June 6, 2022 — Meeting Transcript

Thank you. Excuse me.

Ira, can you hear us now?

I can hear you now. Yes.

Here we go. Great. Thanks.

Okay.

Okay,

good evening. We're ready. Good evening,

everyone. Be sure to speak into the green lit microphone.

Hear me okay? Yes. Okay. Good evening, Everyone. Members of the Plan Commission Architects Review Board, Chairman Lichtenfeld, City Manager David Gipson, The city attorney is not here and the city and city staff. My name is Mark Melman, and I'm here this evening with my wife, Debbie, my son, Scott, to discuss a potentially new and very exciting use for 889 South Brentwood Boulevard, commonly referred to as the old Hans Wyman building that has been vacant for many years. I assume everybody knows where that is with the picture and everything. My other son Blair was unable to attend the night, but the four of us, my wife, Debbie, myself, and Scott and Blair will make up the Melman team that will hopefully put this building back to life again. The Melman family feels that our proposed use is well needed and it will be a great addition to the city of Clayton. After speaking with Ana and getting her thoughts, Ana suggested that I make this presentation before you tonight. As a real estate developer focusing primarily in the city of Clayton, and the question is always brought to me, so Mark, what are you working on? Anything new on the horizon? Knowing how Clayton is booming, in a very positive way with all the new apartments and condominium projects, for example, by the numbers. There will be approximately 600 new apartments units that would be built between the bulky brown development across the street and the green street development at the corner of Crandallet and Beamiston within the next two years, there'll be 600 new apartment units that will be built there. And this does not include the 400 units that have been completed in the last couple of years at 212 South Merrimack and 25 North Central. And that totals about a thousand apartment units. And on top of that, there'll be over 200 new luxury condominiums and townhouses that will be built in the next few years. So there'll be a total of 1200 new families that will be moving into the city of Clayton. I've been driving by like probably a lot of you have for many years, this 889 South Brentwood and seeing the for sale and for lease sign that's at the corner of Brentwood and Francis Place and wondering what would be a good use for the site. Being a condo owner myself and a developer of many condominiums in Clayton, the answer wasn't difficult. We need a place to store our household items. The idea of a luxury boutique self-storage facility started to make sense for this location. Our thoughts started to percolate just like any developer's thoughts would start percolating when they see a building like this. Our thoughts were to keep the present classic architecture of the building in place and transform the inside into a very welcoming, secure climate control luxury storage facility whereby residents could store their excess household items such as furniture, clothing, family collectibles, business files and much more that just won't fit into the lockers available at these new developments. As I mentioned, the inside would be very welcoming. We want this space to feel like an extension of their homes, one in which people could walk to or take a short drive. We're considering offering many special services that would be unique to the storage facility. These services would be helpful to people of all ages, but most important, we wanna be a good neighbor. Storage facilities generally have very little daily traffic. The Clayshire neighborhood will appreciate not having cars driving through their streets and during the morning and afternoon rush hour if we can find a use for our new proposed site. We're still in the very early planning stages. However, the Melmans can promise you a first-class facility just like the many homes and condominiums we have built in Clayton throughout the years. So I'm looking for your thoughts, I'm looking for you comments, and I'm also looking to see how we can make this happen. Thank you, Steve.

Hear me okay? Yes. Okay. Good evening, Everyone. Members of the Plan Commission Architects Review Board, Chairman Lichtenfeld, City Manager Gibson, The city attorney is not here and the city and city staff. My name is Mark Melman, and I'm here this evening with my wife, Debbie, my son, Scott, to discuss a potentially new and very exciting use for 889 South Brentwood Boulevard, commonly referred to as the old Hans Wyman building that has been vacant for many years. I assume everybody knows where that is with the picture and everything. My other son Blair was unable to attend the night, but the four of us, my wife, Debbie, myself, and Scott and Blair will make up the Melman team that will hopefully put this building back to life again. The Melman family feels that our proposed use is well needed and it will be a great addition to the city of Clayton. After speaking with Ana and getting her thoughts, Ana suggested that I make this presentation before you tonight. As a real estate developer focusing primarily in the city of Clayton, and the question is always brought to me, so Mark, what are you working on? Anything new on the horizon? Knowing how Clayton is booming, in a very positive way with all the new apartments and condominium projects, for example, by the numbers. There will be approximately 600 new apartments units that would be built between the bulky brown development across the street and the green street development at the corner of Crandallet and Beamiston within the next two years, there'll be 600 new apartment units that will be built there. And this does not include the 400 units that have been completed in the last couple of years at 212 South Merrimack and 25 North Central. And that totals about a thousand apartment units. And on top of that, there'll be over 200 new luxury condominiums and townhouses that will be built in the next few years. So there'll be a total of 1200 new families that will be moving into the city of Clayton. I've been driving by like probably a lot of you have for many years, this 889 South Brentwood and seeing the for sale and for lease sign that's at the corner of Brentwood and Francis Place and wondering what would be a good use for the site. Being a condo owner myself and a developer of many condominiums in Clayton, the answer wasn't difficult. We need a place to store our household items. The idea of a luxury boutique self-storage facility started to make sense for this location. Our thoughts started to percolate just like any developer's thoughts would start percolating when they see a building like this. Our thoughts were to keep the present classic architecture of the building in place and transform the inside into a very welcoming, secure climate control luxury storage facility whereby residents could store their excess household items such as furniture, clothing, family collectibles, business files and much more that just won't fit into the lockers available at these new developments. As I mentioned, the inside would be very welcoming. We want this space to feel like an extension of their homes, one in which people could walk to or take a short drive. We're considering offering many special services that would be unique to the storage facility. These services would be helpful to people of all ages, but most important, we wanna be a good neighbor. Storage facilities generally have very little daily traffic. The Clayshire neighborhood will appreciate not having cars driving through their streets and during the morning and afternoon rush hour if we can find a use for our new proposed site. We're still in the very early planning stages. However, the Melmans can promise you a first-class facility just like the many homes and condominiums we have built in Clayton throughout the years. So I'm looking for your thoughts, I'm looking for you comments, and I'm also looking to see how we can make this happen. Thank you, Steve.

Thanks, Mark. Well, that is a unique use for that property that I never would have considered. But I'm sure we have a few questions amongst all of us and maybe even some of the public tonight. The first one I would say is what will happen with the windows, which now at various times in the winter we see light in there and it looks more like an office building right now. Would that change substantially?

Well, we've not really done a lot of details on that yet. Our big focus would be trying to keep the facade of the building clean. PB, David Ensign & Co- If something needs to be changed window wise what's really nice is that the height of the floors so the ceiling height, so we got 10 foot heights almost. PB, David Ensigne & Co- And one part of the building there's two different buildings that joined together, so it does have a Center lobby which we can make very welcoming like I said, a home. PB, David Elsieman- And then the other part of the building has 12 foot tall ceilings so we're able to really bring some nice storage space in. As far as windows go, you know, I thought the windows just in looking from the outside in were nice. And if we can some way or another retain the look, I think the look of the architecture of the building is what I think Clayton kind of represents. It's a real classic look, in my opinion. So did that answer your question? sort

of yes um have you uh checked whether the zoning is proper for that use

yeah i'll jump in there um that's part of why they're making this presentation so storage use is not currently allowed in any of our zoning districts so in order to pursue this development there would need to be either a text amendment adjusting storage to allow it in one of our zoning districts or the use of the use variance process to allow that as a use on this specific property.

Let me add to one thing that I could have said a lot, but I didn't want to get a lot on your agenda too. There's really no close by storage facility and there's certainly no luxury boutique type storage facility. close by. I think there's one in Kirkwood, there might be one at Westport. There's a company called Easy Storage that has a number of facilities around town. But we're not talking about that look. We're talking about something that's going to be more of a feel for an extension of your home is really what we want. We want with all the new families, not just will that would be moving in but the current families, we want this we want this facility to be very much like Clayton And we know as a developer, I know if there's one thing that people seem to always complain about, it's just the lack of storage. We have very secure storage in our condos, but we don't have, the size is not enough to really store a lot of their household items. And ourselves, we have, our storage locker is out at McGuire and Son Storage Facility. If you've ever been out there, it's out at the Bus and Quarry Facility, which is out off of like Lee May Ferry and 270. So you have to fill up your car before you go there, and you sometimes gotta fill it up when you come back home. It's that far away, but it's quite a jaunt.

Well, I agree that we certainly don't have anything like this in the area. And I know several people who have downsized into a condo or an apartment, and that is their number one complaint. What do they do with the excess that they will not get rid of initially?

whether it's family heirlooms, whether it's just collectibles, whatever it might be, you know, it's nice to have something close by. Not that you have to go visit it on a weekly basis or a monthly basis, but it's nice that you don't have to take a long drive. And I think if you do it right, I think if the architecture is right, I think of the insight is right. I think it could be a nice addition to Clayton.

Can you share what the occupancy of the building is

at the

current time?

So the building is vacant and has been vacant for years. So the building has been demoed on the inside. So it was, since the time it's been the Hans Wyman hair replacement place, I don't think anything's been in there. I think there's been a number of potential people that have looked at it. And I think they all say the same thing. It's just too much. And it's just kind of languishing there, waiting for somebody to come up with a different use Because the odds of it being an office building today are very slim. It would just take too much dollars for it to get into that condition. And the odds for it to be a medical building, medical space today, they all want to be near a hospital. So I just don't think that that is the right necessary location for doctor's offices or anything like that. So with what we're proposing here, it seemed to have fit lots of people. And with the expansion of Clayton, there's just so much going on, so much good that's going on. I think it's just another asset that we can add to the growth and the expansion of, you know, our city. But it's totally gutted. The inside is gutted.

Let's go around. Carolyn, questions or comments?

Yeah.

One of my questions was... How does the...

So that was reworked at the time when I think Hans Weimann was in there. So that door can be opened up and your way in and out, we'd have to rework the ramp. We have to widen the ramp. There's going to be quite a bit of work that needs to be done to the building itself, both inside and some of the ingress egress. But there's a big opening that could be widened, which should be perfect for

just that.

Well, so one of our next stops is to our architect and to kind of lay out the space and see what would fit in there. The building itself is about 20,000 square feet. There's two levels of garages. There's a surface level up on top that you see in the picture, and there's a garage parking below. Now, our immediate thought with the garage below, and there could be much discussion on this, is to try and transform some of that garage space into usable space that's below grade. And again, with having the very few cars coming and going, if you're all familiar with storage facilities, they're just not a lot of traffic whatsoever. So it would be nice to be able to use some of the below-grade parking as additional storage space, because there's plenty of parking up on the surface level.

Bob?

My experience with storage facilities is they'll use the exterior along the windows as a hallway for people to move the furniture to get to the unit. And you, in essence, build a building within a building. And I'm sure there's some in St. Louis. If you ever go by one, it may be a public storage. It'll have orange doors. And it's really very unsightly. in an area like this. I know there are air conditioning storage facilities starting to pop up in St. Louis. I'm sure on Manchester Road, there's a couple with air conditioning units. Personally, I would hate to see this become storage and just a dead building sort of where people occasionally come in to store stuff and pick it up. On the other hand, I do understand if you've owned this building a long time, which sounds like you have.

I don't own it. We have it under contract. Okay.

And it hasn't had any use. It looks nice on the outside. It's open space on the inside. I'm just kind of surprised that, and it has parking too, right?

Actually got a lot of parking. But it's a location, Bob, that's really holding this thing back. You know, you've got the inner belt that drives right past it. You've got the exit ramp of Brentwood right there. So you walk out the front door, you almost gotta look both ways before you walk out the door, you get hit by a car. It's that close to the street. So it's not really conducive in today's world for an office building. I really don't think it's conducive for a medical building. But to answer one of your other questions. So there would be no neon lights flashing on this building. There'll be no large bright lights flashing on this. I don't think there's gonna be any identification that this is a storage facility. I don't think I want any of that. I think I want to retain the picture that we see right in front of you. And it's not going to take very long for people to realize that we've got a special product here, and this is where they want to be. So I don't think it's going to be that large that we have thousands of units that are going to be in this space. It's going to be a limited space. And I think it would be sought after. And I don't think anyone's going to, they're going to be, they won't call it the Hans Wyman building anymore. They're going to call it the Melman storage or Melman facility.

Would you foresee this being a locally operated one or part of a chain?

No, no, I think, no, I don't think it'd be locally operated. It's not our intentions to build it out, to sell it to one of the large companies. It's our intentions to have it as a facility that's goes off income.

Well, I know the public storage where Costco is going in has just been removed recently. So there aren't that many right around here.

I think there might be one in, I don't know, Rock Hill, a large facility on Manchester, like you said. But there's not really, there's nothing here. But it wouldn't be the storage locker image that we're not envisioning the storage locker image that you would see a big facility because it's not a big facility. It's not a full glass building that's gonna have signs out there, bargains. We're not gonna have any of that. We'll probably get a very nice rent. It doesn't necessarily have to be all Clayton residents, but I bet you in a very short period of time between all the people moving in, both condominium owners, both present and past, and apartment dwellers, there'd be a huge demand

Well, I would keep an open mind, but initially a little bit of a tough sell to me. But I see what you're saying. The only other thing I would say is public storage and life storage seem to be popping up all over town the last few years with new facilities.

Well, it's become a

good investment. Ellen?

Yes, I can appreciate the need for storage. Having lived in an apartment all my life until I came to St. Louis and have a house and I can see that I would not fit back in an apartment now. My concerns are how are you going to handle the fire code requirements, fire resistance ratings? Have

you

looked at that at all?

