December 19, 2016 — Meeting Transcript

A CONTINUATION OF PUBLIC HEARINGS FROM DECEMBER 5, 2016 RELATIVE TO THE MIXED SEAS PROJECT KNOWN AS THE SENTINE-CLEATON CAMPUS. IF YOU'LL KIND OF LOOK AT YOUR AGENDA, YOU'RE GOING TO SEE ITEMS A, B, AND C. ITEM A IS AN AMENDMENT TO THE SPECIAL DEVELOPMENT DISTRICT PLAN. This is an item that you will be making a recommendation to the Board of Aldermen, and they will have a final vote. Under item B, you'll be considering the sub-district plan for sub-district one. along with the site plan review, and those two items are combined in one report. And then you'll have architectural review. So all of those items will go to the board, but you will actually be providing a recommendation to the Board of Aldermen for Subdistrict 1, and you will actually be approving the site plan review and architectural review. Then item C, we have the same for Subdistrict 2A. Same scenario, we've got a sub-district plan that we will be providing recommendations to the Board of Aldermen for their consideration. You've got site plan review and architectural review, and you also have a subdivision plan, and that is something that you'll be providing recommendations to the Board of Aldermen for their considerations. I'm not going to give any formal type of presentation or read the reports into the record. You all have those. Bob Clark is here, I guess. Oh, thank you. I saw you back there. And their team, they are going to be explaining kind of what they changed from the last time we met on December 5th in light of your comments and public comments and staff recommendations. We also have Laurel from Christner Associates to answer any of the landscaping plans or questions, I'm sorry, about landscape plans. And then we have Tim from H3 Design Studios, who did the architectural review, and he's here as well. Then we have Spencer from the Public Works Department if you have any public works-related questions. So as those questions come up, I will direct you to those people accordingly.

ONE OTHER COMMENT ON, AT OUR PREVIOUS MEETING, WE CONTINUED ALL THE PUBLIC HEARINGS. SO THIS WILL BE RECORDED AND THESE WILL BE A CONTINUATION UNTIL WE COMPLETE THEM. SO WITH THAT, BOB, ARE YOU READY?

So while they're setting up, this is item A, which is the continuation of the public hearing from the December 5th meeting. And this is consideration of the amendment to the approved special development district plan, which is essentially the overall master plan for the Centene campus development. Then as we move on, we'll get into the details of the sub-district plans. Thank you. So we'll kind of take these one at a time. This is the SDD amendment, and then if you all are ready for a vote, we just take a vote at that point and then move on to the next item.

Thank you. Okay.

Can everybody hear okay? That's right. Thanks for having me again. So I'm obviously here to present the 4-7 team and the team. As you all know, we're represented by Christian Wakefield and HOK. We have a little class team who you probably know really well. We did such a great job last time that they're going to book me off the island, so he's going to take over after I do the SDB presentation. So I'm happy to have him do that. So the way I understand it, we're going to present the SDB, which we did last time, TO ADD COLOR TO THE SBD. LAST TIME WE PRESENTED OUR THOUGHTS ON SB1 AND SB2. I'M NOT GOING TO DO THAT AGAIN COMPLETELY. WE'LL GO THROUGH THE SBD, WE'LL ANSWER ALL YOUR QUESTIONS, AND THEN ONCE WE'VE COMPLETED WHATEVER WE'RE GOING TO DO ON THAT, WE'LL HAVE YOU LIGHT IT UP AND DO THE ACTUAL ARCHITECTURAL REVIEW, BECAUSE I CAN'T AFFORD TO DO THAT WITHOUT YOU. AHEAD OF EVERYBODY. SO HERE, THE SPECIAL DEVELOPMENT DISTRICT, SD1 AND SD2A ARE ON THE AGENDA NOW. SD2B AND C ARE GOING TO FOLLOW QUICKLY BEHIND. AND THEN OUR PLAN, AS I SAID BEFORE, ON TRACK THREE OF THE SDD WOULD BE TO WORK, MAYBE TAKE A COUPLE MONTHS OFF, AND WE'D TAKE A BREEZER FOR ME, H.O. PACE, NEW Jeffery Yorg CITY, WAIT UNTIL IT'S WORKING. And then we're going to work very closely with the City of the City and the City of Clayton, here in Clayton. So once again, the SBD, the major changes are that we left while in place we moved the auditorium to track two so that would be to be to decrease the amount of residential on track two because track two got smaller we're proposing the additional residential for the TOD the actual early kind of thoughts from the master plan on track three um Technically, we've gone through all of this, so I'm not going to spend a huge amount of time on it to get to the questions and get to the questions, right? These are the questions. Okay. This is sort of the first one about open space. Right. So again, we feel like we have made, and I think it's in your packet too, that we have shown where we're gonna increase our open space here. We've increased the open space between the Crescent and our residential building. We're gonna show a little bit more color and detail on that in a little bit. This is the roof. green space that we showed before. And we've also increased the green edge. We had some comments from a resident, I think here tonight, about adding some green space along the lower section of the garage and we are going to be doing that. We had some questions about how this green space would work exactly. So we did a detail for how this would actually look. This specific idea came from the residents that live in the penthouse that are impacted by this in the closest area to it. And a question was asked last time if we were going to have this be higher than the garage, and they specifically asked us not to have any area higher than the garage. They didn't want it any higher than possible, so this was a detail that arrived from that, and we're going to do that on the lower section.

Can everybody hear okay? That's right. Thanks for having me again. So I'm obviously here to present the 4-7 team and the team. As you all know, we're represented by Christian Wakefield and HOK. We have a little class team who you probably know really well. We did such a great job last time that they're going to book me off the island, so he's going to take over after I do the SDB presentation. So I'm happy to have him do that. So the way I understand it, we're going to present the SDB, which we did last time, TO ADD COLOR TO THE SBD. LAST TIME WE PRESENTED OUR THOUGHTS ON SB1 AND SB2. I'M NOT GOING TO DO THAT AGAIN COMPLETELY. WE'LL GO THROUGH THE SBD, WE'LL ANSWER ALL YOUR QUESTIONS, AND THEN ONCE WE'VE COMPLETED WHATEVER WE'RE GOING TO DO ON THAT, WE'LL HAVE YOU LIGHT IT UP AND DO THE ACTUAL ARCHITECTURAL REVIEW, BECAUSE I CAN'T AFFORD TO DO THAT WITHOUT YOU. AHEAD OF EVERYBODY. SO HERE, THE SPECIAL DEVELOPMENT DISTRICT, SD1 AND SD2A ARE ON THE AGENDA NOW. SD2B AND C ARE GOING TO FOLLOW QUICKLY BEHIND. AND THEN OUR PLAN, AS I SAID BEFORE, ON TRACK THREE OF THE SDD WOULD BE TO WORK, MAYBE TAKE A COUPLE MONTHS OFF, AND WE'D TAKE A BREEZER FOR ME, H.O. PACE, NEW YORK CITY, WAIT UNTIL IT'S WORKING. And then we're going to work very closely with the City of the City and the City of Clayton, here in Clayton. So once again, the SBD, the major changes are that we left while in place we moved the auditorium to track two so that would be to be to decrease the amount of residential on track two because track two got smaller we're proposing the additional residential for the TOD the actual early kind of thoughts from the master plan on track three um Technically, we've gone through all of this, so I'm not going to spend a huge amount of time on it to get to the questions and get to the questions, right? These are the questions. Okay. This is sort of the first one about open space. Right. So again, we feel like we have made, and I think it's in your packet too, that we have shown where we're gonna increase our open space here. We've increased the open space between the Crescent and our residential building. We're gonna show a little bit more color and detail on that in a little bit. This is the roof. green space that we showed before. And we've also increased the green edge. We had some comments from a resident, I think here tonight, about adding some green space along the lower section of the garage and we are going to be doing that. We had some questions about how this green space would work exactly. So we did a detail for how this would actually look. This specific idea came from the residents that live in the penthouse that are impacted by this in the closest area to it. And a question was asked last time if we were going to have this be higher than the garage, and they specifically asked us not to have any area higher than the garage. They didn't want it any higher than possible, so this was a detail that arrived from that, and we're going to do that on the lower section.

Can we go back to that one? Sure. So I'm a little confused around where's the end of

the garage? Well, here's a car. OK, so the cars are up above. And so this is the face. It's basically 158 feet from the front building of the press here. And we had agreed at the top of the garage This is kind of the elevation of the penthouses and stuff here to give some relief to the garage at the top and create a set bath with some green space.

But there'll still be, there's a concrete panel there in a lot of white.

