Dreyfus has provided a list for us to kind of an outline that we could go off of.

OK.

So building massing, how long the street facade is being broken up with regards to massing administration and how the building steps back to the street for the residential entrance next to the mural.

Any comments on that?

Well, I have concerns.

This is Jody.

I don't feel like the street facade has modulated

well enough to break up that mass.

It reads, because of the same colors, because of the repeating of the same fenestration units across the front, it reads too monolithic as a single building to my eye.

And even the shadow line

I mean, that center section just sitting back a foot is just I don't think gives enough distinction between the units.

And then when the units are all articulated and have the same materials, this looks to me like a monumental institutional building with the vertical piers look columnar to me.

and so I don't think it's as successful as I had hoped for of bringing a memory of row buildings on this part of Main Street.

Yeah, I find it altogether too horizontal in its ultimate expression, which is part of the reason I was asking about height, but also just a big proportion, it seems fundamentally to read as a long horizontal building.

And I don't, and you know, I think, you know, what was successful about the building next door is that it basically brings a thin facade forward that at least plays in the same scale of footprint

as the rest of the buildings on the street.

The other thing that concerns me and I think is still an issue for me in the original building is I think the lack of color or certainly some vibrancy is really kind of a problem for me on what is a pretty lively street elsewhere in terms of color and texture and sort of its

sense of vibrancy.

I mean, the color palette of even the blue moon and all that has been toned down quite a bit.

So I just think everything is feeling a little dull to me.

I think it needs some more life.

But I also think that there needs to be more verticality and a greater attempt to push and pull the facade just to

to give it some sense of a smaller rhythm than what we currently are looking at, just like Jody said.

Let me just quickly, while we're looking at this view, add that the planters, to me, I heard the explanation that they're to be inviting, but these look like barriers to me between the building and the sidewalk.

And I worry that the planters have some impact upon the size of the trees that can be planted.

We're replacing some really lovely large canopy trees in this area.

Granted, you know, cut up by the utility people with their chainsaws, but still they're significant trees.

And I would hope that we'd be trying to put back something larger and provide the kind of

Sure.

Yeah.

I also, while we're on this view, I agree.

I feel like the landscape does with through the planters and the fastigit columnar trees does feel very kind of token at the moment.

and not really contributing to a sense of scale or to better use by the pedestrian or the public.

And that's where some context with West Main could be useful.

But while we're on this north facade, I think I just want to point out too that I think

You know, this rendering is trying to do the best to get some to put the sun in a position where you're getting a little bit of shadow, but that must be like, you know, seven or in the morning on July 21 or something and

I think being the North facade, it's got to work that much harder to have the kind of push and pull to really feel like there is enough depth within that facade to create that vertical rhythm that we've been talking about.

And I just think that most of almost every part of the day, most of the entire year, this is not going to have a lot of sun on that facade and shadow lines are

not going to be that pronounced.

So the use of color, the depth of the window mullions, and the depth between those different portions of the facade are really critical.

So I just had a thought on that.

This kind of came from Jeff's question about our ability to allow for painting brick.

I mean, if it's stucco, then I guess they can paint it, whatever.

But if they want to use brick and we allow them to paint it, you could potentially paint these sort of different row houses, if you will, different colors.

Yeah, so I did take a quick look at the new construction guidelines.

You know, it says in commercial slash office areas, brick is generally the most appropriate material for new structures since that brick is not permitted.

But it doesn't necessarily

And then on the next section of the next page where it talks about paint, you know, it says do not paint unpainted masonry surfaces.

The guidelines are recommendations and not ordinances.

And so I've always made that distinction that

On the subject of massing so I'm a little torn I actually I look at your elevations I actually I find it kind of elegant and I want to

Just think back to what we currently have in Charlottesville.

And, you know, if you look at the flats versus the standard, the flats has a very monolithic elevation.

But for some very strange reason, and it's funny because we always pointed to it as, you know, the bad example, the standard is infinitely worse.

And it's the townhouse thing where it has

you know, a little street module that is a different color and material from the one next to it, from the one next to it.