We're so early in the game on all this. We right now have to get past the use part of it. If we can get, this is all conceptual, what we're envisioning here, but without having an approved use for this site, for the building, then it's no real topic any longer. We have a very short leash that we're on with the sellers to get this all done, but in the end, there's nothing else going to go in there. I think it actually is a perfect site for us way the close proximity to the neighborhoods, I think the close proximity. And if you make it secure and safe, and really not, by the way, it's really not safe now. You got a building that's with an empty, with a blow-grade garage. You got a sitting there, something ready to happen. I think it's better to think about a change of a use because office and medical, which is what it's been, it's not working. No one's going for it.

Okay, my other question would follow on that with regard to the building code and the loading capacity for storage. But I think I would agree with Bob that I keep an open mind, but not jumping for joy.

Get it, I can get it. Listen, that's why we're here. If it was an approved use, we wouldn't be doing it. And storage lockers kind of have that connotation But again, I'm only going to leave you going into the next question. But I'm only going leave with it's not going to be what you envision a storage facility to look like, welcoming. It would be like to call it an extension of someone's home. So if we can create something like that and make it a safe place that people want to come to. And we also have lots of different ideas. So between, and I'm going to go quick. Between the young and the old that are moving into Clayton, There's lots of services that we can perform. Knowing that the elderly people, they might want to store some stuff there. We can deliver stuff to them, whether it's clothing, whether it's furniture, whether it's dishes, whether it's something, whatever it might be, so that they don't have to go out. If we have one or two employees in this place, that's all we would have. But we can create so many different things. And I keep thinking that there's going to be more than just one or two services. There'll be tons of services that people will ask us to do. That's what we've done our whole life. We'll figure out something. We'll make it work. Kami.

Have you spoken to the neighborhood on any of these thoughts about having a storage unit yet?

It's too early in the game for that, but the only comment that I made about this is that I know what the Clayshare sub-neighborhood is like. I know the ingress and egress out of there. One way in and one way out. So if you can create something that's less traffic Less traffic. It'll be so much safer than these rush hours. There's lots of kids up and down those apartments and in those homes and everything over there. It wouldn't surprise me if that's a cut through to get back out onto Clayton Road. So that won't be that way because no one's coming. They're going to come get a dish.

Sure, I just mean having like a storage facility like right near their neighborhood because I know you said you heard that it's not normally considered a safe space a lot of valuables there, mostly, you know, people aren't in them a lot and just, you know, living close to that I was just wondering, might be something to ask the

neighbor very safe place, but I think, you know, I think it'd be a much better use for the neighborhood having less traffic than more because I don't know what the history has been with Clayshire, with cars flying in and out of there and cutting through onto Clayton Road. But I'll bet you there's a lot of that if it's an office building or a medical building that's showing more traffic. That's all. Ira?

Yeah. Good evening, Mark. How are you? It's Ira Burkle. How

are you doing?

Good. Yeah. I mean, this, I guess I'm thinking of you and thinking in terms of what kind of a headache are you looking to buy here? You know, I'm not sure, you know, I mean, I assume this is your first foray into the storage industry. Is that right?

Well, we're about 15 days into a contract and You know, so we haven't got too far. Yes. This

is your first step. Yeah. There's so many issues with abandoned furniture. There's issues with breaking and entering people. You know, I mean, there's a lot of security issues with these things. But I do get your point. You know what? What else? If not this, you know, we sort of don't want a gas station there. We don't want you know, it's probably wouldn't make it as a restaurant. Um, so what do, what, what, what can we put in there? Um, I'm not ready for hair transplants, so I'm not planning the days of Hans Wyman, but, uh, you know, um, I I'm neutral. I mean, I, I'm willing to be and have an open mind as well, you know? So, uh, that would be kind of where I am at. What happens,

uh, Anna from here to get to the next step or, if it, what happens from here to see if we can get it onto. Well,

I think the question needs to be answered is whether or not this commissioner, the board of Alderman would want to see this be a one-off type thing that would go through a use variance process or whether or not this would be acceptable throughout other areas in the city. And if you go the text amendment route, that's what could potentially happen. So if you add this as a conditional use, for instance, to the C2 district, you could end up having these on Clayton Road and other areas in the city that the board has identified for retail. So if this site is truly unique and that it really isn't going to be used for anything else, then perhaps the use variance would be the best route to go. And I think that's what we need to figure out at this point is what would be the application process? Is it the text amendment where this could potentially be allowed citywide? Is this a use we want to see here in Clayton? Or is this a one-off type application? And then that would be the use variance process, which is a totally separate matter that would be taken up by the Board of Adjustment. So. That's really the question of the day. And I think that's probably what you're looking for and the guidance you're looking

for. Exactly. And, you know, I'm all about doing the right thing in Clayton. I'm not about to come here and push, but if you guys, if the board would say, this isn't something we're interested in, we just, you know, project, but I just think there's so a one use doing it. Like you say, this, this site isn't going anywhere. This site might be going the wrong way instead of the right way in spite of values and everything that are going on, the more vacant it gets, the more deteriorated it gets, the everything it gets the wrong way. So I would hope that you would look at it along those ways because I don't think it's a, if we can do it right on the exterior and we can do it on the interior, I think it's an asset, not a negative. That's a lot of stuff we'd have to work through as far as design goes and all that. But we got good architects.

Can I add a comment quickly?

Yeah,

sure. One thing that I know that I miss, it's Richmond Heights and not Clayton, but the Scholar Shop and consignment. You have two kind of buildings here. Would you ever consider doing storage and then a consignment sort of situation and the other one? Just an idea.

So listen, we're open for... you know, ideas. We're not stuck on anything and I think that's a great idea. The Scali shop is missed. Yeah,

even if it's home furnishings or something else, it's, you know, it's an opportunity that it could lead over. It was kind of

part of Clayton. You know, that was very much a part. And this building is really beautiful. I mean, on the exterior.

That was my only comment. Thanks.

To follow up on the comments and especially the city managers, I'd be more in favor of you proceeding with it under the use variance where we do not open it up to be citywide but for this unique property alone. And see how far it goes with that. Any other questions from the plan commission? If not, are there any comments from the audience?

No.

Any hands up?

No. Have we given

you

direction?

You have. We'll be talking to Ana and David and figuring out what's the next step. Appreciate it so much. Thank you, Mark. Okay.

Now we can move on to old business. And number one is 750 Wenneker Drive. Yes.

So the subject property, the request for solar panels was first heard at the previous meeting and tabled to this meeting. The applicant today provided some additional information related to their request and the optimal design and placement of solar panels. That was after we wrote the staff report. So the staff report has not really changed any from the previous meeting. The Sustainability Committee for the City did discuss this and does plan to come before for a joint discussion with ARB. However, that meeting date has not been set yet. The applicant did request to still be heard on this agenda, so I will turn it over from there.

Thank you. The applicant?

No one here for 750

Wenneker Drive,

or

are they

virtual?

Nobody has their hands up.

Yeah, but no one's listed. Yeah.

Okay. Let's hold off on this and see if... they arrive later. Otherwise, we'll have to table it again. We'll move on to items 2, 3, 4, and 5, which are 7814 to 7820 Forsyth Boulevard. Before we start, at the previous meeting, we had the public hearing. And we got through that. We had some comments. We did close the public hearing. So tonight, it's really more of a review from that and hearing the applicant with any changes or updates that came out of the previous meeting. So with that, Ana, would you like to begin?

Yes. So as Steve mentioned, this request for planning and development was presented at the previous plan commission meeting. Your staff report combines the rezoning planning and development and site plan requests into one report. The proposed project also requires architectural review as well as approval of the rezoning PUD and subdivision plat by the Board of Aldermen. So the Plan Commission recommended approval of the subdivision plat to the Board of Aldermen at the previous meeting. Your staff report has been updated based on the discussion during the meeting, as well as information provided by the applicant. In the staff report, the updated items are in bold. So I'll just summarize some of those points. So as a reminder, a PUD must provide public benefits to the surrounding neighborhood and to the city above and beyond what can be reasonably achieved by the application of zoning provisions applicable to the original zoning district. This project in particular, a minimum of 30 points should be obtained. Included in your staff report there's a table that outlines the required code alternatives that add up to that 30 point requirement. There's also a table that outlines, the public benefits being proposed by the developer, along with staff recommendations for the number of points that could be assigned to each benefit. An extensive discussion was held at the previous plan Commission meeting surrounding the appropriate number of points to assign to each benefit. The average number of points that was awarded during that discussion is also included in the table and the staff report. The applicant has added detail to the points requested, which has resulted in some new rows that were not previously scored by the plan commission. Based on the discussions and staff analysis of other PUDs was reviewed in order to understand how elements have been scored previously. A comparison table showing those review points from the previous PUDs is also included in the report. While each PUD is different and should be reviewed individually, there should be some level of consistency in how similar features are reviewed and scored across different PUDs. During review of new projects and similar features or elements may be valued differently over time as site projects, conditions, and community goals change or differ. However, I think that we should keep in mind what points have been recently awarded for similar developments. So now I'm just going to highlight some of the points related to changes that have been made and some of the potential benefits. So under the provision of new or enhanced public infrastructure, there was the added provision that city streetscape would extend into the area of the current access point for the county parking lot. which is new. The applicant has also reduced the depth of planter boxes along Forsyth Boulevard to maximize the width of the sidewalk, while still providing some softening and the change of grade and creation of the dining terraces. based on the vision of the established downtown master plan and the process for establishing the Northeast downtown overlay district, as well as review of points awarded to other PUD projects, wide sidewalks and plazas for informal gatherings are an important feature to the community. The proposed development is located at a highly traffic corner in the center of downtown which makes the land highly valuable and also increases the value of providing wide sidewalks to support pedestrian circulation. The development has incorporated widened sidewalks as well as spaces to remove elements that tend to narrow sidewalks throughout the downtown area, such as outdoor dining furniture. Under the sustainable building design and construction category, the developer has listed the specific elements of design that match those examples listed under this category. That includes provisions of efficient heating and cooling systems as well as green roof infrastructure lead and the inclusion of electric vehicles. Stormwater management is also counted under a following category with the green roof and blue roof systems. So stormwater management is important. It features on a highly impervious site and also has positive impacts to the local stormwater and sewer systems in the immediate area. COB, Erika Vandenbrande & He at the parking facility so parking construction of a below grade parking areas valuable feature that reinforces the goals of downtown to be a walkable and pedestrian focused environment. COB, Erika vandenbrande & Including below grade parking allows for the majority of the building above grade to be focused on the active uses the underground parking provided will be private and serve the condominium use. And then under the appropriate open space and active and passive uses for the public category here, the public terrace space on the seventh floor and the extended outdoor dining areas will provide enhanced opportunities for the public to interact with the development. The public space on the upper floor will also offer options for a different experience and views of the city than the typical street level public spaces. The appellant has stated that the terrace will be open to the public every day without restrictions, which will be a feature not available elsewhere in the city. The public terrace and upper level bar essentially will double the public spaces and restaurant space available on the site. Based on the point summary of the staff recommendation, the total points that could be awarded or recommended to be awarded by staff is 37. I will not summarize the following which covers the site plan review and other criteria for PUD development. All right, so in conclusion, the proposed development will provide a desired mixed-use development at a prominent corner in downtown. The development aligns with the vision of the Downtown Master Plan and includes a variety of uses that'll help generate visitors and pedestrian traffic throughout the day. The development represents a unique and efficient design conforming to the requirements of a PUD. staff is of the opinion that the permitted uses public benefits and design of the site and building are compatible with the code in the context of the neighborhood. And staff recommends to recommend approval, the rezoning and the planning and development, the board of all aldermen with 16 conditions. 15 of these conditions are the same that were originally recommended. Condition number 16 was added based on discussion at the previous meeting, and that is that signage will be located adjacent to the valet zones to differentiate the hotel and guest valet from the residential valet.

Thank you. And thank you, especially for the comparison study. That was extremely helpful seeing the previous projects and the numerical content of the analysis. So that really helped. Well, with that, who's here to speak? David?

Good evening, folks. It's good to be back. So thank you for considering our project again. I appreciate it very much. I'm David with MIDAS, and I'm representing Green Street this evening also. So thanks for having us back. So I wanted to kind of narrow down the presentation to kind of what's changed so that we didn't just start over from scratch. But I just kind of want to give you a refresher of where we're talking about. And then we've added, there was some requests to add some of the other buildings around us. So this is the police station. It's across streets. You can kind of get a visual of what we look like with the building adjacent, across street from us. The other thing that we've added here is, and it was what recommendation staff is, we've increased the top and then done some nice things at the top to increase the prominence of the top level of this building to kind of give it some real cool look. And I'll show you some The difference in what Tom's done from what the prior presentation before. So we've done some stuff along the street line. We've increased the sidewalk. The sidewalk is now seven and a half feet between us and the trees. So there's plenty of width for people to walk up and down. It's actually a full 12 foot between there. We think that because of what Tom has done at the top here, we think this thing is going to have some really prominent appearance in the evenings, okay, with the lighting and the different texture that he's done at the top of this thing. So we really feel like that it will be a beacon here in Clayton and have a really, really unique look for the Clayton neighborhood, especially at this location and the height of this location, because we are at one of the highest points in Clayton. So putting the 25 story building And like I said, he's added this additional level up here to make it really very prominent. This is what it was before. So you can see there was about a 13-foot difference before. And so he's now added about an extra 15 feet up here to give it kind of a little more pizzazz up at the top of the building. So you can that. And again, what it would look like at night with the different textures and lighting that the architects proposed up there. One of the requests last line, I think it was Helen was to give us a visual from this side. So we tried to do that with this rendering to kind of give you an idea of what's going on as you're looking at it from down central. Okay, so Tom, you wanna talk a little bit about what your thoughts were here?