It's breaking. Behind it you mean? Yeah. Oh yeah, right. And then this is all gray. And then sidewalk experience. We gave some extra detail in the book about the additional . Which are all requested and we had lots of conversations about that during the pedestrian experience. We had a little bit of conversation about the different drives, and I think we're going to propose a little bit of a change, which I think people will prefer. All of our drives will be consolidated into the middle of the block. Actually, this is for the original . So in the last proposal we had the residential access and that access does access to the rest of the garage as well. And we moved that access to this point right here as to the docks. So that frees this space up right here, this parking space there. Probably gives a little bit of access for taxi drivers and that sort of thing. So that is a better solution. Again, here this drawing also indicates we get through the space gap. I think we're going to show some additional detail about this green space between the Crescent and the Potter residential building. And while we're not proposing whatsoever the residential building, I think we're gonna be able to show you a little bit more detail on that. So this is that space between the Crescent, which all the way back to a requirement of the Board of Aldermen approval asked for a connection between this space. And so this is how we could propose to create this connection. Basically via a sidewalk and then Did you consider any ramps? There is ADA access around the alley and around the front of the auditorium. I mean, it's... There is no way to do a ramp. There's no physically and architecturally not possible. The alternative would be to take the stairs out and then sidewalk out. But I think everybody on the planning commission really wanted at least some access for it. So this is... So this is a very conceptual idea of how a residential building might work. Again, I think it shows how critical we think the rounded out plaza area is to have our residents be able to have views to the landscaping around about which is as it ends up being matured with our building needed to be very very nice we think and it also does show how we think this envelope will really work so you can see that we did pull the base of these sections back so they no longer come all the way out to the end where the precipice Again, we're not proposing the 2C. We'll be coming back for that, but we did say we could do some ideas to show how it might work. This informs our envelope, so we are asking for an envelope that basically fits this. Again, this is not the architecture. It could be the architecture, but it could be something more glassy or more bricky. We haven't really decided yet. The developers have not really done all the feasibility studies in what kind of architecture would be the most... This is probably a very good idea and probably a very workable concept. which would be totally fitting the rest of the buildings in the area. This is about 44 to 45 units. If we could do and make economic sense of the project. On the base then of the 2A, which we are asking for approval of, in reference to the direct view from the crescent, we are increasing the residential feel of the building again, adding glass to the garage, side of the garage. when one looks at it, not unlike when we built the plaza in Clayton across from the press and the first five stories are not really residential, but it looks very residential and it's actually a parking garage. So that's the answer to those questions. And then we wanted, yeah.

One is on

the

ground floor

of the proposed residential. Well, we haven't proposed it yet, but it would probably be restaurant, retail, lobby, kind of a continuation of the present retail there. And that would be the, my initial reaction would be it wouldn't be residential. So the first level of residence are above grade? That's correct. It would be where that balcony is shown right here. I think that's about 20 feet above the planter area. Yeah, this is the face of that seat. So this would be retail, restaurant, service. And this one, this is the 801 Chop House. It would be a continuation of that with a pretty generous plaza out in front. So we also wanted to show a couple images. Again, we're not proposing to be right now at the Civic and Performing Arts Center. But we did want to show you kind of the iconic nature of this because it did take up some of the glass and green area. We think it's going to be a building worthy of giving up a little bit of extra space. And I think the other major point that's worth making is that the interior, we believe, of the pre-function area for the auditorium is going to be very special public space in itself. While it will be outside, it will be inside, terrific world-class, we think iconic architecture that will be an extension of the outside into the building. This is just a precedent image of kind of what we've been showing the client to get reactions that are received very positively. This is also that same type of image. So this is the kind of architecture that you should be expecting for us to bring when you start our formal process for 2D. So we're thinking very dynamic, gorgeous build. Could you go back to the exterior? Yeah, so this was what we had proposed when it was across the street. And so something in keeping with that kind of, I mean maybe a very different kind of architecture, but it would be just as iconic as this. And again, The word I would use is gateway to Clayton from the east to the west. When one arrives into Clayton from University City, coming west on Forsyth, this is going to be a very powerful image of University City. Okay, we went through all this. I don't think there were questions about this, but I will just reiterate that the main driver of the SBD amendment was the actual request and maybe the requirement of the Board of Aldermen to have these laws in place between opened up the space a lot more impressive. This made the project more efficient ultimately and saved about 200,000 square feet of area and 200 plus parking spots for both of these projects. If we have all the

details, hopefully you've been able to read the staff report on this. Yes. Okay. THERE IS A LENGTHY LIST OF STAFF RECOMMENDATIONS. DO YOU HAVE ANY COMMENTS ON THAT?

WE HAVE OBVIOUSLY SEEN THEM IN WORK. Yeah,

I'm going through them now.

So a question about the green space. From the first middle to the second middle that we saw on the fifth, it decreased, and now it looks like it's increased again. Is that correct? The green space?

You're asking for the where are we at now versus the comparison of open space? Yeah, I think to answer that question . So the green space, one of the comments, this is probably the best slide . There was a question that we presented two weeks ago that talked about being added additional width on all the perimeter of the public realm. We did not initially calculate that as open space, which is why that was there. The current calculations indicate that if we do calculate that additional 0.25, 0.3 acres of open space, which as you can see on the bottom of the slide means that in the end we believe it will be equivalent, we are equivalent at SD1 and SD2, what we submitted, we anticipate with some of the small changes to SD3 when we submit it, we'll bring that back to the building as well. So I think recalculating and counting the additional public realm in the sidewalk, I think I

just want

to make it clear that we've been talking about green space in terms of what they were showing me before the actual green planted landscape areas this would be public space that's not necessarily green in terms of extensive landscaping or sod or what have you. But it is available to the public, obviously. We've encouraged through our landscape review on some of these places, especially the plazas, to put in planters and things of that nature, something that you might see at Pierre McLean from the Pierre McLean building to kind of create more of an open green feel. So that's kind of the explanation.

And that's not dissimilar from all the original presentations where open space not necessarily a clean space. But Eli is going to go through a very detailed presentation of the actual architectural cycling macros.

Other comments or questions? Comments, questions from the audience. Please come up and identify yourself. I can't get up, but

Susan Miller, I knew you were supposed to, and you were talking before about . And I've done a lot of accessibility and disability work in my life, and very few things are truly accessible if they're designed properly. So I was just wondering if that issue was addressed by an architect specifically for the purpose

of access? And

the stairway. Yes,

the stairway going from north to south. If I could just say it,

I'll

just

answer it. So accessibility is obviously critical

to us in all of our projects. in this particular instance we were nervous about this area 25 26 but drop-off. And some people in the community, in the planning commission, even though it's a big bill right now, they do walk down through there with their dogs and that sort of thing. So we were trying to thread the needle and address people getting down through there, but it's a very narrow, steep drop-off area. And the actual access around both the alley and the new theater building will be at an adequate level. We'll meet the ADA requirement. I was

thinking a lot of times it would be zigzag.

It's literally not possible if it's only 35 feet wide. So it's literally physically not, it's not engineering-wise, it's not possible. So the only alternative would be to take the zeros out, which...

Are you going to be able to, what does Sun have saying, access will be...

To where the ADA access would be? Yes. Sure, sure. And you will have in the auditorium, when the auditorium is built, we'll obviously have elevators and ramps and stairs and everything inside there, so you can have inside access to get it down to the lower level, which probably would be the way people would really go to do that. I think it's going to be a rare, actually a rare person who actually uses the

stairway. Well, the alley is going to be

improved pretty dramatically. It would be much more street-wise.

So currently people come down the alley and then go down that hill.

I just drove over there earlier today. It's very steep. As soon as you said,

It's not good for the rent. I agree. I don't know if you've had crazy . Well, I do

think the access to that avenue is important too because people will walk up that

hill whether you have steps or not. I mean, maybe we would. Right. I think

that's right. People would walk up

there. Yeah. I agree there's no way to get a ramp in there. But if you had, I think the ramp would be about 12 times the length of the actual stairway. So there's no way they'd get any switchbacks

in there. No, it's really narrow. The stairs themselves will take up quite a bit of the space. We have another comment. I

just wanted to ask, is it possible

I don't know how you would do that

because

there's not

actually a building

there. We studied that. Yes, is there wall there? Well, that's a good question too. The Crescent built their building to the property line. I don't, you know, we'd have to work with them to maybe attach it to their building. I think we have to think through the whole thing. We haven't thought that through. But we agreed to when the STP was created and accessed. So... So now we just probably have some more engineering solutions to work through to actually figure out how that, how do we want to make it work. Or find that we think that it's physically impossible and unworkable.

I think it would be valuable to take a look at it again before dismissing

it. Okay, we won't discuss it. We'll move forward with the same thing we've done with every issue that's come

up. We'll work with them. Just on a related point, what's the block, many of your feet from the top of the hill to the sidewalk?

How many feet is it? Vertical run? No, not vertical height. Run. From here to here? Yeah. So if it's 12-1, that's 1,200 feet.

35 foot width to work with, figures of architectural character to, I guess my question, I think you've done a terrific job here, but these are unusual requests that unless somebody really knows what they're doing on this, most architects, in all deference to whatever architects, have a clue. they read the ADA manual and they know. So in my, if I'm doing my math correct, and I may be totally wrong, but if it's 100 feet times 12 is 12 feet, it's really trying to see across The question becomes how many switchbacks would you have to have, what would they look like, and what can you do at the top of the hill to carve it out a little higher. And these are just questions that I'm sure haven't been looked at, but in your point of looking further, I would request that we really do look a lot further because access down the beautiful alley is still

an hour. We studied it and honestly my recommendation would be to eliminate the stairs and not have access to them. It's a very narrow, very steep area and if I was the people living in Crescent, I would rather have landscaping and grass and trees. I think our residents will want the same thing. We won't want concrete area, we'll want landscaping. We're gonna have dogs and they're gonna wanna walk their dogs.