And there's a lot of depth to the facade, but it's, it's terrible.

It doesn't work.

So I just want to be a little cautious and maybe, and just that, you know, if we tell them to just, you know, paint modules on it or, you know,

change the height of one bay versus another.

I think the flats is successful because they are vertical.

My only real issue there way back when was that I think that where it came to the railroad tracks, they should have punctuated it and gone.

I mean, and this is a code limitation.

It should have gone up another two or three stories.

Another example being the Cherry Hotel, the Cherry Street Hotel there.

where it's just that flat little box at the corner.

But I think the colors could be introduced not like they did at the standard, but maybe the canopies are an opportunity or something like that.

It doesn't have to be this.

It could be all done in a quiet way.

But I just think that the other building is kind of grim.

I think the color and because I just think there's this

It was fine for the back part, but I think the front part needed to play better with the street with Gabe and Allie's cacophony of colors.

It's kind of part of the character of that street.

And I think we can't get too refined.

But I think they could still keep it quiet the way Jeff is headed.

But I think it needs to have some color to bring it

And I was not trying to object to anyone's comments at this point.

No, but I think it's a fair point.

And I had a lot of hope for it.

When I saw it on paper, I thought it was going to be good.

And when it's been built, it's pretty awful.

Maybe that's just me, though.

Well, so with the building massing, it sounds like,

unless anyone's going to disagree with this, that we've got a lot of, oh, Brick, go ahead.

I'm sorry.

I do want to just, since you mentioned the flats, I mean, the setbacks in the notches of the flats look to be at least 10 feet.

and just judging from street view.

It's funny because I don't remember there being set notches on the flats but I guess there are.

I mean I think the flats would have been way more successful if they had actually broken through the center at which point they had almost sort of gotten there because there's a courtyard in the back.

But all right.

But in my understanding, unless someone else wants to chime in for the building massing, there seems to be a want for more modulation, both vertical and horizontal.

Yeah, and can I say something, Carl, about the difference between the west side of West Main Street, west of the bridge and the east side?

The Planning Commission a few years ago changed the zoning to recognize the fact that buildings on the west side of West Main Street

are like the standard and the flats and the hospitals.

And they're larger and the hotels, larger buildings generally.

And the east side of West Main Street have more of the historic row buildings.

And that was the character that we're trying to preserve on the east side.

So that's why this,

Thank you, Jody.

Just so my comment wasn't misunderstood, I'm not saying we shouldn't modulate it like separate buildings.

I just want us to be careful when we do it that I don't know what lessons we can learn from the standard, but I think we need to learn some lessons from it because it was

The canopy is pretty bad.

I just think there's a huge difference for me between the flats and the standard.

It's just a wonderful setback with the flats and the trees, the large trees.

The storefront is completely open.

There's more engagement with the sidewalk.

It's an altogether better urban building, the flats.

The other thing, Jeff, page eight, you know, for instance, I find that center fenestration, the center fenestration to be more, you know, there you're playing with, you still have large openings, but there's a sort of a scale there that makes sense.

Whereas like the, you know, the Tom Ford elevation, which seems kind of more in the direction you're headed,

So let's skip to that.

Let's do window surrounds because that's one of Jeff's topics that you want to talk about.

The devil's in the details.

I like the

You know, I think conceptually there's some nice ideas there.

I mean, I think that could be very nicely handled and they're kind of headed in a nice direction with that.

But for me, it's really the mass of the building feels too horizontal.

You know, someone like Jimmy Griggs better

You know, experiments with that building on West Main.

It kind of reminds me of that a little bit right now because it's just a little bit too horizontal.

No, no, Jimmy had some, there were some good, he had some good variants actually.

No, he tried.

No, he did.

So Tim, can, can we talk about, because I'm having a little trouble understanding, you're saying that it's too horizontal.

The one thing I would want to interject is it can't be taller.

That's something that zoning is loathe to weigh in on at the moment.

Yeah, we're trying to push that.

If you look at that elevation, Tim, it looks like there, and Jeff, correct me if I'm wrong, the top of your third floor is about midway or close to the fourth floor of 600 West Main.