Again, Tom Young with HDA Architects. So at the last meeting, we talked about the massing concept of this building. So there's a lot of uses going on. So parking structure, several restaurants and bars, retail locations, hotel use, event space, and then high-end condominiums. So it really drove the concept diagram. So how the mass started to drive the exteriors and the facades were as was based on that hotel program at the base on the west facade illustrating the garage, but then wrapping it with a window wall curtain wall system. We added that break in the middle of the building to differentiate the hotel base from the upper level condominiums. We knew it was a special corner really at both sides of the building due to its height. So the balconies are really terraces. They're not your standard market rate apartments. TAB, Mark McIntyre:" size terraces are six foot by 10 there they're 12 foot by 18 I believe plus or minus so. TAB, Mark MCIntyre:" I mean it's a it's it's a large cantilever balcony so structurally it's a it'S A PRETTY POWERFUL move to make on those corners and then the amenity piece for the for the condo residents is at the top of the building. TAB, Mark McIntyre:" And we accented it with an architectural trellis feature and as David said we didn't make the building taller we just extended the mechanical screen So if I go back to. TAB, Mark MCIntyre:" The previous slides we just basically took the mechanical screen and made it all glass and we thought because we didn't need vision glass because do some interesting fritting and illumination from the backside of the panel. to create just an interesting like architectural feature illuminated night. So, and it also just kind of drove that corner again, another story taller, just to create a more interesting corner.

Does that mean that we will not see mechanical boxes sitting on the top of the building?

We always had, there was a, there's always been a mechanical penthouse that just enclosed the elevator overruns and all the pressurization equipment and mechanical wood, but some of it will be split in the building. So if you look at some of the axons in the package, some of the mechanical equipment we're able to conceal behind the event space, but this will allow us as maybe some of that equipment grows and it may be more efficient to be at the top of the building, it's all behind architecture. So it's not just more like of a corrugated screen or anything. So that was the plan was to improve that look, but also just to make that corner a little taller without really changing the concept. We were pretty happy with the direction we had We made it a glass building due to the scale. We thought just reflecting the sky would kind of bring down the scale because it might be a concern of some of the neighbors. And because of all the uses, we kept all the material, again, all glass, but then started kind of really breaking it up into that basic massing diagram we talked about last time. So I go back. We talked about this, or David had talked about widening the sidewalk. What we did here was you can see the property line we're showing is like a darker integrally colored concrete that's one foot 14 inches south of the property line. So on every edge, our face of column enclosure is 12 to 14 inches. Actually it's 16 inches. It's somewhere between 16 and 14 inches. But before we had that planter box extending all the way to the property line, we could have eliminated it and made the sidewalk wider in between the columns all along Forsyth. But we thought it's nice to have some green space to bring the scale down. And the previous buildings are all solid facades with some punched openings for the most part. So we're really going to have some large curtain wall expanses for some retail and for the residential entry. So as you're walking through that, Along Forsyth, there's a variety of scale and texture and also some overhangs up above. So I think we're going to have some nice detailing to experience as you walk your way around the building. What else? While you were on that

one, does the trellis above the window, is that reflective of what's up on the roof?

Currently, it'll be an aluminum trellis. kind of awning structure that's really intended to house like some uplighting. So we're going to probably do some LED strips, especially where we have the restaurant piece. Okay, so the next slide up as you work your way up the street, this illustrates that it gets wider. And again, we could eliminate those planters, but I think it's nice to have the planters there rather than less or have more hardscape. But yes, the idea that trellis is one to bring down the scales, another feature, a little bit of detail as you're walking around the building. But as you work your up to the restaurants, it'll provide some uplighting to add to that dining experience. I think that's a little softer than just having a bunch of down lights from 18 foot above the table surface. So

that's the concept currently. Let's hear it for Tom.

David? Yeah. One other question. Yeah. through it the second floor I've seen two different representations see what happens on the second floor right

here

yeah what's happening there the window the glazing is changed it looks

so as we've been we're working with an interior design firm out of New Jeffery Yorg that's planning all the the restaurant and the lobby for the hotel. And we shifted the entry to the south. And what they want to do is like a really cool feature bar on that corner that's illuminated, you know, really nicely and have backlit bottles. But that'll be a feature of that corner first floor space.

so as we've been we're working with an interior design firm out of New York that's planning all the the restaurant and the lobby for the hotel. And we shifted the entry to the south. And what they want to do is like a really cool feature bar on that corner that's illuminated, you know, really nicely and have backlit bottles. But that'll be a feature of that corner first floor space.

On which floor?

On the first floor. The second floor has always been the same. It's the hotel program and it's 20 foot above.

But there's no glass difference on that second floor, right?

So one thing we did, I didn't add in this last round of renderings was to show that there is, well, I think that's just a reflection of the buildings beyond. So sometimes when you're modeling these projects, like the glass looks blue when it's reflecting sky and it's reflecting a gray building in the background, that's all that is. So architecturally, I'll go to the overall too. That's just reflecting the gray buildings across the street. So it's not that it's any different glass wise, it's just, that's the nature of,

same

of the architecture yeah so if you look at this facade it's the same it's just it gets darker up in that corner it's reflecting a context building across the street

and then while you're on this uh above the condo entrance where you don't have the i guess it's a metal horizontal the glass in the same plane as on either the east and the west

Currently, that's the plan, yes. That slab edge would be continuous and that glass lines, I believe recessed four to five inches. The property line is not truly orthogonal, but yeah, that's all in plain.

Sorry. No, it's good. I didn't mean to break in. Very good. Thank you. Good questions. So again, just kind of wanted to share with you what we there will be a lot of so as as Tom said this corner of the building will actually be the bar. Okay, so there will be a bar that backs up into this this round corner in the in the corner. So you'll see the bottles you'll see the activity the bar as you're walking by this by the site every day. So this will be a restaurant bar right in this corner. We'll have cafe or bistro seating outside. It's not on the sidewalk because we recessed the building back on the first level to give some more outdoor seating here for our bistro guests. So we'll have six or so seats outside on this corner. It'll be a very active corner, we feel. That was the goal to make that happen. And then Tom talked about the distance. He did reduce the planters, which We didn't want to eliminate the planters. We wanted to keep them, but we wanted to widen the sidewalk some. So we feel like we've been able to accomplish both things by keeping the greenscape as well as widening it so people can get through here easily. I wanted to share with you, originally, this is what we were doing on the side that faces the county parking lot. And comments were basically that it was a little too parking deck-ish. So we've now evolved to this, and that's where we have this really nice art feature on the side of the building. And we've retextured this thing to kind of make the garage components minimal. So it's still open, but it's a lot less garagey and a lot more finished materials on the side there. Again, with the outdoor deck above it, above the garage on this level on the seventh floor. Materials, if there was any questions on materials, I'd be happy to talk about

that with Tom or myself.

Yes. If you could more or less guide us through the examples you're giving, where they will be used and why. Okay. Although that's, we're really getting into the architectural.

Yeah.

Which is, let's hold off on that.

Okay. One piece was, I know there was a question about the public benefit and that seventh floor terrace, exterior terrace. So we made a move on that west facade. before, I don't know if this arrow will show up, before this is all glass. So now one, we're going to add some interesting lighting features, but also this is an indoor outdoor bar space. So it's actually been recessed into the facade. So again, you'll see activity. Hopefully people are out there drinking, having a good time and enjoying the terrace, but a visual cue from pedestrians at the streetscape to know there's something up there. And as we've mentioned previously as well, that restaurant and bar space in the inside is We'll be serving breakfast, lunch, and dinner. So you can grab a coffee and go up and use that terrace in the morning. So it's open at all hours, as I mentioned previously.

Chairman, we do have an animation walking around this thing if you want to see that. It's really up to you. But it would be like walking up the sidewalk around this building if you wanted to see what that would look like. And then we have a second animation of what the interior first level would look like. But it's up to you if you want to see those or not, or see them at a different phase here.

Well, since we're looking at the rezoning PUD and site plan right now, I think looking at the animation on the exterior would be very helpful. As we mentioned three weeks ago, we were looking for the context that the building is sitting in. So if we could go through that. Yes. Ana, can I get out of this or?

I probably should have loaded that ahead of time. Just a second, it'll head down to the sidewalk. Yeah, the Maserati.

This will be the corner down by the new alley and you're walking up Forsyth towards Central here. So that would be the retail space to the left right now. And then this entrance here will be the residence entrance coming up for the, right there for the condo owners. And then you can see that the dining, outdoor dining area that we have planned for around the corner Again, we've got nice white sidewalks, but we've got the green scape to kind of separate the dining area from the pedestrian area.

Next time we're gonna put music with this.

And the front desk, the hotel would be right inside there, the hotel lobby. And then the drop-off is right here, the valet drop-off. And then just to the right would be the garage entrance.

The interior here is not, I've got an interior one that I'd rather show you. that shows what the

inside is going to look like.

And it's shorter, so hopefully it'll load faster.

Again, when you go inside, this would be the hotel lobby. and then the dining area. And then this

would be right in that corner that we're talking about. So we've rounded that corner. This is Central and Forsyth with a bar right in the corner there, looking out onto the street. And then we have some private dining back in the back here too. That's what we're driving to right now. Well, that's what Forsyth and Central on the inside is going to look like. Not just white tables, but there'll be pretty tables and so on. All right, that's our animations. Thank you, sir.

Well, thank you for showing those. I think it helps not only us, but people watching also. Okay. Anything else on rezoning PUD or the site plan that you'd like to bring up?

Don't think so. We've tried to incorporate several of the comments from the last time we were here. I admit that we, I know that you had a suggestion to heighten that corner on the first level. We went back and reviewed that extensively. And our concern was that we didn't want to get too high there with the dining tables that are underneath there. So we felt like the 20 foot was appropriate. And especially as you're going down Forsyth, it ends up, it gets bigger, gets taller, right? So we didn't want it to get too tall. So we kept that as is because we thought that was an appropriate heighth.

But what I do see from both the flat elevations and the animation, that corner could be very active. both on the interior and the exterior. It will be, yes, sir. And we are looking for that. We need to revitalize that corner as well as many other corners in the city. The

Canopy brand is a brand that really invites the neighbors in. That's the goal of that. It's a branded boutique. It's my Hilton, but it's inviting the neighbors in. And so that's why we've been very conscious about making that corner very active. So you're correct.

Could you review again how the public will enter and get up to the seventh floor terrace?

Yeah, so the entrance will be off of Central, okay? They'll basically walk right in. The restaurant will be to your left. The hotel lobby will be to your right. The elevator bank will be straight ahead. They'll go to the elevator, seven hits number seven. It'll take them right up to the seventh floor, which also on the seventh floor will be a rooftop bar, which will be adjacent to this 6,000 square foot garden area. plus our banquet center will be up there too. So we'll have an 8,000 square foot banquet facility event center up on the seventh floor also in some meeting space.

So I think we would assume that the public will be locked out of any other floor in the building except seven.

That's true. If they hit an eight, it won't get them there unless they have a room key.

Let's go around Carolyn on the three items we're discussing, rezoning PUD and site plan. Any comments?

Yeah, I didn't have the luxury of being at the last meeting, unfortunately. I wanted to hear from you a little bit more. The item number 16 in the city, how are you dealing with the signage to differentiate between the hotel and guest valet?

John Pimentel, yeah so it came up okay it came up last time about because we have basically to drop off areas, one in front of the residents. John Pimentel , space and then one in front of a hotel space and so we're going to be able to sign both of those so that it's it's clear that the hotel guests. are valeting in one space and the resident drop-off is another one. It's a much smaller space in front of the residential entrance. It's really meant more for an Uber drop-off or something like that. It's not really meant for valet as much, although we could valet their cars if they want. I think most of the residents, if they're driving, they're going to pull in the garage because they have dedicated parking in the basement. They have a dedicated elevator all the way up to their unit. So it's unlikely that I think that they'll be valeting their cars. It's really more for for Uber drop-offs or they're being dropped off or their friends are being dropped off or whatever. So we will identify that space as a condo residence drop-off, not a hotel valet drop-off.

Will there be any restaurant drop-off there as well?

The restaurant will be over off of Central, the regular valet, right. Okay.

Okay, one thing I do have to say is I really, really appreciate the streetscape design. Thank you. It's actually quite nice. The planter next to the building will help to buffer and bring it back down to pedestrian scale a little bit more. I think that's great. Overall, I really like the project. I didn't get to see that because I wasn't here last time, but I really like the actual design. I think it's very nice. And

come a long way.

Yeah, no, I really appreciate it. The Do I ask about the 6000 square foot garden area up top yet or is that architecture review?

Probably. Okay, well,

if it's part of the you can talk about that now.

Oh, okay.

Okay. What do you, what is the perception of that? I really haven't seen much on that. What is in there? What is it doing?

So it's about 6,000 square feet of think of it as an outdoor living space. Okay. I mean, with a lot of soft seating, a lot of plants, a lot of greenery it's going to be a space that not only the residents can use, but the hotels can hotel guests can go out there and read the condo. Owners can go out there and read the paper, whatever, drink a cup of coffee. But a lot of soft seating, a lot of greenery, really just a nice airy space for them to relax.

It's facing where? I'm sorry.

It'll face central and-

South, north, east, west. It will

face south and west.

Get a little bit of natural light.

Yes.

Are you doing anything with sustainability? credits on it, trying to clean water or do

anything. There's a blue roof and a green roof. Green roof on top of the ballroom, a blue roof on top of

And then the mural would be the next review, correct? Okay. Those are the only. Yes.

I think so, unless it fits into the public benefit.