Bob, I've spent a couple of years living in the plaza and I will tell you that you would have to put bollards and barriers to get people to not use that hill. Anyone walking a dog, I mean we used it regularly quite honestly, and it's really convenient especially if you're heading up to Maryland School Park up there. So, I would strongly urge you not to take that. Okay. Looking at the opportunity to make it accessible.

We'll work with the staff and we'll work with the public works department. We do have great architects and we can show exactly what the various choices are. Well, we'll leave

that up to you too, Rick Bain. Sir, could you give us your name?

What's his name? Lesser calf than Susan and Bruce are. Thank you. No, we got that. Different

question, sir? In terms of the green space

I know you're really working hard at this, and we all value that. But it seems that the mass is moving. We're now massing heavily, or it's over here on the side with the garages and the performing arts center. and it appears to squeeze green space, are you calculating the green space for roof green space or public? No, no, not the roof.

And

if you take out the green space on the other side, which is phase three or whatever it is with the towering hotel, how much green space is there in that area that's down there? will be developed

first. It's about the same as it always has been. It's very similar, very similar. The only green space we lost is where the auditorium is going. Other than that, it's the same exact landscaping and planning that we had with the original STD.

I guess I'm just raising the question to the board That is a mixed-use residential area that's right in the center of the residence, the plaza, the crescent. If I'm looking at this, it would be more inviting green spaces, that hillside. DEVELOPMENTAL SITE THOUGH. YEAH, WELL, THAT MAY BE THE ANSWER. I WAS JUST ASKING ABOUT HOW THAT WORKS CONSIDERING IT IS A MIXED USE FOR RESIDENTIAL AND TO CALL THE SIDEWALK PUBLIC SPACE

But that site, with all due respect to the site, has always been a zone for high density, always, in every bathroom

plant. I'm only raising the question of the ratio of green space to accessible green space to the residents

of the area. The perception of some of us is that the green space directly east of Preston and south of Garage 2A is now smaller than it was in the original proposal because garage 2A increased in north-south dimension, pushing the residential into the former green space. But I hear that you've compensated with green space in sub-district 3. Really, in all the

tracks. In all the tracks.

Could you go back to that slide that shows the open space? Here? No, the one that has the dimensions. Here? The one that you compared, did the comparison with charts and . Yeah, thank you.

I think it's minuscule around the area that we've taken out. Again, the majority of the area that was impacted was on this end. We believe that the architecture, and if you've been reading some of the architecture comments to the proposal that the architecture of the auditorium will make up for that in other areas. pedestrian experience ways. I know there's a perception, and I'm trying to be sensitive about that, but I think it is a perception. Actually the green spaces, there's a minuscule difference from what was occurring in the original SPD. and obviously we had a residential building in here before. This plaza was slightly deeper, but as I showed in the new massing plan that we did for the residents, we're actually pulling that back to be almost exactly the same as what we, this measurement right here, Steve, is almost exactly what we presented before. So it is a perception, it's not reality.

Susan, does staff concur?

I'd rather check the facts before answering, in all honesty, because some of this is a little bit new material to me as well, based on the comments that you all made at the last meeting. I definitely think the design of the building appears to be different, in terms of being a little more sensitive to that curve, and we had talked about that at the last meeting as well. So that may be the case based on what they're presenting today.

This shows that probably the best speed is the new inflow period. So we pulled that back and we met residents at the present. We were worried about how far out it came, but it did come out. We almost took it into their building. You can see here we took the inflow back. We are trying to be as sensitive as we can, knowing that this is an extremely valuable piece of real estate that deserves a building for the master plan, which is high-density residential. And this site had no restrictions on it and no height restrictions. And I think it's also... The other building was built right to the property line without a setback. It seems unfair to diminish the value of our real estate by further adding green space and not allowing us to fill the square footage just because somebody else built it right where the property line ends for some reason. A

couple more comments on this drawing or the one below it. If you do have retail on the ground floor of the residential, then you will probably have walks paved in front of it in lieu of landscape green areas. Well, we have a

combination of both, of course. And then

on the... So it's a public space, not truly a green space. Well, the area

between the buildings we're envisioning is being green space. Central stairway. Central stairway, or we'll make that green space,

too.

So when the Crescent was built, I'm assuming the open space that was considered open was the big, where the 801 chop house is. The plaza. Where the 801 chop houses got that frontage. And that is certainly not green, but it's open. Right. Very similar.

The other comment on the previous scheme, we had two driveways. The one to the west, if I remember correctly, was labeled limited access? It was a smaller . And the one on the east was more of a service drive or? It's a dock area. A dock area. Well, now with this combined driveway, Is that how the residents will get into the garage? If. Will the public be able to get in to that garage from coronavirus?

I would think we may want to use it for valet access and that sort of thing. It would be limited access.

It would be limiting because if not, if it's not limited access, Then it seems like we are putting more traffic onto . So

we would be limited access, but we did talk to and he didn't agree that it would be added cars. Whether the cars go in the front or the back, or go come out the front or the deck, it's the same amount of cars. But if they could

only go in, I don't know which is the front or the back. The front

garage. That's going to be the major signal entrance and ingress and degress in and out

of the garage. Previously, it seemed like all the cars were going to go in and out of Forsyth side, except

for the limited access. No, a third of the cars came out on the left. In the original plan, all of the lower cars in the garage came out in the same place. A THIRD OF THE CARS IN THE GARAGE. ON TO FRONT. THEY DID COME OFF IN AND OUT OF FRONT LEFT. NOW, WE WOULD EXPECT THAT WHEN THE RESIDENTIAL IS BUILT, IT WILL REALLY BE JUST THE RESIDENTION. OKAY. WE'RE NOT GOING TO WANT OUR RESIDENCES TO BE INJECTED BY A HIGH TRACKER PLANE. OKAY. WELL, WE STILL SEE IT AS LIMITED.

If my concern is, and if Srinu says there will be no additional traffic, that's my concern on Karamalai. In terms

of putting additional traffic on Karamalais?

I think that it's

probably not a good idea to have one way in and one way out of the garage.

I think if there are people that want to get onto Carondelet, they're going to be able to do so very easily even if there was only one way in and out on Forsyth. All they need to do is take a right, take another right, and they're there. Same with going to the left and another left and they're there So I think probably what Srini was referring to is the fact that there is no English traffic with respect to the changes that they're proposing to the SDV. That might have been part of it. Again, I wasn't part of that conversation. That

would be my opinion on that. That was his exact example.

This relate, I'm sorry, how does this relate to condition H at the end of the, what was the very last condition? Which for the audience reads, quote, limited access garage entry off Gondolin Avenue to Sub-District 2A.

that would be a reference to the what was the western entrance that you said okay there's a little bit of overlap in when they received our comments and what changes there should be touched thank you so that has

been addressed

We have another comment. Please come up.

Thank you. My name is Cynthia Metcalfe, and I also live at 150 Cromwell Plaza. Bruce Miller and I and Bruce Scott are part of the Phillip Adler Committee. We're trying to follow what's going on. It's a lot to ask questions. Hugh usually does it for me. I spent a little time with Susan today and studied this exactly what we're talking about, so perhaps I can add something on both the brain space and on this project and it may be helpful. I added up the open space in the whole project including the present centene and the whole rest of it. And it's 1.035 acres for open space, and that's how it's all identified as open space on the master plan. So I think then, I know from looking at the detail plan, most of that just south of Henry Cowell would be hardscape. In fact, virtually all was a fountain. Whereas the opportunity is there. There's already green space south of Green Lawn west of Manly. And the opportunity is there for much of the 35 feet, which is the third moving west east, the third open space area that Mr. Clark has been talking about. And by not making the walkway too wide in that green space in that 35. And then the fourth place that's in the open space total is the east, around the left, over the later stage in So there's talking past each other sometimes. Some people call it green and some people call it hard or call it open. It's important, I think, to make the point that as much of the open as can be green, truly green, brown, as possible makes a huge difference. I think you did a great job on balancing that western animals. You had the wonderful hardscape with the planter up by Forsythe, and you had the wonderful planter on the ground. So proportions will be different, but I would want them planning to hardscape it all with tree stocking concrete. And I don't think anybody wants that. Probably not.

We agree. We agree. Good. Except

if one point

goes to

acres. That's one point. And then on the garage, if they have any questions, I'll go on to the garage and do everything. We also, Bruce and Hugh and I, took as much bulletin as we could at this project issue because, of course, we're glad that that's something people are concerned about with the traffic circle. And we're very pleased that the other, that the service access has been taken out. It used to be in the 35K. But speaking of the two lane or wide access that's between the auditorium and the common answer apartments. We had expected that that would be used by only the condominium or apartment dwellers, and when Susan explained to me that indeed it's an all the way through. The way it's drawn now, inside the garage, interior, it's clear all the way through for someone in that garage to go either out on the left side or out on the left. Our concern being that although this may not be a green total of all cars, it will, and this is where I wouldn't want a traffic person to answer or to think about. It would be easier, rather than turning right on four side and going back and down, it would be more direct to take the shortcut through Palombola Plaza to Hanley, or through our, then through the circle, or through the circle to get through to the Forest Park Expressway, if you just come right out on it. Come around the left, otherwise you might want to go, maybe instead you go up to the corner of Forsyth. That's the issue as we see it, and that's why New Scott wrote, I believe that's accurate, Chris, is that correct? That's why New Scott emailed the question to me.

I believe the person that they were talking about that Bob talked to is a traffic

engineer. Well, I know that, but I'm not... It just seems common sense to us that it isn't the same thing as... What he was saying is the overall number of cars hasn't increased. I'm sure he knows what he's saying. It's just a question of... how much difference it makes, is it one way shorter than, you understand what I'm saying, sure. It's not terribly convincing, but it would be the same when Houston only had to go out on Forsyth and then come to us. I was about to say that.

Well, we appreciate your comments. I'm not

an expert, okay, but that's the common sense. The three of us came up with it. One last thing. Sure. Okay. The last thing is not on the same subject. We think overall that this is, I mean, we're positive about a lot of aspects of what's developed and been improved over the period of time, and we thank you for it. I'm glad everybody's working that time. I think we believe that with respect to the next stages, as we move forward, and I'm sure this will move forward, that the devil will be in the details, right? Whether there's a mill on it, whether the staff suggestions for the tops of the garages, for instance, maybe certain things in lighting, planting up there. which will make a huge difference to the new apartments and that sort of thing. That's what we would like to see evolve, the way 17 evolved things west of Hanley. And they've got high standards there for all that kind of

stuff. Thank you. Thank you. Other comments on the SPD package? Other comments from the Commission? No. Okay, I think we've posed a few questions there and gone through it with the changes we've seen. We've seen a lot more detail tonight. soon we'll continue to see more and more detail as we get into the sub distance is that correct i i think

we're hopeful to get a vote tonight maybe up in that upper battle because i think our project is We're under tremendous pressure to keep the project moving forward and I think Centene has worked incredibly hard to answer every question and to I mean, I just haven't heard anything tonight, even in the last meeting, that we can't work out what to say on it. So I would respectfully ask for a vote. That's where we're going. Okay, good. Thank you guys for the long explanation.

OKAY, SO YOU'VE GONE THROUGH EVERYTHING. WE DO HAVE THE STAFF RECOMMENDATIONS THAT, FOR THE MOST PART, I THINK THEY HAVE BEEN ANSWERED. A FEW OF THEM WILL HAVE TO GO BACK FOR STAFF REVIEW AS WE GO FORWARD, BUT ARE THERE ANY OTHER QUESTIONS BEFORE WE CALL FOR A VOTE? OKAY. DO WE HAVE A MOTION BASED ON THE RECOMMENDATIONS? And this is to recommend approval of the amendments to the STD to the Board of Aldermen. I'll

make a motion to approve the amendments to the board of aldermen with the entire list of recommendations. Three primary recommendations with a number of additional recommendations under the third.

Would that also include having a look at the stair or an inclinator or something? All in favor? Aye. Opposed? Okay, thank you.

I'm going to have Eli do the architectural subject.

So the next item is item B, and this is where we will be considering the sub-district plans. And this is sub-district one. And then site plan review. And both of these are combined in your staff report. And then you also have a separate architectural review staff

report. Good evening, the board members. Thank you for the time. Sorry that I'm so tall. This is going to be awkward. Let me try it out. IN THE INTEREST OF KEEPING CONSISTENCY, WE'VE ANSWERED SOME QUESTIONS, I THINK, ON STs 1 AND 2A WITH BOB'S INITIAL PRESENTATION. WE HAVE THE CONTINUATION OF THE PRESENTATION THAT WE GAVE TWO WEEKS AGO. I WANTED TO STOP ON THIS FIRST QUESTION THAT WE INTRODUCED LAST MEETING WITH, WHICH TALKS ABOUT A KEY ISSUE THAT I'LL GET TO WITH BOTH ST 1 AND 2A SPECIFICALLY, WHICH IS ITEM 3 AND ITEM 4. I THINK WE JUST SPENT A LOT OF TIME talking about one and two on the SDD. So just a reminder that in the efforts to get from our initial discussions with you all to where we were two weeks ago and what we're going to talk about now, we spent a lot of time talking about active buildings, active uses, the proper scale of use along the sidewalks, all per commons we've heard over the last six months from you all about Clayton's master plan and what this development should be. an important point of setting up SD2 to provide this great gateway in the Clayton Community Review Auditorium. So I have 120 slides and some of them are SDD, so I'm going to go directly to the SD1 summary. So bear with me while I flip through the slides you saw that were focused. These are slides that were focused on the SDD. And since you just voted, we're going to switch back on that to get me directly into SD1. So this is all, again. I had this because of an open hearing. I assume we wanted to have all the slides at hand. So I appreciate your patience as we get to SD1. So again, this is a continuation of the presentation we gave two weeks ago, but I'll spend some time here talking in some detail as we get into the details. All of these are excerpts from what we've submitted. This first drawing is to illustrate some of the challenges that we have on this site to create great opportunities. We have an enormous amount of great change. Everyone who's driven up or walked on this area knows that. And that sort of helped organize where we landed the building. So it's a main, it's a building that stretches, the main tower stretches north-south. Oh, I have a mouse, here we go. So the main building stretches north-sath along Hanley and then the garage with the relocated Lyle runs east-west and allows us for all this active retail. uses around the building, which I'll get to in a minute. So as you look at this, the point about these drawings is that the engineering has been done to ensure proper access and all of the different things that we've talked about in terms of loading, et cetera, et cetera, including a detailed look at stormwater drainage protection. So as we talk about the green spaces, not only the extended green roofs, but the plazas, are not only places where we're going to look for plankton. It's a great comment, and continue to. You see we've enhanced SD-1 in it based off of the early drawings, but we'll also be looking at using them as their engineering systems. Part of this project, and I think we may have not spent a lot of time on this two weeks ago, but we are looking at a coordinated work to appropriately stripe, re-stripe foresight to allow for some through lanes. You can see dedicated turn lanes This is all in effort of coordination with the two major traffic signals. And then again, I think a comment that we need to spend some time on is that we've included lay-by spaces, both four spaces here on Forsyth and queuing off of Carondelet. And I think that's a way to address some of the concerns that weren't alleviated in the first building where there isn't that. So we've learned, and we've certainly taken cues, and I think Centene in particular has been very dedicated and created a great experience for drop-off, for the cars, but for pedestrians as well.

Eli, while you were on that, I remember seeing bike lanes and pedestrian walkways. Where are the bike lanes? They're shared lanes, similar to the striping that's on Forsyth today.

landscape design team, which is very helpful with specific details like that. The sidewalk, as we spent some time, as Bob cleared up in the SDB, we can revisit here, we have extended width on the sidewalk well above city minimum. And I think that's a direct response to your mixed use, that there's a shared lane for bugs, but we want sidewalks to be wide enough for multiple people to pass. and has fill out seating zones for these retailers as they come in. It's really important, and I think it was a great comment too as we look at open spaces. That is a great concession that the development team has made in this project. These are important drawings that, again, I'm thinking things we didn't spend a lot of time on that I will now. This is a large loading vehicle that we've run the modeling. Bob had mentioned he actually has driven this with a vehicle, so we've done computer modeling and real modeling to make sure that these large trucks can get in and make these turns. So we run it with a 67, sorry going the wrong way. A 40 foot truck as well to make sure we can get that truck completely embedded in the building. The large truck completely under the building. So a lot of things we've talked about at length and have been talking about with staff comments. These are the sort of real engineering drawings to make sure that those things all work as we look at this first district. And then lastly, I think there was a question from you about how this truck got back into that corner. This is illustrating as it would come up, how it would back in. And then lastly, just the traditional pedestrian vehicle looking at these turning radiuses. So it's to go on to say, at all places we have checked with engineering that these turns and overall site plan really works. Getting into city requirements and city standards. THESE ARE THE PLANTING PLAN THAT DESCRIBES WHERE WE'RE GOING TO BE ADDING STREET TREES THROUGHOUT THE DISTRICT. SO BRAKES AT NATURAL LOCATIONS FOR OUR VEHICULAR LAYBY AND FOR THE MAIN ENTRANCE, BUT EVERYWHERE ELSE. AND I THINK AN IMPORTANT POINT IS, AS BOB SAID, WE'RE REALLY focusing on improvements through the alley, and so the quality of North Lyle as we look at leaving it in place in the yard is still improving. The overall plan is to add quite a bit of street trees. We have added some tree canopy where we can in here while still maintaining that turning radius you saw. And as we'll get into in a minute, we've actually added another pocket park here adjacent to the lobby down by the crescent and colleagues. consistent with two weeks ago. So I'm just calling out some key things that have been sort of presenting this as a continuation of two weeks ago. This we did spend time on, so I won't dwell on, but talking about things that you saw initially in our first STD and the things we had refined. So this was the rendering at initial STD with the large parking structure, the can-labored office building, roughly a 419 foot height. And then basically an important point too was that massing was consistent all the way to the corner on the full site. And these are the substantive changes we have made. The tower now has slid to the north. It's essentially now much more mid-block, clearing the face of the crescent balconies, as we had said. The step down on this new kind of dual architectural feature, which will house Wellbridge and retail at the corner, allows for a natural step down of massing towards the corner and a lot more light and air there. And then obviously we've lined function all along these public spaces, which I think will in the end also help act states to the extent we can on this very steep road. Apparently we've pulled in them. kind of compressed it so you can wrap with some active uses. So the intent was to have as many active uses on the street as possible, respect the discussions we've had here, and then create this new feature at the corner. And this again is that new feature. We get two stories of WELBRIDGE TENDENCY, SO WE'RE WORKING WITH THEM CURRENTLY TO FIT THIS SPACE OUT. WE ANTICIPATED MAYBE AN ENTRY FOR THE LOBBY AND FOR WELBRIDGED HERE. POTENTIAL OPEN SPACE FOR PEOPLE TO RETAIL AROUND THE CORNER, WHICH WOULD BE GREAT, I THINK, AT THIS LOCATION. AND THEN YOU SEE THE TOWER ON 7, MID-BLOCK LOCATION.