So the mural right now is part of their public art package that is getting scored. So you can mention it now.

So the comment I have with that is you are the architects and designers of this building. What do you envision for that mural? You can't just leave it up to like whatever the artist wants to do. You must have some kind of idea of what you want to see on your building,

right? Yeah. Well, I mean, we're working with some of the local professionals to help us with that. I am not an art expert at all. Okay. So I'm leaving it up to some professionals to help guide us as to what that should be. Who is it that we're working

with?

Yeah, the Greenberg Art Gallery to help us select art. And so to answer your question, I don't have a vision necessarily for it as much as I just want it to pop. I want it to wow people. I want it make a statement. But I wouldn't say today I have something in my head.

OK, I just didn't know if it would be materials as opposed to paint. is what I was getting at. Is it architectural mosaic sort of materials, or is it painted, or is it?

Can you

talk so Ira can hear you?

Thank you. Yeah, the overall art and sculpture package for the project is what we're working with the Greenbaum Gallery and have, you know, we've, brought about the ideas of doing something large scale on the garage. There's a number of artists that they're going to connect us with to talk about that, but it'll be a custom piece designed for this building.

Okay. The reason why I was asking is because of the centene wind wall and how cool that is. And I just didn't know if you guys were going for some kind of unique sort of experiential thing as opposed to just a visual.

Right now we're talking about a graphic.

Right, gotcha. I think

that's all I have actually.

Thank you. Bob? David, I think you guys took great notes from last time and it really shows. I love what you did to the top of the building. I love how you try to squeeze some extra width to the sidewalk. I love the idea that I think we're gonna have a lot of life in pedestrian traffic. which will be a credit to Clayton. So I've got no comment at this point. I think you guys did fine changes. All right, thank you.

Helen.

Yes, I would like to thank you for working on the elevations. I really liked them. You've done a great job and I like the extra foot and a half on Forsyth for the sidewalk that Any amount extra that we can get to get people to walk is great.

Just for you and Kami, because Kami's got like four kids, right? You've got like three kids or something, so I want to make sure that the whole family could get through there. Right.

Right. And now that my kids are bigger, it's adults walking. Who is going to provide the security on the seventh floor? And I'm thinking if anybody public can walk in and take that elevator to the seventh floor. My background's urban, so I have maybe I'm more concerned than the average Clayton citizen. So,

I mean, the hotel will have a security staff, so there will be. security patrols, the bar up there will be open lunch through late hours. So there will be staff up there at the bar for sure for other than breakfast. We're not going to open it up overnight. So it will close probably 11 o'clock or 10 o'clock. I'm not sure what time, but some point in the evening that we will close the area. But I think it will be handled primarily with, I mean, there will be a lot of activity up there with the banquet center and the bar So it will be pretty, we believe it will be just as active on the seventh floor as what will be on the first floor.

I'm thinking more a bunch of teenagers. Out of mom and dad's sight, this is a fun place to kind of let off steam. And that can be intimidating to the condo owners and to the hotel guests.

Yeah, unfortunately we deal with that every way, every day at hotels. Right. I mean, anytime the kids get away from mom and dad, they, they, they can act up. So it's just something we deal with on a, on an everyday basis. So I, it's a good concern, but I think that we'll be able to manage that.

Okay. My other question is the residential drop-off area. Is that really needed? Um, You know, Clayton, the perception of people about Clayton is that there's no parking. And yes, you've provided a lot to the public and hotel and condo owners, but people don't realize that there are garage parking spaces. They want if they don't see it in front of them, even if it's filled, they perceive there are no spaces. So urban settings don't necessarily have a drop off in front.

I mean, that's something that came up in our neighborhood meetings with the residents on both the condo projects was that they were concerned about having a drop-off, dedicated drop-off so that people aren't out in the street. An Uber Eats or whatever isn't out in the streets. They wanted a place for them to get out off of the street. So that's really kind of how that happened. And I think they're right. I think we need at least one or two spots there for just people to be able to, just for that one minute drop off, right? So that they get out of the street from a safety standpoint.

Okay. I would say two, because one, whoever is driving the car that is dropping off or waiting an Uber or Lyft, they will not parallel park.

True. Yeah.

They need space to pull in. Otherwise- you know, parallel parking, is it not? I

believe we're currently, if you look at our site plan, I think we're showing two spots. Two spaces, okay.

Okay. No, originally you showed one, I think. We probably

did.

Okay. And I presume that will be accessible. You'll ramp the, eliminate the curb. Yeah, it

has to be ADA accessible.

Okay. Now, thank you. You've listened to us and I think done a really good job.

All right. Thank

you. When will it be finished?

Yeah. Soon. Hopefully. Thank you. Amy.

But I love the sidewalks. Thank you for listening. Is that just for you? Thank you. I also really love the visual cue for the terrace. I think that's very smart. Just allow people to kind of even just wonder like, what is that and figure it out for themselves if they don't. I think that to me helps me better understand the appropriateness for the public benefit from that factor. I noticed like the residence entrance did get moved out to like the same plane as everything else. Just the thought behind that. Before it was like set back a little bit on the plan before. Can

answer for that one? Yeah. So as I mentioned previously, we're like working in tandem with this design firm that's working on the restaurant space. And that was really it. They were starting to make recommendations about they needed to grow. One, the restaurant used to be more to the south and we shifted off the corner because we thought that was more important. and that led to flipping a core and a connection to a kitchen. So again, we had to push that out just speaking of program planning piece. Got it, okay.

Yeah, I have all my questions. Can I ask you one more question? Nope. Then I do it anyway. I wasn't here at the last meeting, like I said, but did you explore options of when you do the garage underground doing the entire length? It looks like you just stopped and you had the opportunity to go underneath the entire property line to property line almost. Was there a reason to not?

Yeah, I mean, we needed that space underneath there for back of the house for so underneath the underneath like the lobby. So yeah, so I mean, there's only certain width that makes sense from a garage standpoint. So it really fit nicely right there. And we wanted the resident owners to be in the lower level. So it just really worked out from a it just really worked

I was just trying to save you some money a little bit there. I appreciate that. Yeah, no, I was just curious about that because it's easier to blast it

out.

Thank you. That was it. Thank you.

Ira, further comments? I don't know that there's further. These are my first ones. So I'm wondering about, first of all, I guess I was looking at these may be items that really are not necessarily appropriate and zoning and PUD, but I didn't see any bike racks or any available apparatus for people to bike to the hotel or for the condo owners to use their bikes to come and go or for people who want to come to your restaurant by bike.

I think there's 16 bike racks if I remember right. So there is a bike rack area.

Where is that? I didn't condition number 12. Yeah,

it's basically right off of central, I believe, right beside the north, not just just north of the garage. So it's convenient for the restaurant and for the hotel because we there's a lot of our guests that will, we have a borrow the bike program. So we'll have our own bikes out there that they can borrow to if they want to explore Clayton. So it's very convenient for the restaurant in the hotel guests.

awesome all right awesome and then and then for your for your actual uh condo owners are they going to have storage areas built into the building somewhere

yes sir

okay um if i'm not mistaken you are in our entertainment district is that right david

Yeah, that's

correct. Okay, so is there any provisions that you might be able to do to encourage some kind of entertainment and I'm not saying exactly what kind it could be, you know, as much as just, you know, easy music or easy listening or something for people to do after dinner.

Yeah, I think this, so I think the seventh floor bar is going to, it will have entertainment, not giant bands, but single duo kind of groups. And I do think that lobby bar is going to be very active and probably on weekends we'll have entertainment also. So I do think that we will have entertainment in at least one spot, probably two on the weekends. Um, so I do think it will, it will provide that.

That would be, that would be great. Um, And then what about charging stations? Have you considered putting those in?

Yeah, we have them in garage.

They are? Okay. All right. That's great. I also appreciate the change in the design. I'd like to see a little bit more just because it still looks a little boxy to me, but that's me. But I think I appreciate the changes you've made. They're definitely in the improvement and thanks for listening.

Thank you. David? I don't have any additional comments. I think everything's been covered by

everyone else. Well, we do have a few other things we have to get through. One of them is the public benefit, the big chart that you've filled out. And I don't know if we can put that up on the screen. Is that possible?

Yeah, do you want the one that in the staff report or the one that happens?

I think it would

be, yeah.

Hopefully everyone can read that. We may have to translate it. Also, when I compared that to what you submitted, it's pretty close. There are a few things that differ in it. But I thought we should go through and discuss them and determine where the points should possibly be, knowing full well that when it gets to the Board of Aldermen, they will go through that also again. So this will be the first time we go through it. Nice graphic there. A

little busy.

Okay,

the first one which they're all under the same code section and we'll go by the parenthetical number and that's number one. And that's the architectural distinction and significance that would make the building unique to our city. And you can see that this is zero to five points Um, you have requested five points. The staff suggested four points and, um, From the previous meeting on of the final column is the compilation of all of the members. Is that correct?

Yeah. From the notes, um, from the previous discussion, that's kind of the average of where those notes laid out. Some people didn't provide a number during that discussion piece. So it's not an exact, science with that column there on the right, but out of the numbers that we talked about. And Steve, sorry to interrupt, but do you want me to check for any public comment or are you waiting to do that?

Public comment on the benefits table or? Right, do you want public comments in general after we go through

this? There was a hand up, so I wanted to make sure they knew it.

Okay, we'll come back to them. I will throw out that in this instance, I agree with the staff points of four in this case. I think I made it clear before that when I'm in a grouping of zero to five, I discount the zero and the five and feel that it has to be within the two, three, and four. I think it is a... architecturally distinctive building. In fact, the changes you've made, I think will make it more active looking and actually will be looking taller because of the activity going on and the raising of the glass on the roof. So I felt very good with that. Let's see if there are other comments.

I would push it to 4.5 for me personally.

I would give it a four. If you had a curve anywhere, David, I would give it five. But it's just another. Did you see the first floor where the bar is or where that curve is on the corner? I appreciate what you did,

Bob. Chair

like Norm.

But I give it a four,

Ellen.

I'd give it a five.

Amy.

Five.

Ira.

That five.

And

David? I'd say a four.

So that probably comes out over four if you average

it. Yeah. Oh, it did. OK. Oh, OK. No, Ira left the meeting. Three fours,

two fives, three fours and a 4.5. Okay. Do you have any comment on that? No. You're comfortable with four. I was comfortable with five. Yes. We understand. Okay, if we go to item three and there we have up to two points per enhancement. And of course we have four enhancements here and we're using what's up on the screen. The first floor recessed approximately 13 feet. I really feel the two points is appropriate on that. Anyone differ from that? No. Two all the way across. The outdoor dining areas. I agree, two points for that. And the planter boxes, actually I feel much better than I did a couple of weeks ago. And I would go up to two points on that one. I think you're right. Going in the right direction, David. and then extending the city standard streetscape south of the project boundary on Central Avenue to incorporate the former parking lot access

area.

And I really wasn't sure if that was adding anything to it, I would recommend we leave it at one unless anyone differs.

I would do the full two. I think it really helps the whole development to have the streetscape extend to the end of that block as you go south.

Are you saying instead of the 1.8? I give two. Yeah, I would agree with that.

Let's go that route.

Yeah,

it's just two per item, I think. Right, right. For all four items. And then if we move on to number five, we have seven items in there and we can have up to one in each one. And I had a

I think

my only question was on the reused and recycling building materials. If you could give us a little more information on that.

We will address this.

Reused and recycling materials is also part of the LEED program. And so we will be selecting and specifying materials, both interior finishes, et cetera, that contain a quantity of recycled materials in this product. And then that program is controlled and governed by the LEED process.

So I will add to that a lot of the furniture inside is, because we try to, we try, the brand is a very green brand. So a lot of the, the furniture inside is made from recycled stuff. So it is, there's going to be a lot of recycled materials on the inside of the building for sure.

Well, that goes along very closely with, uh, second to last one there, the use of renewable resources for construction materials. So isn't it all wrapped up in the LEED program?

That's an A. I think that's a mistake in

how it's written. It's recycled material, renewable materials. They're actually

two separate things. So if recycled material and then is it a renewable resource?

So that's basically, you know, looking at woods that are in the design that are certified renewable woods materials. Yeah.

PB Harmon Zuckerman, The only reason I bring it up is, I felt that I was comfortable with one point in every category in number five.

PB Harmon

Zuckerton, He won.

PB John Gerstle, I would just personally, I would go with the staff recommendation that that has this euro on the green roof, just because i'm the very next item we're going to allow. at least if we go along with the staff points, five points for the green roof. Rather than give points for it twice, I would just give it in one place, but then maximize the number of points they could get for that particular feature, if that makes sense. I think there was probably honest thinking behind

that. What this one says is that it is filtering and controlling stormwater. The other one just says green and blue roof systems. It doesn't say specifically what it's actually doing other than

On the far left, it does say store and infiltrate stormwater runoff.

I stand corrected. That's

okay.

Okay.

I would follow your recommendation, David. Okay. Now we're moving on to item six, which if we could scroll it up. Thank you. Okay, and here... PB John Gerstle, I agreed with the five on this after hearing that of last weekend tonight any concerns with that number you know. PB, Lupita D

Montoya, You talk a little bit more about what systems you're using what is your actual living room.

what specific green products we're using.

Not the plants themselves, but are you doing an extensive green roof? We're

doing extensive green roofs.

All right,

good.

That's all I

need to know. Okay. Moving

on to item nine, and that is the inclusion of public parking. There again, it seems to be well thought out. I felt comfortable with the five that both you and the staff were requesting. The concern. If we move on to item 10, and that's the below grade parking. And that would be roughly a third of the parking and that'll be dedicated to the condominium owners, correct? And that's a minimum of two spaces per unit. There again, we have, the staff was recommending three and I took that because it's only roughly a third of total parking is below grade.