WHAT'S THE DEPTH FROM HANDLING TO THE RETAIL? HOW DEEP ARE THOSE SIDEWALKS?

RIGHT ABOUT THERE? LET ME GO AND SEE IF I'VE GOT THAT DIMENSION. We range, this yellow zone you can see ranges anywhere from 20 foot four inches to 36. The 36 obviously is gonna be the deepest zone here which is the entry. I think we're really in that 21 foot, 20 foot four range here to 21 foot and then we kind of get additional grading up to about 25 at the corner and then 25 here. So city minimum being 12.2, this is more than double. And I think it does two things. One is it gives that open space character. The other thing I think is nice is that it gets some visibility as you come around the corner, coming up the hill for traffic. So we tend to try and think about things in those ways. I'll spend some time here again. The only place where the city minimum, which is city standard, is the red. Everywhere else is a proposed increase and sort of a larger zone of that sidewalk. We thought very strongly that especially the Hampton Zone was critically important to increase, and that led to some ideas about how this opens up. And then the blue setting up for those retailers in the future to make that really attractive. So just some of those comments that we did listen to. So the wide sidewalk does set up the idea for planters and future tenants to come in, and they'll want to design that. I mean, you guys have done enough with these retailers, you know that they'll have signage and other standards. They'll come in with a package for approval. The site wall, again, I started with grade because it's really important to know there's 28 feet of grade change between this corner and that corner. It doesn't necessarily feel like that when you're driving, but it's almost three stories. Even in these zones, these are relatively steep zones, and we're trying to be very thoughtful and careful that walls, which we need to prevent people from literally having those steep grades and other things accessible, we want to have some safety there. We wanted to activate that with a water feature and essentially planters on top of them to soften them. So even where we have to do things like this, we're considering the detailing and the design of that. And again, the widened sidewalk. Go ahead.

Would the water feature go towards the building?

Yeah, it does. Remember this line that we're at the city standard right around to the corner and then we sort of creep up a little bit north? And so as that wall comes down, we don't really have a good opportunity to come this way. We really want to have the water feature activate the mix of green and paving that would be for that potential retailer. So it goes towards the question. It goes to the right.

While you're on this slide, are there bollards along the street, family,

Yes, we have similar to the existing centene where we have pedestrians next to a drop off. We have typically shown bollards as a security concern to make sure that there's a safe walking zone next to cars making turns. So north and south, you'll see bollards at street corner along the drop off. And we think that's an important thing for pedestrian safety along these wider sidewalks, that there's not a clear access for the cars. You can actually see them right there, Steve. So they are on curbside, so the intent is to make sure the pedestrian way is maximized so that we're not going to put them mid. They're really there to prevent, as people turn, get out of traffic by having a drop-off area. The ballers are really there to create a level of safety between pedestrians and the retail zone and vehicles who are turning and dropping off. So this just represents some of that space as we come around. This is the planter on top of the wall, as I mentioned. So we green up the top of the wall and then the midpoint is the idea for the water feature that would slow down and activate this zone. We think that this retailer certainly will take advantage of this corner. And I think some of the great spaces in this city are places where people are active and able to use the corner. So we've compressed this to its minimum based on, I think you remember the turning radius, to the minimum we can to get safe drop off here. So it's always a balance between trying to get the right kind of safety of vehicles, great space for restaurants and retail and public realm. Some of the materials, and we've re-brought our boards that we brought last time, so they're over there, and I'm happy to get them out. But as we had presented to you last time, it's a range of granites and concrete pavers that would be not just actual pavers and not sheets of concrete, so it adds a little bit of detail and refinement, which I think is appropriate. And it's in keeping with what's at Centine Plaza currently, and that's an important point. And then, Steve, you had asked me a great question which I answered half right, which was that we were looking at the right kind of trees and Derek appropriately pointed out that we have a range of at least three species per SD1 to provide the variety of species types around the block so that in case, I think the question was if there's a disease and we lose all our trees, we won't lose all of them because of the distribution of the three trees. So all in keeping with city approved standards and we've certainly listened closely and we're hopeful to continue to implement as we move forward on the future of sub-districts. More green roofs I think than the initial sub-district application, that's really due to this large amenity deck which is at the top of the second floor. And again these are wonderful engines for sustainability. And so these filter and store rainwater and prevent it from a quick offload into the MSD system. Part of their requirements and a great service as we look at how we manage high storm loads. But I think also this will be a pretty amazing space within the city.

So I think every time you guys have come to me, come to us, I've asked if you would put trees on the top of the garage, and every time you said you would, and I'm not seeing any.

On top of the garage? As a tree

lawn, in the sense that you would in a flat parking lot.

Sure. The garage itself, what we were able to do is un-detail the fog show, which is a critical job. Right, which you had

last time, and we had the conversation last time that we could put trees on top.

I'm looking at the available... We feel pretty confident in the vertical trellis, but a little bit more challenged in getting trees at this time. So that's kind of where we were with that detail on the back side. The challenge is good. I'm

just not 100% sure I followed your

question. Think of a flat parking lot that has Islands with trees in them. I'm not looking for a green roof. I'm looking for islands with trees to provide shade, to cut down glare for the apartments that are nearby, as well as your own building. I would think you would want to not be looking down on a lot of shiny cars in the middle of a San Luis summer. So I don't think there's any garage

that can have that, an example of that. And I can't think of an example of that, I mean, we've done planters on occasion, but you know, the parking garage is

a concrete garage, it doesn't have We talked about, in your plans for the sidewalks, you're sharing a really nifty system for your trees on the tree lawn that had a kind of bowl area underneath that you... which makes it easier for the trees to grow. And that's what we talked about. And we've talked about this every time you guys have come. I

mean, I don't recall trees on the deck because that's what you're talking about. I wouldn't know how to comment that.

I don't know how to do that at all. I think certainly I never meant to ignore any of your comments. We're doing this entire room THIS DETAIL IS PROBABLY WORTH $800,000 THAT WE'VE ADDED TO THE PROJECT TO MINIMIZE THE IMPACT OF THE CRUSSA. IT WAS AN EXTREMELY COSTLY DETAIL THAT WE ADDED TO BUILDING. This is the highest impact area to the right here along here. We added more of that last time, which I think is a big add to the whole project on top of the parking garage. I really didn't ever read what I've ever heard that you said you were doing that. I don't know how you would put trees on top of the park garage. I thought I

read an awesome staff review. Laura, did you have a little near unread answer? I

did not.

You did not, okay. I'm

sorry, I didn't mean to ignore your comment. I guess I just never understood it because I thought we were talking about this whole green strip at the top of the parking garage here, which will be a very dynamic buffer

I'm thinking from the top down, looking

down. Down? Well, nobody from the Crescent will be able to see the top. The only people who'll be able to see top of this garage will be us, from our office buildings. Nobody else is taller than us, except maybe the Plaza will be part of the top of . I don't think they'll be able to .

Yeah, but your building won't be able to. Your building won't.

We're not concerned about it. We see the top of our parking garage right now to the east? Or I mean to the west?

Well, I know it's possible because I've seen it

in buildings. I just don't know who it impacts who positively it's impacted by, except for us. I mean, nobody can see it.

Well, it impacts... I think you'd

just be asking to kill the trees. But I do think this green right here is going to be a very nice element. And this root right here is green also on here. This whole, all of this green space up top here is going to look very nice too.

Well, I've seen it happen. I've seen trees on buildings in many places. So I certainly want you to look into it. We

will. We have made that suggestion for 2A in the staff comments. There we go. We just haven't gotten there yet. We kind of felt the green areas that were provided for on top of the roofs here, the green buffer work, Fairly sufficient for this project, but lacking in 2A. So we don't suggest that they consider that.

So if it is suggested that they consider it, it must be

possible. Anything could be possible. But if you want trees up there, you probably have to accommodate three to four feet of soil to grow a tree. And to get that soil up there, you would have to structure the entire building all the way down. I don't think it's really feasible in this instance, to be honest. But please take a look at it. We will.

Let me get back to my train of thought. I think as we were walking through, I think we were here talking about the potential treescape. So given Bob's note, we will definitely, with some clarification now, I think we, you know, to the intent to re-buffer what we were hearing, we've come back and heard clearly about trees. So we'll study that on this, and I will jump ahead and say that we do too. I studied that on too, but we heard the other comments. Moving around the building, again to just talk about the issues, I think this was an image we did specifically to talk about what the relocation of the tower and reshaping of the tower has done to the views which we spent a great deal of time in the SDB talking about from the Crescent, and then the ability of the space to be really active and highly used So

is this a literal vision?

Yes, to the extent possible in our here. I mean, this is directly modeled off the survey and off the current plans that have been submitted. And we have surveyed the extent of the crescent as well. But to be fully

transparent, the southeast corner of the tower aligns with the north side of the mountain. Right,

so in perspective if you follow that line it gets right there. So it's the benefit of seeing things out of two-dimensional elevations and in perspective as you see the view corridors sort of as they would be in real life. And then just an overall view, and Steve I won't spend a lot of time on this, but the subtle shaping of the tower to add some visual interest. There was some comment about the detail at the top that we've articulated. I'm going to call out that we do have an articulated detail for lights and the vertical accents for the top of the building. That would be slightly different than the existing building, but the intent there is that we have the opportunity to have color changing and shifting over time to give it some real use. Subtle, but accentuating the top and then the use of the bottom. And then just a daytime shot of the same, showing that band how it would, when the lights are off inside the glass, it reads a little bit differently. So certainly a very different reading from night to day. And then beginning to look down the street frontage here as we look at the brick-faced garage, which we spent quite a bit of time on. And then one last shot looking down from an aerial shot. From the south, this is where we started. What's really nice is the relationship around the future SD4, the creation of this relief at the corner, and the overall relationship of how the tower sits mid-block. And again, same model for all these different views. And this is the 2D version of the same. So Steve, if you can actually see there, they have a little bit more relief at the bottom floor as we set in the glazing at the lobby entrance. So you can see the column here. The glazing at the bottom two floors actually sets in and touch more. So here, we're at that north face of the balcony, as you said, Steve. And then, otherwise, should be down there. It's a column that wraps around. Now, Luke can

stay there. How long, again, they wrote on the east side you have extra setback. But then I saw where you have the two-story pony hill. It comes back out. But that is only on the second or third floor. Correct.

Yeah, it's basically for a piece of the wall about that long. The bottom 18 to 20 foot here that you see this, you can see the kind of height of a canopy, which might be 15. So it's a pretty gracious zone. That sort of defines that set in that we talked about, the larger sidewalk. And that's where the curved wall. Yeah. And you'll notice we've also even pushed the column A interior to that curved state. So see where you see columns here? Here they don't. And so that's all in the back. of accessible as we come around to an important point. So details, but as we said, the devil's in them so we want to hit them as we go through this. One small point to make is we've really tried to locate a stair which is serving some egress capacity. We've got lobbies and open spaces. So this is a functional stair, but we do try and, as we said, this would be the face of that potential retailer, whoever that may be. And so the importance of wrapping activity to that point and the base being accessible to that point. We're trying to minimize... the steep zone that would be transitioning that 28th lead to those couple of

days. Do any of those retailers open on to handling? I can't remember.

We anticipate right now this retailer would open south. This could potentially, but that's TBD based on that. I'm not

advocating

it, I'm just asking. Yeah. It would be the north one that would have the ability to do it. The south we're really seeing taking advantage of that possibly. And then we did talk about this two weeks ago, lots of hills around here that are fun to deal with so you can see the grade of foresight as it transverses and we took advantage of that to reflect an early comment from the city looking for a variety of scale height fenestration articulation of the brick coming down to create a variety of different experiences here and four different tones of fabric across this garage so The hope is that you get the kind of activity and life that we all know will come to this development through taking advantage of our fund help. And here's a detail of that, and again, getting into the nuance of details, where we show that sidewalk dimension, it's to the face, so these ins and outs give you a little bit of extra distance. So that's a consistent minimum, and then you get a little extra here for the retailer. And that gives opportunities for articulation and for awnings to go in above the doors. As the retailer comes in, they're going to have the chance to give this their own character. And all of those

windows are non-operable? Correct.

So this has got some kind of ventilation system?

Correct. And what we would, you can see that the sort of masonry and aluminum, these in-between, between the bricks, we would use those. You can see some detail. We have some very simple slots that would help air in as we need to in those in-between zones. So the intent is the brick faces, if you look at here on the, actually this is a binding show. Whenever we have this kind of townhouse, object. We have four of them on that elevation. Those are uninterrupted to the extent that we possibly can and then we then use the spaces between to help get air in and out of the garage because we need to let folks in there breathe when the car's going. And then an important detail is that masonry rafts when you step down, again this is a concession we made at the SDE some time ago to step down the two stories uh, first couple of days facing, um, Lyle. I guess that's that time as well. So, you know, we showed some detail and again, we're not gonna belabor it, but the green, um, initial concept, and we'll come back to it with a comment.

So are you extending the...

Yeah, what we are proposing is in that first set of slides to extend the green as Bob said. Can we stipulate that as well? Yeah.

Will the green strip be irrigated? Yes. Yeah.

One detail I want to just go back on is that all of our entries, you can see like here in that gray, that's one of the entry, it's part of the loading access. You can see it here as well. Those are all garaged. They have doors. They won't be open, so they can be closed off hours. You know, when we have vehicles inside, we need to close the doors. That's an important detail. They're not just big holes in the building, but the content of that. The, you know, as we do improvements that we can maintain the color, the look, and the feel of the stone base going down. And then lastly, the bridge connection between Centine Plaza And the new tower we see as an opportunity to do two things. One is have a really light and simple, elegant structure, but an opportunity to continue the art story. And so any place where there's a connection, as you can see in the existing building between garage and building, there's the opportunity for the colored glass. Here we're proposing an interior. So an opportunity for that to be more than just a bridge, Materials palette, these are probably best to show here. And the stones we talked about in the landscape. Here are the colored glass that you probably all know from Centine Plaza. Opportunity for stone and metals and glass comparable to the existing building. So the goal is to create each building with subtle variations, but that there's a sense of campus. with the exception, of course, of our garage, which is something totally different. And there's the kind of neighborhood concept that we would introduce a family of bricks, the last of which we would be complimentary as we move around the corner into the backside with the crescent brick so that there is a, where there's a feeling of campus for the towers, there's also a feeling of neighborhood here in the low, to us, low story buildings that sort of become around the crescent zone. And this is interesting to see the range of, this is the original building, so variations on the same tone. And the sign behind this is the glass is made the same way and then it's coated with a slightly different layer. And usually the darker the coating, the higher it performs from a sustainability perspective. So we've got some variations that would be very similar to the existing building, but obviously mindful of energy code. Signage, I think we said that we would look to come back when we had some tenants and some additional detail on. And public art would be located closer to the entry and at the main zone. So with that, that wraps up kind of where we are in SD1 in combination with the questions I think Bob answered in the first part of the show.

But are we asking the questions on both architectural and site plan now, or are we doing them separately?

We can ask on any of them because they are presented

at all times. Okay. Any other questions? The staff report has, I'd like to know a lot about the staff, how they're approaching a lot of staff recommendations from the site plan review for sub-district one. There seems to be a lot of landscaping recommendations. And I wanted to ask what they were going to resolve those. I think we responded to all the staff

requests and . Yeah, they would agree to an agreement and resolve it. Yeah.

Excuse me. on the staff report? Joanne, you're referring to the- Page nine of the staff report.

The sooner it's done, that's fabulous. We love it.

So Bob, you can do this. I have to work out. You all have responded to all of these, yeah? We have a question? Okay. Where do I go? Yeah. Thank you

very much.

Thank you.

Over there, any other comments or questions

from the commission? This was basically the same material covered wet, just maybe a little more . It represents . And I think they've answered most of the staff's concerns.

I think staff's concerns and also the commission's comments from the previous meetings have been met. I

do have a question. Of course I have a question. Just from when you, first timing, the tower goes up first in 2A that's built? Is that?

Okay. That's correct.

And but this.

2A is. at the same time as Welbridge on the corner of Forsyth and P.M. Lake, and the tower gets built at the same time. Before the tower is complete, we move Welbridge in to their space, and then we tear down the old Welbridge, and we immediately put some construction on that. As tenants start occupying the tower, they'll use the 2A garage until the west garage is complete.

And then is there direct access from the west garage to the tower?

Yes, direct access. Yes. So

the people won't have to go outside. So

if you look at this, the vast majority of people that park, they come through the project at all. They're going to park in this garage and they're going to use these elevators and they'll go right into this lobby and they'll enter right in here and this is where our security will be. Some people will be dropped off at this lay-by drop-off, which is four cars deep. So this is something we don't have in the current project, which we wish we did have. We all wish you do. I know. And so we are dropping off here. That was Bob Wislow's fault. Anyway, no, it's great. It's not my fault. Anyway, then... So most people will get it right here, for sure. That'll be the vast majority of people.

For the tower, but for the Wellbridge, that's... Same thing.

The Wellbridge people park in this garage and they have interior access directly into the Wellbridge space using these elevators. The temporary won't be finished until... Yeah, we'll have temporary access from this garage over here from QA. Hopefully it won't be very far behind. That'll also be my thought. It's very far behind. Hopefully he's able to put up with that.

So the second plan shows a lot of bollards around the perimeter, much like you have at the existing center. It does. Those bollards exist out in the public right-of-way, correct? Or an awful lot of them do. I'm assuming we have the same arrangement on those bollards for this project that we have at the existing city, that they're there to maintain. There's a fix if they get hit and stuff like that.