Yes.

Okay. And I was comfortable with that. Any concerns? Item 12, and that's the public art. We always get stuck on this one because we don't know what you're proposing.

It's hard to select the art at this stage. It just is. We were, I'm not saying trust me because I understand you have a responsibility, but we're going to use the right people. We're going to do the right thing. And now that we know what our building looks like, we can go out and secure that and have the art commission make sure that validate what we're doing is appropriate.

Okay. Well, I believe it's in one of the conditions that 13... PB, Harmon Zuckerman, That if you don't come up with art meeting the three points system, it could hold the project up. PB, Harmon Zuckerberg,

Of you guys, but I really don't want to come back Okay, so we will make sure it's at least a three and so okay. PB,

HarmonZuckerberg, We will leave it at a three and it's up to you to prove in the final item number 13. and that's the public use of the seventh floor terrace. What I hear is it'll be open to the public. I'll take it as you stated it, and I would go with the five. We have seen other areas in the city that are making it much more difficult for the public to use. So we would hope that that would be the case for the foreseeable future.

Yeah, again, the hotel brand wants to welcome the neighborhood in. That is in their DNA. So that's part of why that's up there. So it will be available.

If you've been adding up the numbers.

Sorry, didn't have my mic on. I would reserve a

five for a true public park type setting. And so I personally would be more comfortable with four, but that's just me.

I would give it a three. I'm still not convinced. I do see that the applicant has stated that the terrace will be open to the public every day without restrictions. So I... having been burned on things before, just throughout life. If it isn't in writing, I haven't said it. Someone advised me one time in an office. I give three points. I think you're trying to make it work and I'm hoping it does. I think it will be exciting, but I'm still... cautious

it's okay to be cautious we're just going to do it i'm gonna promise you so it's gonna it's gonna be a nice feature for the for the for the city.

I would definitely give it at least a four because they are offering the prospect of entertainment and clayton after dinner desperately needs some entertainment.

I would say I'm closer to a four. I agree with Helen, to some extent, because you can offer it but people generally don't think that they belong to go up there unless they are, it's advertised and marketed and blah blah blah and all that good stuff. So there's going to be a perception of is that for me or not for me, that might come into play.

I thought I heard David say he's going to give handouts, you know, flyers, you know, on the corner. I don't really want

that. On the

back of my card it will say please come up to the seventh floor.

But we do have rooftop things that go on in St. Louis City. So it could work. But to give it a straight out five for me. I understand. That's

fair.

Yeah. So I would say a four for me.

If my adding is

right, we are well over the 30 points. Right? I think we're comfortable whether the last one is a 4.1 or 3.9. It really doesn't matter. So you're an amen. Okay. So I think we've... accomplished that task. The other task on my list is 16 conditions, which I'm sure 15 of them you were aware of three weeks ago, and we added the 16th, which you've already addressed. Do you have any questions on any of those? No,

we're comfortable with the conditions, all 16.

All 16,

okay.

Then I think we've come to the point where we can do we need to vote individually on these. yeah. Then the result rezoning. Right so really one leads to the other, so a single vote okay. We're at the point then let's, we, yes, we do. Anyone in the audience who would like to make a comment before we proceed? Ms. Green.

Good evening,

everybody. I thought that the... Oh, sorry. Elizabeth on Brighton Way. I thought that they made some wonderful changes. I think that's great. I'm certainly not happy with the height of the building. I think that it's going to lead to more and more of these, and I don't think that's what we want Clayton to be. But in the meantime, what I would like... from this particular project, just for my own sake and for all future projects in the city business district to have from the ground level renderings of what the new building is going to look like in the place that it is going to be. We saw some renderings like that from an angle going downward of what it looked like from the Merrimack mcforsyth corner into that building but they were all from at some greater height than at street level and i think that it is imperative that we know i'm not as visual as you all probably are i cannot visualize anything other than a behemoth just standing over the crossings and wine merchant and and even the county courthouse. So I would like renderings that show everything to scale from the street level so that if people choose to come in and see what this building is going to look like and how it is going to affect the landscape, Since this is a city thing, I don't guess you talked about any kind of shadow study. But we need to know just how much this is going to tower, how it's going to tower over existing tall buildings, how it's gonna tower over small buildings. As I said, right across the street from this lovely place is going to be a two-story building that will be absolutely dwarfed. And I just think we need to know what we are doing to our skyline because, and I have not seen anything from the Board of Aldermen that says where you want Clayton to be, what you want Clayton look like. And this seems to be being done in a kind of haphazard way. And I think we need a new overlay We need a renewed overlay, and we need some direction from all of the citizens in the city of Clayton about how many tall buildings do they want to have. In the past, the council members, the board members, and some mayors have said, you all want Clayton to be the new downtown. I don't want Clayton to be streets that are valleys in between 25 and plus story buildings. I want there to be some kind of charm to it. And if all we have are 25 foot or 25 story or 15 and 10 story buildings, there will be no charm. And, um, all that will be remained that is not tall, tall, tall is the county courthouse and the county buildings. And we have to remember that one thing Clayton is, is the county seat. So that's what I would like is an all future project renderings. I want to see a 360 degree from at least one corner away, showing all the buildings across streets at scale with the proposed building so that I can visualize just how tall, how massive that is going to feel in our existing buildings. And so I'm making that request that that be considered for future projects. Otherwise, thank you very much.

Thank you. I'll just make a follow-up comment. Over the years we've noticed that much of our higher rise more dense development has occurred on the periphery of downtown as opposed to the center of downtown. And many of us, I can only speak for me though, feel that we should try to increase the density at the center of downtown because as you get to the edges of downtown, you come up against residential areas. So I feel that this building actually helps bring more density into the center of the downtown We've always considered Forsyth and Central as sort of the de facto center. It may not be the transportation center, but it is definitely a focal point for the downtown. Elizabeth, I think your comments are very on target and they are recorded. And I will hopefully... work toward looking at those and suggest that the Board of Aldermen does also. So thank you. Any other comments here in the chambers? And I don't see any hands up virtually. Then we have come to the point where We have a staff recommendation to recommend approval of rezoning and the PUD to the Board of Aldermen with the included 16 conditions.

I'll make a motion to approve with the staff recommendation of the 16 conditions.

Second. All in favor? Aye. Opposed?

I'm

not done yet. Okay, we've come to the architectural review and we've talked quite a bit about it, but we do have a staff report.

So a lot of the changes have already been presented by the applicants. So I will not go through this whole staff report. Highlighted changes included the modifications to the penthouse top level, as well as adding the design palette sheet to your packet. So in conclusion, the proposed design conforms to requirements of the city zoning regulations. The proposed development incorporates elevated architectural design that is compatible with surrounding development and will enhance the appearance and feel of this major intersection. The staff's recommendation is to approve with the following condition, the garage mural shall be submitted to the Public Art Advisory Committee for review and approval prior to installation.

Okay, thank you. Well, do you have any further comments beyond helping us understand the materials?

I don't have any additional comments, just any questions we'll be happy to answer.

Okay, well, let me just pick one. When we look at the masonry concept, it says color pattern and offset. We have windows in there that are offset for a design reason. We're not seeing that in this building. This building is pretty taut glass structure. So what is that referring to?

So at the first floor experience, the pedestrian scale, we do show brick pilasters, masonry pilasters at the column line. So in between there's punch opening of storefront and window or curtain wall in certain locations where they're a little taller, but we are showing brick and then we offset every other course an inch just to get some texture so it wasn't just this flat masonry. You can see that in the animations from the close up views.

Okay. Now I see it when you describe it. Okay. That was my main one. Everything else, I seem to be able to fit into the drawings that we have. But let's go around. Carolyn, did you have any questions? No,

actually I didn't. Thank you.

Bob? None. Helen?

No, I like the choices.

Amy?

I

had no questions.

No questions. It's a good looking building. I think it will. We

appreciate your feedback. Thank

you. Fit in very well. And you understand about the condition about the mural. Yes, they're going to the PAAC. Yes. Good. Well then, do we have a motion to approve? We have a hand up. Oops, did you have a hand? Virtually. Ah, okay.

Hank? Hank, unmute yourself.

Thank you. Did it work? Yes, we hear you.

Well, four comments very, very quickly. The improvements in the design are very nice. It is incredibly unfortunate that you didn't create the process for the 3D visualization of this project by the public, which we had created as a zoning requirement much earlier when we had looked at projects at the corner of Clayton Road and Hanley, and gone through multiple projects to try to visualize this project. And it's sad to me to recognize how the process in Clayton has lost that clarity of communication to its citizens. It's embarrassing. And to fight for 14 inches of a sidewalk along Forsyth is embarrassing. An architect with any integrity would have done that immediately. And I think you need to recognize there is an incredible traffic challenge that it is almost impossible to get to this site without making a U-turn on Forsyth or on Central. So it's gonna require the most active, constant staff to support both the residents, the users and the citizens of Clayton. I think it's an attractive building when I view it in the renderings. And I'm embarrassed as an architect that this architect hasn't come forward with the visualizations of clarity of what this building is gonna look like as I step on Forsyth and approach it from Hanley, or as I approach it on Central. I think your process has derived the public of both a joy and confidence of what a building is going to become. So you're now into details of other things. Thank you for listening.

Thank you, Hank. I don't see any other

questions. Okay. Yes. Thank

you. I'll make a motion to approve with the staff recommendation.

Second. All in favor? Aye. Opposed? Okay. Coming to the end of the line, you'll be visiting the Board of Aldermen next and Thank you for listening to us and working with us. I think we've got a very good solution. And we thank you for it. We look forward to the opening day, which are you ready to commit? Understandable. Okay, thank you very much.

Thank you all for working with us. We do appreciate it. Thank you very much.

Great project, and you've done a great deal. So we thank you. So good luck with it.

See you on the seventh floor.

Yeah. It's open to the public,

Helen.

Okay. Before we go on to new business, we're going to take a few minutes break. So if we can all be back in about 10 minutes, we'd appreciate

it. Okay. Thank you. My kids should not take the impact that I was

alluding to. They're respectable

people.

Literally, my son had little hair. He came to the police department on Halloween and had an open house for the kids. So I brought

him. And my sister, four years younger than me, And he has a long hair. He's

got five sandals. I mean, he was five, six then. Like 12, 13 years old. And, you know, it's beginning to change on his dark brown hair. And we walk into the police. They're showing the kids around and talking to them.

I said, can you tell me what he did? It's a kid. And he had a really severe cancer.

He was over the growth that he had. And it looks like he's about 18 or 19. And my daughter, she played this creative

But now it's irrespective. Nothing to go to, really. Because if I'm leaving, it's so late. I mean, in New Jeffery Yorg City, I walk at

But now it's irrespective. Nothing to go to, really. Because if I'm leaving, it's so late. I mean, in New York City, I walk at

10.30 or 11.30 and not think anything of it. You know, the long way I go,

I'm not going to set my stuff to where I like. And didn't think about how I do this. Yeah. tell Times Square I'm going back.

Yeah, I mean, Times Square has changed a lot. At some point. Yeah. Yeah. I took a crash course before I took my licensing exam. So after work, and you get credits to, you know, work credits to three years of experience. um there was a crash course it was two semesters i mean the guy who took

for his graduates

passing the exam. Well, I did the first time we took the whole . But it was

May 9, 2004,

from

September through June, since we took the exam in June. But it was an interesting era. I mean, when I wake up, I know that's

I missed it. The

National

Council, all of the licensing boards throughout the country and the territories and concessions, like Long, Northern, they all take the same exam. So the National Council of Architectural Registration, they write the exam.

Yeah, and it's the same with the law. The law, you take one day of... And a lot of states get to make their... Yes, I mean, California

got

upset real

quick.

It's

California right now. And they seceded from this group. And they found that they were losing money because their registrants went to Nevada to get licensed because of reciprocity.

And with reciprocity, you didn't get your license in America. States like Florida. It's the same exam.

California, I think what you put in time is doing an additional structural exam. Because two parts of the exam, two of the exams

are

structural. Actually, I have more testing on seismic.

as they take a multiple choice. They can pick what

they want to take, the questions they want, even though their specialty may be structural, so they can focus more on some of the other things and pass, but they don't license by specialty or server. They're trusted

within your specialty when I was on the licensing board for asking him about a project he had. He was doing architecture. I remember seeing him in Barnes and Noble,

It was vintage, which is good to have because if you run into an old shape, then you can check it against what the values were back in the day.

I think we asked them to come back. So when everybody had dispersed

I was the architectural

person. He's yelling and screaming, and I'm just... That's an interesting comment because you were telling us about it. I can't handle this. So terrible.

Welcome back everyone and we'll continue our meeting. The next item on the agenda is new business and that's 716 Francis Place. Is the applicant here? Okay, we're going to start with the staff report. So just hold on.

This is a request for architecture review approval of the front yard retaining wall. The property is located at the northeast corner of the intersection between Francis Place and Edinburgh Drive. Property zone R2 single family and is also located in the Clayshire Urban Design District. The applicant is proposing to construct a retaining wall in the front yard between the front walkway and the driveway. Construction of the wall has begun without his permit, and the owner is now seeking approval for the wall. In your staff report are three sections that contain criteria for review of front yard retaining walls. including the R2 zoning district, as well as regulations from the urban design district. The third section is the section that allows for alternative compliance to be approved by the architecture review board and that's alternative compliance from urban design district standards. The applicant is proposing a gray block wall. The proposed wall does not conform to the city's architectural guidelines or Clay Shire urban design district provisions. Retaining walls that would conform to the architectural guidelines would include three different size shape blocks, tumbled edges and a varying color palette. The urban design district does not allow the use of block walls. Both the architectural guidelines and the UDD provisions may be modified by the architectural review board. And the applicant has submitted a request for alternative compliance. The primary structure is painted white brick. The proposed wall is gray and beige in color, with variation provided by the rough texture of the blocks. The proposed block wall does not match the color or material of the primary structure exactly. However, it is compatible. Block walls are significantly more popular now than when the Urban Design District was adopted, and there are examples of block walls in the Clayshire neighborhood. With increased popularity and ease of installing block walls, there has been an increase in the number of small walls that have been installed without permits. The majority of the block walls in the neighborhood, however, that are more than two rows tall do feature a varying color pattern, tumbled edges, and multiple block sizes in alliance with the architectural review guidelines. The proposed wall does not provide varying sizes of block, which is an important element to making a block system appear more similar to a natural stone wall. Staff is of the opinion that alternative compliance is appropriate to allow the use of a modular block wall system. However, the block system should conform to the architectural guidelines for material and design. Staff's recommendation is to improve with the falling condition. The block wall shall be revised to include at least three different block sizes, a varying color pattern, and tumbled or rolled edges.

Thank you. Come on up, introduce yourself and give us your comments.

Hi, Robert Cormier, 716 Francis Place. So we didn't realize that we needed a permit to build this little wall in the front yard. And we kind of just looked to our neighbors for inspiration and just walking down the street, sorry, but they look like they're uniformed shape, size and color for many of them. I've included some pictures in my document, but that's just on short segment of my street. I haven't gone around the whole neighborhood to sample other homes. So since we have made some progress on building the thing already, rather than tear it down and start over, would ask that you to let us complete it as it is. It's pretty good looking. It's not flat white concrete that you might see on the sidewalk. It has a split face and it's kind of brownish grayish. So that's all I ask.

Well, thank you. I think many if not all of us have gone over and looked at it, driven around the neighborhood to see the variety of block walls that are in the Clay Shire neighborhood. As you realize, we do have both city regulations and the Clay Shire Urban Design District. that we are to uphold at this point. Unfortunately, some walls get built without going through the permit process or the review process. I do agree with the staff recommendation that it's okay to use a block wall system, but it should include at least three different size blocks blocks and the varying color pattern. I think that would help us avoid setting further precedents and attempt to restore both the city and the Clayshire UDD principles intact. That's my comment, but there are many of us up here. Let's listen to them. Carolyn?

I actually agree with what Steve said. If we allow it once, then we allow it all the time is sort of the mentality. I would hope that there's some way that you could reuse some of the material that you have and mix in different material in order to build it. Yeah, that's all I have on this.

Robert, how much more do you have to do to complete your project?

75% finished.

So I know if I'm looking at your house, like the left side looks like it's done. What else do you need to do? Go on the other side of the...

Yes. So we had originally constructed it so that it was an L, but we've decided that we'd like to extend it on the right side towards the house. So it's more of

a... And Robert, when you say we, who's actually doing the work? My wife and I. Have you purchased the rest of your materials? You may need to buy a little bit more, honestly. Okay. I think the work you've done is pretty nice.

Oh, thank

you. Personally, it's not a big project, what you're doing. And it's not a very big project, what And I think in the scheme of preserving a neighborhood feel, I don't think it's detrimental. And I think having the varying sizes and a few varying colors isn't going to change very much the feel of what you've already done. And in terms of setting a pattern, I think your project is pretty small. I personally would just hate to see you have to remove what you did and

start all over. Ellen?

I agree with Steve and Carolyn. Excuse me. Staff, could Robert and his wife go for a variance? TAB, more or less and plead that they're almost done, and it was an oversight that they started doing this.

TAB, So both of the material and everything that's being discussed tonight, instead of going through a variance process, you can approve that as architecture view board under the alternative compliance section and then also. TAB, The architectural guidelines architectural review boards, the one that can modify both of those so variances not required, it would just be the decision of this board

okay.

Okay, me.

I also agree with Steve and Carolyn, unfortunately, because I know how much labor intensive this is,

I do. Yeah, so if we make an exception.

Precedence.

Yes.

Right, so if you make the section of the code for alternative compliance that was included in your packet, that's what you would want to make your decision based on that section.

Anything further, Kami? No.

David,

comment?

No, I would agree. You know, fortunately it's not 100% done and maybe there's a way with the remaining work that you have at least to kind of reconfigure things and the extra 25% of the material maybe be the two other sizes. I don't know. But I agree with the importance of the consistency here, unfortunately, recognizing the work you put in.

And I think we all recognize the work you've put in and the integrity that you're bringing to it. But I would like to make a suggestion since I heard you're roughly three quarters of the way done, and this would be actually for the ARB to decide whether we offer it to you or not. But if you were going to extend it further to sort of enclose it on both sides, if I understand correctly. If you could possibly remove one or two courses of the material already laid up and use that on your side extensions and possibly bring in the material that we prefer to finish out the top. and then landscape the front of it where only the material that meets the tumbled edge and the three color is really visible, that might be a way of doing it without having you to remove everything you've done. But let's see if there's any consensus to that or if I'm way off.

Steve, just to make sure I understand, I appreciate your attempt to make sense of it all. Is he going to have two different retaining walls sort of lower? The lower half stays the same, but the upper half complies?

No, it would be two different materials, a lower portion and then an upper portion. And it would have to match going around. So it doesn't look like it was two different materials. And then I'm recommending some landscaping in front of it to soften the whole thing.

How about we, all right, stepping out of pocket here. How about we let it stand and you landscape it to screen it?

Actually, that is the plan.

With evergreen?

Peonies?

No, not peonies, no. But you could do something like a yew or some other kind of evergreen mixed with hydrangea sort of. depending on the light. I don't know what south facing or whatever, but you could do something landscaping-wise that you wouldn't even necessarily see the wall.

What

do you think about that?

So we actually have three peonies in front and we have some sort of tumbling ivy fern that we have planted along the top. It's gonna be flowing over. over the bricks, flocks.

Ivy?

It's not an ivy.

Is it flocks? Flocks? I

don't know what that is. Oh, bummer.

Okay, well, flocks in my neighborhood climbs over everything and covers everything.

There's a way to

cover this and make it look beautiful.

It's kind of like that, but I don't remember the name. A creeping jenny or a creeping thyme.

Something

creepy.

I don't know. That was my offering that if you landscaped it completely, then we're still setting a precedent. You can build any kind of block wall you want as long as you put, you know, I'm torn here. I'm torn.

but when somebody acts in good faith, I just hate this. And it's not a big project he's got. I hate to see him undo it. I like your idea of adequate landscaping. I just want to make sure you're listening. Both ears.

I think you need to contact me and that would make me more comfortable if you contacted me.

Okay.

Just advice, nothing paid. Don't worry.

She knows what she's talking about when it comes to landscape. There you

go.

I

would offer you advice, no charge, absolutely. Just to make it work. That was my comment

on it. Ellen?

I like Steve's idea of taking down a couple of rows and then coming back with mixing in so that it looks like you just started and then kind of blends into what it should have been. And the landscaping, so that we don't see what it shouldn't be. Landscaping can die. You know, Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. And then you've got a wall that is not approved. So I like Steve's idea. I would go with that. And yes, I realize it is unbuilding some of what you've done. And I appreciate the hard work. I've dealt with that block. But I still... in lieu of doing what the staff is recommending, I think Steve has a good idea and a good way to move forward.

Amy?

Yeah, I agree with what Helen and Steve suggest.

David? I think if you did it, it would need to be probably three rows. I think if you just did the top two, it wouldn't

quite be enough.

The three courses.

Three courses, right. With the landscaping on the bottom level.

Those three courses could be used around the edge and then put the desired material all across the top and around the edges. I think we could live with that and hopefully you could

also. Well, it has to fly by the boss.

But I think she would be, she could be coaxed.

Okay. If we were to go that route, would that be an alternative compliance?

Right, so alternative compliance really gets the heart of the intent of the code, which is to be compatible with the materials of the neighborhood. So if you feel that this blending would meet the intent of the and the materials in the neighborhood, then you could rule under alternative compliance.

I feel that it would meet the intent and also relate to the work that Mr. Cormier has already put in and avoid having it totally ripped out. How many

courses are in there? Five. Five. Would you be comfortable with that?

We could probably make do with that.

Well, if that's the case, then we need a motion based on that alternative compliance.

Okay. I'll make a motion to approve. based on an alternate compliance of the top three courses of the material be client with the number one staff recommendation and the bottom to remain as is.

And the landscaping as well.

Do

we want that on the bottom to cover up?

No. Okay.

Okay. Well, Steve had mentioned softening that bottom layer so that it didn't stand out as like completely different.

With the planting. I'm fine without the planting.

Okay.

I will leave it as. Second.

All in favor.

Aye.

Opposed.

Okay.

Okay, thank you. Thank you. What's my next step? Do I need to submit a new plan?

Yeah, I'll email you tomorrow with this official decision and then what you can do to move on.

Okay, thank you all. Thank you.

Okay, we are up to item two in new business 7439 Buckingham and is the applicant here? Online,

okay. Go

ahead. This is an architecture review board request for a front porch alterations. The subject property is located on the north side of Buckingham drive between Glenridge and Audubon. The property is zoned R2 single family and is improved with a two-story brick single family house. The applicant is proposing to replace the existing front porch with a larger covered porch. The proposed porch extends eight feet into the front yard setback. Per the R2 district regulations, covered porches may only extend up to five feet into a front yard setback, while uncovered porches may extend up to 10 feet. To comply with setback regulations, staff recommends that the roof is revised to reject only five feet into the setback, not including the roof overhang. And the uncovered portion may continue up to five feet beyond the covered roof. The applicant is proposing colored concrete for the porch and steps. with a metal railing and white columns to support the roof. The porch is approximately three feet above grade, making exposed foundation visible. The surrounding area does feature many concrete porches in the front yard. However, the existing porches are either clad in brick or stone and have raised landscaping to screen the concrete sides. The proposed porch should incorporate one of these options to fit with surrounding character and reduce the visibility of the exposed concrete. Staff's recommendation is to approve with the following conditions. One, the covered porch shall be revised to extend a maximum of five feet into the front yard setback. Two, the exposed foundation of the new porch shall be clad in brick or raised planter beds shall be installed to screen the exposed concrete sides. Three, the existing walkway shall be replaced with the same color concrete as used on the new porch and steps. And four, the applicant shall provide confirmation of the total lot and front yard lot coverage as part of the submission for the building permit.

Thank you. Mr. Perrin, I see your hand is up. You unmute yourself and finish your comments.

Hi, this is actually Jackie Payton. Richard is also here. I was going to speak. So the porch actually does have landscaping around it currently so that that is something that we had planned to revise and replant. When we do this, because we actually really like that. And so we were going to do that. And the reason that we were asking for the extended coverage of the porch was quite honestly because I've always wanted to have a covered porch. I really enjoy being outside to work, to eat, to be able to interact with my neighbors and talk with them. and doing that, you know, exposed to the elements and you can't actually see me, but I'm very fair skinned. And so I don't like to sit out in the sun. I prefer to be under a covered porch. So that is, those are the reasons why this has been my, honestly, it's been my dream for a long time to have this on my house forever. So that is why we requested it and went through many versions of the design with the architect who is, he's also on the Zoom or with our contractor and the architect. So that was the reason that I was hoping to be able to go beyond the five foot coverage.

Okay, anything further, Ms. Payton?

I'm happy to answer any questions that any of you

have. I really like the look of your house currently with the porch and all the landscaping. It's very inviting. The drawing that we're looking at on A16, I felt that the porch was overpowering the front of the house. So I do agree with the staff recommendation that the roof, the covered portion only extend five feet from the front of the House. What that would do is it would lower the roof line where it meets the house. And I think it would look less overpowering to me. As far as going out for the full eight feet for the covered and uncovered portion, I have no real problem with it. The porch, really, it'll be covering about two-thirds of the front of the house on the ground floor. You can get a lot of people sitting out there, which sounds like what you'd like to do. That's my comment. We'll go around the room and see what other people say. Carolyn?

Could I say just one thing? I'm sorry. I forgot to add that the reason that we are doing this is because of the damage to the current porch that we're replacing it. I don't know how much that matters either way, but the current porch, the bricks and the underlying concrete is significantly damaged and so that was why we were replacing it. No,

I think that's great that you're doing something. It was great to hear your desires for it. I think that's, you know, you want to hear that from a homeowner. You know, you want sit out on your porch and greet your neighbors and all that good stuff. The only one thing I can say architecturally is it just seems like it's just not integrated with the actual facade too well. It just seems like it kind of plopped on the front. I wonder if there's some other way to make it fit in a little bit better. the example of the existing porch on A317. That actually looks like it fits with the house a little bit, but it has some issues too. But I don't have any issue with it other than it just feels like it's ornamentation on the face of the house. TAB,

Did it have something it sounded like the previous person thought that maybe the the roof on the covered part was too steep and that was part of what was dominating would it help if that we're not so steep.

TAB, I wonder if it if it actually aligned and still function with the the. TAB, The base of the windows on the second floor. if that on the elevation on A16, if that roof line hit at the base of those windows as opposed to going so high up. I wonder if that would help. I don't know, but I don't know if that functions well for snow and all that. So basically my overall arching comment is I have no issue with what you're doing. So, but I just, If I were designing it, it would be a little bit more integrated with the actual building type itself. That's all.

Bob? I actually like Carolyn's comments. Your name is Jackie?

Yes, Jackie.