Other comments? Okay, in this public hearing, public hearing B, we have two items that we're talking about. One is the sub-district plan and the site plan review for sub-district one. And then secondly, the architectural review for sub-district one. Eli and Bob have presented the whole thing as one act But we do have to consider it as two votes. Okay. Sure. Well, I think we'll ask if there are any audience comments or questions on sub-district one. There's one right behind you. Okay.

Can't hear you, Tom.

Can't

hear

you. In my 66 years of living in Clayton, 20 plus years operating an architectural firm here in Clayton, and 10 years sitting on this board, I've never seen a project that was scaled with this much detail. The only thing that comes close is the enterprise project. I want to commend Bob and his team and his commission on the level of detail and the level of expertise that the staff has developed. There are two small comments. One is I'm very careful of lighting up the crown of a building If Clayton doesn't do that sort of thing, just be very careful. And the second thing, and this is a moonshot, if you will, is there an opportunity for a pedestrian bridge that crosses Handley so we can have a decent bus? So those are the two comments that I would make. But overall, thank you very much for your commitment to Clayton.

Tom, are you requesting a public pedestrian

bridge? A public pedestrian bridge, possibly as a piece of art, a big deal competition. Clayton deserves something like that, I think. We have some pretty good art in Clayton. This will be an are part, so to speak, of the civil engineering masterpiece.

Are you thinking of like at Millennium Park in Chicago? We'll leave that up

to the applicant.

Thank you. Any other comments? Any further comments from the commission and the board? Okay, what we have, as we said, we have two votes. One is on the special development sub-district plan and the site plan review for sub-district one. And we have staff recommendations to approve those to the Board of Aldermen with the conditions which we believe have been pretty well satisfied. City Manager just reminded me to close the public hearing. Do we have a motion? So moved. Second. All in favor? Aye. Opposed? Okay. The public hearing B is closed and we'll go ahead with the first vote as I said on the sub-district plan and site plan review.

MOTION TO APPROVE WITH STAT RECOMMENDATIONS, SUBDISTRICT ONE. SECOND.

ALL IN FAVOR? AYE. OPPOSED. AND THEN WE HAVE THE ARCHITECTURAL REVIEW FOR SUBDISTRIPT ONE. AND WE HAVE two staff recommendations, and this would be for approval. I'm

on a roll. I could make a motion to approve with staff's recommendation.

Second. All in favor? Aye. There we have sub-minister Wong. Thank you. Sub-minister Ture. We will now have Yes, that will be an item C and that will be a continuation of the public hearing. Kathy Scott-Wilson is leading at this point. Thank you. All right, we still have a quorum.

Thank you, Dr. Wilson, for your time tonight. So moving on to subject 2A, and again, as Bob had mentioned in the STD discussion, this is an apportionment of Steve 2. So this represents the first garage. And in summary, I think the key, as we just talked about with phasing, the reason that this is so important is due to how the build will happen. So there could be parking that's available while the well-rigged tower gets salted is to allow it to then be well-rigged and come back to do the rest of S3 norms. So it's a critical piece of this purple stuff. I'm going to sound a little bit like a broken record here from the first one, but the intent here is to show the extensive work we've done in terms of grading and looking at this as that very steep grade. We spent quite a bit of time on it and have committed to taking one more look at. The garage is located here in this corner and has been, as we noted earlier, significantly compressed. from what it was in the SDD. The overall parking count, as Bob had mentioned, between SDs one and two is approximately 219 cars less than where we were at SDD and at the time of the initial traffic report, so we see that as a net positive. to the overall. In the interest of not flipping back between slides, because it's 100 slides behind and I'm taking a long time, we have moved to this and consolidated, as we said, and that's an agreed-to stipulation that increases the open space area and is going to create, I think that's a direct comment from the staff. And then some of the other comments will be with the overall articulation of the garage Stormwater is much the same, and we'll be using this area not only as green space and as a connection zone, but as a potential stormwater zone as well as future areas on the buildings as you see them to be, as you've seen. This is actually no longer relevant because we had moved it to the other side, but the point would be is that the same vehicular train radiuses would be applicable to the loading area here, which we also have studied. And those are depicted as automobiles, not as trucks? Correct. For 2A, what we are including again with the other side of Weill, we would have new street trees and then we would face FACE 2A WITH ADDITIONAL STREET TREATS AND PUBLIC SIDEWALK GROUND ALONG THE FACE OF THE GARAGE. AND THEN WE HAD ALLOCATION FOR, AGAIN, THAT RETAIL-READY SPACE AND A MAJOR LOBBY, MINIMIZING REALLY JUST THE GARAGERY TO THE ACCESS POINT TO THE EXTENT POSSIBLE. SO THIS IS THE CONCEPT OF THOSE ACTIVE ZONES. AND WE SPENT SOME TIME AS BOB ON THE STD TALKING ABOUT WHAT THE FUTURE IS GOING TO BE, AND I THINK THAT'S IMPORTANT BECAUSE TWO WEEKS AGO WE SHOWED YOU a green one, which is sort of day one. But there's great opportunity here, as we said here, for that residential retail. This is really not under consideration. And then the future civic corporate auditorium. So the important point is saying we've agreed to combine those two access points. Getting into the site and landscape portion of the materials, same family of materials, like granite pavers, concrete pavers mixed. Again, working with the range of street trees that are available from the city, we would again look for a variety of multiple species, much like we are in one. And this was a staff comment we addressed two weeks ago, but it's worth reiterating. Our initial submittal had an open garage. We came back and showed a garage clad with brick and masonry units to create a more varied and non-garage look, even as we're about to cover it up. So that residential study Bob showed you goes in front of this. And then as we look at the short elevation, the beautiful new corporate civic auditorium will go in front of that. for the short term going to cloud the garage in masonry materials as a direct response to the comments from staff. Are

you showing that to us now?

This was in two weeks ago, but I didn't draw a lot of attention to it, and in the vein of responding directly to comments, I thought it was worth noting that that was one of the comments. This is the cloud? This is the current concept for the cloud again, which is a mix of You can see we've gone to some of the more gray tones of the brick as we come around the auditorium, anticipating, again, I think that if it was all red brick, it becomes a monotony that we're trying not to do. And so we wanted to shift to something a little bit more neutral and a little bit more modern in its color but still masonry. Well then, gray brick may be more recessive. You know, really, this is going to be such a gem. And the residential, as the red bit completes the circle, right? So there's that sense of neighborhood in the circle, which is so important. The auditorium is this jewel, and I think you want this building to receive a little bit. So that was the intent, was going with a much quieter palette. We appreciate both the

south and the east faces being finished now, because even though we'd like to see The future is debatable because on the existing 17 garage, we still have unfinished .

I think that was some time spent on this understanding of math. These are the dashed zones indicating the potential new building. And again, I think if we'd like, we can go back to the early presentation. But I think the concepts we showed you earlier cover that. Again, we had just shown two weeks ago volumes WHICH MAY NOT HAVE BEEN SUPER HELPFUL. SO THE EARLY SHOW BOB DID REALLY GIVE YOU CLARITY ON THAT THIS IS GOING TO STEP IN, IT'S GOING TO BE MUCH MORE RELATED. YOU CAN SEE THAT, REMEMBER, WE CAME BACK TO ABOUT THERE. THIS DRIVE HAS MOVED. SO THE DETAILS SHOWN HERE, I THINK, ALTHOUGH WE'RE NOT SUBMITTING FOR 2C, HELPS YOU UNDERSTAND WHAT WE'RE APPLYING FOR DAY ONE AND HOW MUCH IT CHANGES.

DO YOU ANTICIPATE THAT 2C WILL COVER southernmost eastern window on the crescent.

This corner here? I think we've pulled back, and if I remember the exact dimension. It opens it up. We were about 42 feet from the corner, then we had to go back. So it's a healthy distance back. sort of washed out. Sorry, go ahead.

I

just

remembered this. There was a question that was sent to us by someone who was in the question about a transformer

location. Sure. We are looking at, if we go back to the plan, A transformer location sort of tucked up in this zone. We anticipate it being much like the transformers that are currently on the island. No difference in anticipated noise or disturbances. How much noise does a

transformer make?

Very much.

We don't see it as an issue anymore.

Is it an electrical transformer?

It's an electrical transformer, like those green boxes. That you see on

the

floor. They don't make noise. So it would be essentially the same as Because

what's behind the crescent

on that alley

now?

I haven't paid attention to that. I don't really know what a transformer

is. So for Joanne's benefit, would it be more of a pump as opposed to an emergency generator? Correct. Sounds like an airplane. So if

you have a dog, might

that be a problem? And then to close this out, signage is the same statement as before, which is that as the potential retailer comes in, we anticipate coming back with additional signage for approval. At this point, without that meeting, I would ask you to come there in those zones. So this was a much shorter one than SD1, but open for questions. And hopefully the front end of the presentation, 20 or so slides, addressed a lot of the staff comments on SD2A.

So did you guys see all the staff recommendations? We did. And have they all been addressed?

I believe they've

all been specifically addressed. Oh, the 2D. The 2D is consider incorporating landscape islands with trees and roads to break up the pavement located on top of the parking structure.

I think we will consider that. I think to your comment about our own residential building, most of our residences were gonna face directly into the roundabout. our residences are going to be able to see back over the top of the garage and our tower is going to be, our building is going to block the view of the garage. So while I do think that we're looking into, and we have done planters AT EXPRESS STRIPS ON TOP OF THE PARKING GARAGE. WE WILL LOOK AT OPTIONS TO PUT BOXES ON TOP OF THE GARAGE, BUT I DON'T KNOW ANY OTHER WAY TO FACILITATE IT, HONESTLY, WITHOUT COVERING THE WHOLE GARAGE WITH THREE FEET OF DIRT OR SOMETHING. I DON'T KNOW IF

THAT'S NOT AN ECONOMIC VIABLE ISSUE. DID THE PERSON WHO MADE THIS RECOMMENDATION HAVE AN IDEA? THE PERSON HERE.

Right

here? No. I think I talked about it earlier, kind of comparing this garage with the garage for one, sub-district one where you've got loops. It's surrounded by green roofs and whatnot. There's a little bit of mitigating factor there, whereas here this is just kind of a standalone glare concrete appearance. So consideration was the word I chose because I do understand that it can be difficult to do that, but there are a lot of creative solutions that you could possibly employ. I can't think of sitting here

today exactly how to do it, but I think we have very great information. I think it's not that much to ask for us to study the issue. There's a couple ideas, but one thing to point out though is that once our residential building is built, no one will be able to see the top of the property garage. There won't be any visibility to it.

So there will be no residential units facing north, but there is one facing west. Or is it facing south? Facing

west. The plan that you showed us last time did have windows on the north side. Maybe you took those, or not? I guess last time you didn't have it

as well.

Other

comments

on 2A? Any audience comments? Come on

up. I think what Mr. Clark said earlier,

certain issues involving this parking garage being able to be worked out of the garage. I'm holding the whole thing up. It may be the case we have here. I do want to point out that there are a lot of people at the plaza who have been on all these garage jobs because the building's narrow and high, and also probably from the Ritz-Carlton people there. And on our fifth floor, our entire fifth floor between the office building and the residential tower is covering our garages through the garage and stuff. Huge amount of landscaping. I'm not suggesting that because we're not parking up there. But I think what he said is true with the right kind of box planning. There's not a lot of space. Anyway, that's the one thing. The other thing is that same thing I think could be true of the traffic issue with regard to how we're going to have a lot more cars able to come directly out on the front end. Not more cars in the garage, just more coming out on the front. And I think that also... perhaps if everybody's open to this, and this is something we have some obligation to consider, that if it turns out to be a problem, there are a couple things that could be done. One is it could be done inside with the chain or interior of the garage. It can be managed so that some people can come out on Carondelet and others the other way. And the other thing is that there's a median, a very narrow median down Carondelet And the way it is now, I believe that the graphic cut does not line up with a cut through the median, which means that if someone came out onto the ground black and really wanted to go east, they'd have to go down around the circle and back out. It just adds to the graphic circle. So cutting through that median, if I'm correct about the line up or cutting through the

median,

then the car could turn left coming out of that garage. It would be another possibility. I guess what I'm saying is, I'd like to think that there's flexibility there to address the problems in those kinds of ways.

We would prefer to have guidelines. That's something we just work with staff to get them to agree to it. But we wouldn't do it if we didn't know what to do next. That

would give a lot more flexibility to any cars.

I'd like to go back to Susan. You had said something about not wanting one, just one entrance and exit on the garage. Can you talk about that a

little more? Well, I think there's always a safety concern for people trying to exit the garages quickly and for access for emergency vehicles. There's also concern over traffic congestion in the garage. One exit, you had one exit or entrance and it was blocked. You couldn't get out. And I think the other thing I mentioned was that the pattern of drivers isn't necessarily going to be dictated by one entrance and exit, if they want to go to the circle, they can very easily go to the circle by simply taking it right out of the garage and making a quick right, and they're down the car. By going out the garage, turning right,

and right there. Exactly. Same almost in the second.

Yeah, I mean, it's... The traffic that is

probably very similar example, showing the existing garage which is 1617, 100 cars. We have the same situation except we don't have a light and we very rarely, by the way, have the traffic. problem getting out of our garage. The garage fenders out pretty well on the support side. There is a relief valve kind of part into the alley. I would be surprised if 10% of it hardens. So I think it will be a very similar situation here. And it's not direct Just so everybody knows, it's not like you can drive through from the front left of the port site. It's the 28-foot difference. So it's actually the person who's going to have to drive in and drive two circles up to get out on the port site. So it's not a direct access. People will be using it as a cutoff. No, it'll be more of an emergency thing. It'll be, I think, low impact.

Well, the emergency definitely resonates with being able to get people. Well, I think the parking garage use is going to change over

time. In this first phase, it's going to be parking for the office building. In its later life, the area will be the parking for the residential and for the auditorium. And I think in that use, it's going to have a different parking dynamic than what we have as the office building. That's good. Would you maybe agree to a gate? And if you don't need it, you don't need,

but a gate could be put in now. We have a gate on the alley. Just to segregate it where you want. That's still about the same. We probably could do that anywhere from a security

standpoint. It would be a minimal

total. Before we vote on these, we have one other item for Susan, and that's a major subdivision plant.

Right. This is just a plant that will consolidate the lots address that are outlined in your staff report, and this really is just to facilitate the development of the project. Your review on this is primarily ministerial. It meets the code provisions for subdivisions SUBJECTIVE DECISION-MAKING. WHEN IT COMES TO REVIEWING THIS, THIS IS ONE THAT YOU WILL BE FORWARDING A RECOMMENDATION TO THE BOARD OF AUTHORITIES, AND THEY ARE THE FINAL APPROVAL.

ACTUALLY, THE CYCLING REVIEW AND THE SUBDIVISION PLAN GO TO THE BOARD, CORRECT?

THE SUBDISTRICT PLAN AND THE SUBDIVISION PLAT GO TO THE BOARD. THE SITE PLAN REVIEW AND SUBDISTRICT PLAN AND ARCHITECTURAL AND THE PLAT ARE GOING TO GO TO THE BOARDS FOR INFORMATIONAL PURPOSES, BUT YOU ALL ARE HAVING THE AUTHORITY TO APPROVE THE SITE PLAND AND THE ARCHITECTUAL REVIEW PLAN. THE OTHER TWO, YOU'RE MAKING A RECOMMENDATION TO THE BOARD AND THEY HAVE FINAL APPROVAL. I

THINK WE UNDERSTAND THAT. It's the way our code is structured, which isn't. Okay, so any further comment before we move on? We will close the public hearing. Do we have a motion? I make a motion to close the public hearing? Second. All in favor? Aye. Opposed? Okay. WE CAN MOVE ON TO VOTE AT THIS POINT, AND WE'LL TAKE SUB... AS WE HAVE LISTED ON THE AGENDA, WE'LL TAKING SUBDISTRICT 2A FIRST.

WHERE WOULD WE ADD PUTTING THE GATE FOR PARKING? WOULD THAT BE AN ARCHITECTURAL VIEW OR SUBDISTRIPT? I think you just put in site plan

review. Okay, so not yet. We're in the, oh yes we are. This is site plan review.

Well your sub-district 2A and site plan review you can vote on concurrently.

I MAKE A MOTION TO APPROVE SUBDISTRICT 2A AND THE SITE PLAN REVIEW PORTIONS, ADDING THE GATE TO THE SITE PLANT PIECE. BOTH WOULD HAVE ALL THE STANDARD RECOMMENDATIONS. SECOND. ALL IN FAVOR? AYE.

OPPOSED? AND THEN WE HAVE THE MAJOR SUBDIVISION PLANT, WHICH SUSAN I'LL MAKE A MOTION TO APPROVE

THE MAJOR SUBMISSION PLAN. SECOND. ALL IN FAVOR? AYE.

OPPOSED? AND THEN WE COME DOWN TO THE ARCHITECTURAL REVIEW FOR SUBMISTRICT 2A. This will be for approval. And Susan, you indicated that it would be sent to the board as information.

Correct. It's all one packet together, so all contained within the books. So team has provided in their application.

I'll make a motion to approve the architectural review portion of this project with staff recommendations. Second. All in favor?

Aye.

Opposed? I THINK WE'VE DONE THROUGH MOST OF IT TONIGHT. I'D

LIKE TO JUST TAKE A MINUTE AND THANK YOU FOR AN AMAZING AMOUNT OF INTENTION YOU ALL HAVE GIVEN US. I THINK THE COMMUNITY, THE NEIGHBORS, THEY'VE DONE AMAZING WORK WITH. I KNOW NOT EVERYBODY IS HAPPY WITH EVERY SINGLE OUTCOME, BUT WE KNOW THAT YOU'VE MADE TREMENDOUS ENGROADES WITH THE COMMUNITY. WE APPRECIATE ALL THE COMMENTS FROM THE COMMISSION AND THE A.R.E., AND FOR ALL OF THEM. THANK YOU. THANK YOU. THAT OF COURSE BRINGS US TO THE END OF OUR AGENDA. WE THANK EVERYONE