I love the goal always of being able to sit in the front porch and seeing and talking to your neighbors. I think that's what a neighborhood is all about. And front porches are important to that. The fact that you go out 10 feet, I don't have a problem with that. The fact is the entry is hidden by all your shrubbery would make it impossible for you to see if a neighbor is coming outside or not. You know, I just comment on that and I see the A17 at 55 Ridgemore Drive. I can't make sense of that view. It looks like two completely different, the front porch is a completely different design than the house. But it does kind of look kind of stuck on what your proposal is. That gives me trouble, but not the 10 feet coming out does not give me any trouble.

Ellen?

My first question is, Colored concrete is referenced, what color?

We were gonna choose one that blended seamlessly with the house that was similar in color with the house and the driveway, which is kind of a regular kind of concrete. I'm sorry, I don't know all these technical terms, but we weren't going to pick anything strange.

We

wanted something that wouldn't, you know, we didn't want anything that would stick out too much, like blazing white or, you know, so.

Are you thinking a red tint to the

concrete? Well, the house does not have red brick. The house is more of a yellow brick.

Okay, so you're thinking of that color?

Well, not really quite so yellow as the house, but, you know, more of like, you know, the kind of very slightly yellow-beige-ish kind of concrete that you see. My contractor is on, maybe he knows a technical term for it, but certainly not red because I wouldn't go with the house at all.

OK, well, you're thinking of matching the brick then with the concrete color.

Right, yeah. Something that would go with it. Maybe not the exact same color, but something that would go with.

OK, I would suggest looking at an aggregate to get away from the basic concrete, the gray concrete an aggregate will give you a color, but it's not a flat color. It has texture and picks up the light and dark. And I would recommend that as opposed to a colored concrete which tends to look very flat. That aside, I agree with Steve that the porch It's overwhelming the house. It becomes almost a porch with a house attached. And I do understand that you want to be able to sit outside and you need more maybe than five foot depth, but you can accomplish what the zoning requires looking at your perspective, you have two supports at the front of the porch. You can extend the concrete, the floor part of the porch beyond the roof part, which granted in a rainstorm, you don't get the coverage, but then again, even at 10 feet people can get wet depending on the direction of the rain coming down. So I would be inclined to stick with the staff's recommendation and the five foot depth, and then extend beyond that if you want for a total of 10 feet.

Jamie.

So I agree with the scale of the porch. I think it's too large for the house and actually driving down the street when I drove by your house, I think it's two large for the street as well. Like when I looked at the other houses. So if we can offer a variance to give you that, I guess it's an action eight foot depth on your drawings. kind of what Carolyn said, if we lower like the height of that roof to below that second floor windows, I think that that would visually from the front elevations scale that down, which I think would help if you are able to get that whole eight foot depth on that. Otherwise, I think, again, I would still pull that roof line down and then do what Helen and Steve said of going the five feet out with the roof and then continuing your porch to the eight feet.

David.

Yes, I think I'm in agreement with those comments. I guess my question for the applicant would be, if you truly want this roof to extend into that required setback, I would be more comfortable taking this up after the Board of Adjustment had a look at whether or not they wanted to grant a variance to allow that roof to extend out into the front yard setback. And then if they did, then potentially look at the slope of that roof and make some adjustments from there. But I think it would be premature for us to rule on the roof that extends into a front yard setback if it's not allowed by the zoning without the variance. So that's really for the applicant and for the applicant's contractor to weigh in on, I think.

Sure. PB Harmon Zuckerman- One other thing. If the porch roof were to extend only five feet from the front of the house, the PB Harmon Zuckerson- High point of the roof of the porch roof would then come down below the window sills of the second floor. PB Harmon Zuckerton- And it would look much lower The other alternative is you could go with a flat roof or a slightly flat roof. But many of us really feel that the five foot extent of the covered roof is where we should be. As the city manager has indicated, you could go to the Board of Adjustment to see if it would be approved for the eight foot extent. That's really up to you. But I also see that your contractor, Mr. Lapidus has his hand up and do you have comments also?

Yes, thank you. Appreciate you letting me speak. A couple of things. It would be very easy to lower the pitch of the roof and keep the eight foot distance off the main wall of the house and reduce the visual impression that you see from the street. There is an elevation difference from the street of about four or five feet, so you'd be looking up at that roof and the perspective The 3D perspective in the drawing is actually above the roof looking down. So it makes it look bigger, I think, than it would from the street. But regardless of that, the width was determined by the placement of the windows. And this house has some beautiful carpentry to it. And the original front facade has a twin column against the bricks on either side of the entry door And in order to stretch this and make it look symmetrical on the front, we needed to get the next set of columns beyond those two flanking windows on either side of the door. So that's the reason for the width, to make it look not too wide but wide enough to not hide and block the windows. As far as Jackie's desire to block the sun and block the rain, having that extra roof coverage would be really important. I have a similar space on my own house and it's really nice to have that depth, especially when it's raining because it's so wonderful to sit outside in a light rainstorm and also entertaining our neighbors. So I I understand where Jackie's coming from, and we're trying to accommodate that. But lowering the pitch of the roof would be a very simple task at this point.

OK, thank you for your comments. I think the issue is we can work with the pitch of the room, but the issue is how far out the roof extends from the house. And our regulations say five feet from the house. If you wish to come out further, the suggestion has been made that you go to the board of adjustment for that answer. And then if it were to be approved, you could come back and we would take it up at that point. Do you have a comment on that? Which direction you'd like to go?

John Potter, I think we need to discuss that. John Potter, With Richard and Jackie and myself and and I don't know if they want to comment at this time which direction they'd like to go at this point.

Karen Hollweg, No, I think we would need to discuss it also I have no idea what the board of adjustment really is or what. how likely they would be to consider this or really anything. So I certainly couldn't make a decision at this point.

Well, we could certainly table this to allow you to have your internal discussion. And if you wish to proceed with the Board of Adjustment, staff could certainly give you direction how to do it.

Okay. I appreciate that.

Okay, well then with that in mind, we will table this. I'll go

ahead and make a motion to table to a date uncertain. I mean, we don't know how long it's gonna take for them to sort it out and possibly go to the Board of Adjustment.

Yeah.

Okay.

To a date uncertain. Okay. Do we have a second? Second. All in favor? Aye. Opposed? Okay, thank you. And we'll see how it goes.

Thank you. Thank you.

Okay. We're down to item number 37923 Forsyth.

This is a request for conditional use permit for the operation of a shared ghost kitchen. The property is located on the north side of Forsyth Boulevard between North Merrimack Avenue and North Central Avenue. Property is a zoning designation of high density commercial and is located in the northeast downtown overlay district. The restaurant proposed is a ghost kitchen. Ghost kitchens operate similar to restaurants but without on-site dining options. The proposed use will feature three different food categories prepared in a shared kitchen and served through carryout and delivery services. Only on-site seating provided would be an outdoor dining area. The proposed hours of operation for the restaurant are seven days a week. from 7 a.m. to 9 p.m. The proposed restaurant is located in the rear of the building and not directly visible from Forsyth Boulevard. However, access to the restaurant is still provided from Forsyth. The restaurant measures approximately 1,600 square feet and will only include kitchen and prep space. The applicant plans to prepare an application for outdoor dining as well. Off-street parking is not required for restaurants located in the Central Business District, measuring less than 3,000 square feet. Trash and waste will be handled using the existing dumpsters at the rear of the building. Deliveries will be made to the rear building off of the alley as well. In your staff report is the criteria for review for conditional use permits. I'll summarize some of the points. In terms of compatibility, the property has previously been occupied by restaurant uses and is located adjacent to other restaurant uses as well as government office and retail. The previous restaurant occupied the full tenant space from the street frontage through the rear The full space was separated last year with the front portion being occupied by a medical retail and office use. Staff is of the opinion that the proposed use is compatible with the surrounding area. In terms of traffic and parking, the proposed use does not incorporate onsite dining and therefore patrons will either pick up food or order through a delivery service. This is likely to result in an increase in vehicles looking for short-term parking in the immediate area instead of parking further away for longer periods of time. To facilitate vehicle movements in the area, staff recommends that a curbside pickup parking zone or similar is required. Based on the size of the restaurant onsite, public parking is not required. Employee parking is provided at the rear of the building. Staff does not believe that there will be any increase in noise lighting or odors associated with the business. At this time, there do not appear to be any adverse impacts associated with this restaurant use. Staff is of the opinion that the restaurant meets the requirements contained in the regulations covering conditional uses. The restaurant differs from most restaurants in the area because it will not provide indoor dining for patrons. However, the applicant has applied for an outdoor dining permit to provide some seating for carryout patrons. The restaurant does not plan to have an in-house delivery service but will take orders through for pickup or through delivery services such as Grubhub, Postmates and similar. The proposed hours of operation and methods of delivery are similar and consistent with other businesses in the area. Based on the information regarding the operation of the restaurant as provided by the applicant, staff is of the opinion that the business is compatible with surrounding uses. Staff recommends to recommend approval of the conditional use permit to the Board of Aldermen with the following condition. The applicant shall obtain and maintain a curbside parking pickup zone permit or equivalent for the life of the restaurant.

Thank you. The applicant here to explain more.

Hello, my name is Christian . Managing partner of the concept.

The actual ghost kitchen is more or less in the center of the building with a long corridor leading up to it from the street frontage. Would you have the patrons come into the kitchen to pick everything up or would you be delivering it to the pickup area?

There's a vestibule at the front of the building. We'll have a kiosk for ordering as well as we're looking into heated lockers with pin numbers so that people can pick up their food and it would be nice and safe within there. So we'd have some type of signage some type of signage there to indicate our presence. And then, as I said, we would have a worker bring the food out there and then it would be ready for pickup.

So the public really is not coming far into the building beyond the vestibule?

Not at all. The vestibule is about, I would say 15 by eight.

And then you have already applied for an outdoor dining permit.

Correct. So there's, there's a small amount of room there where we're, uh, of course, whatever the regulations are, we would, we would follow those. That's, that's just intended in order to give us, uh, you know, some type of lifeline and physical presence, uh, beyond it wouldn't, you know, our, uh, our business model is to have some type of catering sales in order to, uh, in order to have awareness within the business district there and catering and lunch and these types of things. And then of course at night, maybe get some dinner business from the surrounding residential areas.

And do you agree with the staff recommendation of obtaining and maintaining a curbside pickup zone?

We would very much appreciate some type of recommendation parking that would allow people to come and get in and get out. We didn't know if that was going to be an option at the beginning. There is a large loading dock in a parking lot in the back. So at a certain point among our talks was to direct some of the delivery drivers in those people as we continue to build clientele and regular business that they would know that they could enter in through the back as well.

I would assume your deliveries would go in the back, but patrons picking up, I would assume you would want on foresight.

Yes, this does make sense.

Carolyn, comments?

I might be totally missing it, but what is the food and what is the name of

the... So I'm the owner of a restaurant called Taco Circus. It's been here in St. Louis for seven years. It's very fundamental Mexican food. It's very straightforward. We would also have another concept, which is bodega sandwiches, which is a St. Louis style oversized sandwiches. If you think blue city deli or Adriana is this type of thing. The third concept would be a micro brand of a, of Taco Circus called El Primo Burrito, which would just focus on the burrito section of Taco Circus. So when you look at it online, it would look completely different, but in actuality we are attempting to cross utilize our ingredients in order to have an efficient kind of economy proof restaurant concept. My previous restaurant had 200 seats and the pivot from going to that into this one the pivot from going into having a 200 seat into the pandemic, into trying to pivot and, and make money in that field had led us into this concept of the evolving dining needs where, where you're shedding some of the, some of the grandeur of, of, of food service and then providing, providing in other ways, which is people being able to get people being able to and providing a service of non-chain restaurants to the people coming back to work here in Cleveland.

That's cool, I appreciate that. Thank you, I had nothing

else. The description says your operation is going to be in the back of the building. What's in the front? A hallway. That's it. No other

usage. There's a virtualist doctor's office where the seating used to be for this kitchen. So the kitchen, there was a restaurant there for 20 years. The owner of the building, Harinder, is here. He operated a restaurant there for years. It is now cubicles for... or virtual doctor's office. So that is to the right of it. So 7923, we have a hallway to the back where it resides. And then in the front, there's a doctor's office. My point

is the virtual doctor office is going to remain. Virtual doctor's office

is there. And so we will have a kiosk with the food and then the hallway back to the kitchen where we will walk the food into go containers into our heated locker. Great, good luck.

Alan?

Okay, so if I understand this correctly, I want lunch. It's a nice day. I go into the building and I order what I want from the kiosk and I either wait in the foyer there, the hallway, or I wait outside. you bring it out to me and then assuming I want to sit there and eat it, there'll be tables and chairs outside?

With your approval, yes.

Okay, right. And Will the outside dining be something like Chipotle's dining?

Yes. We don't have as wide of a footprint as Chipotle does, but we were thinking maybe three tables there. But for the most part, it would be grab and go and online ordering would comprise most of it. And as I said, we intend on having a catering salesperson. So large orders going into the businesses is, going to be another one of our approaches on this as well.

Okay, no, it sounds good.

Thank you. Yeah, the food's great. Food is very proud of the food. Amy? I

mean, very interesting concept. I hope it works. I think it sounds great. I don't have any other comments though.

One more question. So you're saying catering. Are you getting on any kind of lists like for Forest Park or other areas where your catering business could actually be on the list of approved caterers?

We are still discussing that approach. The methods that we have taken steps forward in so far is to data scrape Indeed in order to find HR partners and office managers to identify that we may speak with directly here in the area. And then picking back up the seven years of business that I had previously and relying on that clientele as well as we build here in our new neighborhood.

Might wanna also consider golf courses.

Thank you very much for the lead.

David. My only question would be, who has eyes on the tables? So if they're bringing the food up to lockers and not actually going out to where those tables are at, who's making sure that everything is thrown away and they're picked up and that sort of thing?

Yes, definitely a tenant, you know, being a good tenant and having an agreement on our responsibility concerning the waste that we are sure to create. We will have a front of the house person who will be fielding phone calls, running the food and managing that type of physical aspect of it.

Good. As long as they're taking a peek there and, you know, trash receptacle is going to be something you're going to have to keep an eye on, make sure that that's emptied and that sort of thing.

Agreed.

All right, great.

Any comments from the audience? Come up and identify yourself.

My name is Harinder Singh. I'm the owner of the building and previously ran a restaurant there for many years. A couple of the questions you had about parking... patrons coming to pick up. The concept what we've developed is mostly for people ordering online and using services, third-party services like Uber and the rest of them. So we have a rear parking lot. The idea is going to be for the delivery pickups to park in the back. We have 15 parking spots. The building has three retail tenants. We have a cigar shop, a virtual clinic and an alteration shop which all close around five o'clock. And so we have the parking spots open in the back. And the idea is to push the delivery service, pick up people in the back and the regular patrons if they can park in the back or there's a hallway from, there's a door in the back they can come through as well. And so your comment with having a pickup zone in the front of the building, is that similar to what valet would be where we would have two parking spots in the front for curbside?

Yes, it's just a designated spot for that particular business. We've got a program where they can basically rent a space out in front of the building. So it would be one or

two spots that they would basically be assigned to the business for-

There's a totally separate application permit for that curbside spot. Okay,

that's all I have. Thank you. Thank you. Okay, no attendees. And you do understand about what the city manager was talking about, the curbside pickup permit. would have to be applied for. Any further comments? No? Well, it sounds like a unique, different food service than we have had here in Clayton. Certainly worth giving it a try. Thank you for describing it completely. We certainly wish you the best, but let's see if this will pass. Do we have a motion?

First, I want to pick up on David's comment about the cleaning up of the tables and the trash. Maybe we add a number two saying the maintenance of the exterior tables needs to be part of this as well as number one. Yes?

Yes.

So I'll make a recommendation to approve with staff recommendation number one and also including a number two which would include the maintenance of the exterior tables as far as it pertains to trash and cleanup.

Second. All in favor? Aye. Opposed? Okay. Thank you for coming, and good luck with getting it all up and running. And we've come to another exciting project, 7801 Forsyth. And it's been a while since we've seen you. Thank you for sitting through it this evening. Okay, Anna.

So this is a request for a conditional use permit associated with the renovation and expansion of a drive-through for a financial institution. So the property is located across the street, intersection of Bemison and Forsyth Boulevard. The proposed site alterations were approved in 2020 but not constructed and the approval has expired. The owner is now ready to complete the proposed project and has returned. The following staff report is updated based on the analysis from 2020. Only minor alterations to their plan have been proposed. First we'll consider the conditional use permit request and then the architectural following. So the existing drive-through is proposed to be expanded and shifted slightly from one lane to include two drive-through lanes with 24-hour virtual ATM machines. All vehicles will enter from Beamiston and exit onto Forsyth Boulevard. The drive-through facility for financial institutions require a conditional use permit. Any enlargement, alteration, or expansion of the use requires that the CUP be approved by the Board of Aldermen. In your packet is a criteria review associated with conditional use permit. I'll summarize some of the key points. In terms of compatibility, the surrounding land uses include retail office and institutional and drive-throughs are appropriate uses on properties that have high traffic volume, such as Forsyth Boulevard. The drive-through is located on the north side of the building and not directly adjacent to the street or right of way. Proposed visual changes are minimal, including the installation of two virtual teller machines and an overhead canopy. More details, including the landscaping, will be reviewed under the architectural review process. The proposed use will require removal of seven parking spaces. This site does not currently conform to parking standards adopted by the city. The non-conforming status cannot be increased through the loss of parking as a result of the conversion of this parking area. As part of the other renovation project proposed, Applin plans to expand the underground garage, replacing the spaces lost for the drive-through expansion. The drive-through lanes will be available 24 hours and it's likely that trips to the site will increase after normal business hours when traffic congestion in the downtown area is lower. Therefore, staff does not anticipate additional trips generated by the proposed lane will adversely affect traffic flow or public safety. Off street parking and loading regulations establish requirements for drive-through lanes to provide a minimum of five stacked parking spaces per drive-through window. or 10 stacking spaces for a single drive-through. Due to site constraints, the existing drive-through lane was approved three stacking spaces. The relocation of the existing lane in addition of a second lane will provide six stack spaces behind the original lane and three behind the new lane for a total of nine. Under the provisions for parking and loading, the Board of Aldermen may modify the required number of stacking spaces through this CUP process. Staff believes the proposed number is appropriate. The proposed drive-through expansion results in the removal of the existing bypass lane. If a vehicle enters the site from North Bemiston Avenue using the drive-through lane, it will have to proceed through one of the two drive-through lanes to exit. Staff recommends that a directional sign is added adjacent to the drive entrance stating drive-through only or similar wording to deter vehicles from entering accidentally. In conclusion, staff is of the opinion that the additional drive-through lane meets the requirements contained in your staff report and recommends that you recommend approval of the conditional use permit to the Board of Aldermen with the following condition. One, place a directional sign adjacent to the drive-through entrance sitting drive-through entrance only or similar.

Thank you.

Good evening. Yes, hi, I'm Tyler Stevens, principal at Corten Architecture. It's good to see everyone back here. Yes, we were before you with this very same project. We talked about all these same issues in December, I believe, of 2020. So maybe I can answer your first obvious question, which is why are we doing this again? There's a one year expiration date on those approvals. PNC is currently in the building right now. It was our hope we brought it to you in December because it was our hope that PNC would vacate the building early on their lease. They have chosen to stick it out to the bitter end. And so therefore we're still waiting. Our drawings have been done for a long time on this. We're just waiting for PNCA to leave, and so our approval's expired. I

have no problem, just one question, and that is the staff recommendation of a sign saying drive-through entrance only. That would be on Beamiston, but can cars both enter and exit on the Forsyth side?

Yes, the Forsyth side is where the actual parking would be. So I think it's appropriate that it would be entrance only there at Bemis. In fact, you can't exit. You can't go out that way. Just you physically can't. So then you would need no other

sign on Forsyth. Is that correct?

On Forsyth, I don't anticipate needing a sign yet to parking lot. It'll look very much like a parking lot off of the street. I

have no problem with the conditional use permit. Carolyn?

No comments. Thank you.

Tom? No comment.

No comment.

David? No comments.

Okay, I don't think we have anyone else either in person or online. So we do have a staff recommendation to approve the conditional use permit to the Board of Aldermen with that one condition.

I'll make a motion to approve the staff recommendation.

Second. All in favor? Aye.

Okay.

Now we'll go into the architectural.

So under the architecture, as I mentioned before, they're really only minor changes made so that i'll just kind of briefly summarize the piece that relates to staff recommendations. It was discussed in 2020 as well. The Architecture Review Board approved the proposed plan in 2020 with a condition that consideration should be given to the redesign of the proposed walls facing Beamiston Avenue to reduce their size to a more pedestrian scale. In the 2020 design, the raised patio along the edge of the building was only located along Forsyth Boulevard. A raised planting area was proposed along the Beamiston side of the new walls or the reclad walls. In the revised plan submitted, the patio runs the length of the walls that includes Forsyth and Beamiston. Staff recommends that the landscape bed be restored along the Beamiston edge of this raised area and that the metal railing is not located surrounding that landscape bed in order to reduce the scale and provide a more pedestrian friendly area. So In conclusion, the proposed renovations upgrade the appearance of the existing building and are compatible with the materials of nearby property. The proposed brick-clad walls will connect the property to the north, which is under the same ownership. The use of the updated curtain wall system is similar in renovation style to other renovations of older buildings in the area. The use of clear glass to accent the original column structure behind will result in a unique and appealing design. Proposed heights of the wall in combination with the metal railing along North Bemiston Avenue create a harsh edge of the sidewalk that is not pedestrian scale. Staff recommendation is to approve with the following conditions. One, all replacement street trees shall be coordinated with the city per city standards and permit requirements prior to the issuing of a building permit. Honey locust trees are susceptible to disease and should be replaced with a variety of seedless Kentucky coffee tree. Two, any proposed landscaping in the right-of-way shall be coordinated with the city and any required permits and use and maintenance agreements shall be obtained prior to issuance of the building permit. Three, right-of-away permits shall be obtained prior any work in the right-off-way. Four, the right-of way shall be constructed per city standard streetscape and the pavers in the right of way area shall not be installed. And five, the patio along the east side of the building shall be replaced with a landscaped area per the 2020 design, and the railing adjacent to the landscape area shall be removed.

Thank you. Okay, I'll address the wall. I think that's probably the main issue in question. The railing that we're talking about has always been there. That's an integral part of the design. The intent of this design currently, it's a building that's surrounded by a parking lot. And our intent has always been to make this a building that sits in a little plaza by taking the parking and putting it down below. We're expanding the garage in the lower level to accommodate the cars that we're removing up above. And so this makes a really nice base basically that this jewel of a building will sit on. The base is integrally tied to the existing building on Beamiston. That's part of the bank's original building that we did several years ago. And so the brick wall with the metal rail on top connects, it lines up exactly with the brick face and the windows that are in the Beamiston building. So that line is a continuous base around the site tying this into a campus feel which is really what the client's intent was. We took out the planters simply because as we have done the drawings, as I mentioned, we've completed the drawings, we've investigated the building fully. Those planters were gonna need to be in raised pots up above the floor, which in our mind made it even taller. And since you all had asked for looking at this wall as an issue, we had taken those out and just have the rail because we don't really need, the plants are behind the rail anyway so they didn't show a whole lot. So that's why they're removed. I can put them back if you really want them but they're gonna be in a raised pot and make the wall seem taller than it is. But as for the rail taking it off, I don't think that that's the right idea because as I say, it is an integral design element back to the existing building and there will be portions of that patio that will require a railing due to safety regulations So if we take it off for part and leave it on for other parts, I think it's going to look kind of jumbled.

Sheet A202 is where we see the railing. Is that correct? I actually like the continuity of the railing and how it relates to the building to the north. I'm comfortable with it. However, the brick wall below the railing, I think needs some softness. That's where you're saying the planting would have to be in pots.

No, the planting in front of the brick wall will remain. That all stays and we agree that needs softness down there. We've intentionally held it back to get all that planting in. The brick wall itself has some relief indentations in it as well to break it up so it's not just a big flat wall. Correct on that, right? So that's reducing the scale of the wall itself and then those plantings will be there.

Okay, I

think I better understand it now. But I did have another question.

The clear glass surrounding the building, is it always that in 2020? Yeah,

we have a beautiful curtain wall system that we found that I've not seen before. I'm very excited about it. It's a very nice curtain wall. with these slender, thin columns that go up that are kind of elliptical. It's gonna really stand out. I'm excited about that. So the fact that the glass is clear is an integral part of the design as well. You see right into this building, you're gonna see the layers of what's going on inside and really show off that curtain wall.

So you'll see the structural components also? Yes. Do you have to condition the air between the new glass and the existing?

The existing glass will all be removed. It's an open atrium inside. The floors stay where they are, the glass is five feet out, and you have an atrium space all around the entire

envelope. You have to increase the capacity of the heating and cooling?

Yes. Yes. because it's interchanging with floors. And so that has all been taken into account.

I really like it. It's a neat way of updating that building.

Thank you, that was the intent. We really liked some of the architecture of Clayton and like I said before back in December, the first inclination of this project was tear the building down. And I can tell you it would have been much cheaper. But we are choosing to save this building because we think it's architecturally great.

Marilyn?

Yeah, I remember this. I was here. I was on the floor. And I liked what you did then. So I appreciate that. I have a question about number one, the street tree thing, honey locusts, replacing those with seedless Kentucky locusts. Kentucky coffee tree. Where is that coming from? Exactly.

Bath, I guess the species came from public works for the city standard.

Is it relating to anything around it or just like the tree? Yeah,

I think it's just on it's on the list of street trees.

Okay, I just don't being in the business finding that tree in a nursery.

I've never heard of that

tree before. Might

be a little difficult.

Yeah, that was the recommendation from city staff, but there is a larger list of street trees. So I think there's room to work with Public Works to choose a different species from the list. Yeah,

that's where I was going with that because I'm like, good luck finding that in an orchard. All right. Otherwise, I didn't really have any comments about it. I liked it when I saw it and I like it now. Okay.

Oh, I just hope you get to build it this time.

Oh, we will. It's always Yeah, never. I mean, there's no question about it being built. It's just waiting for PNC to leave. Good luck to you. Right? Yeah. Yeah, the curtain walls already been bought and paid for. Is

it in your garage?

It's somewhere. Ellen

No questions. I hope to see it soon.

Amy?

No questions.

David?

No questions.

OK. Well, we do have a staff recommendation to approve with the five conditions which you agreed to. Not the fifth one. Not the fifth. Right. I'm comfortable with that. This is everyone else, so a motion.

I'll make a motion to approve the staff recommendations one through four.

Second. All in favor? Aye. Opposed?

So when do you actually get started? January 1 is when. 23? 23, yeah.

Well, good luck. You've been waiting for it a long time. Hey, so have

we. We are very excited about this building. So yes. All right. Thank you all very much. Good luck with this. Good luck. I got to catch my table at the restaurant here in Clayton. So they're going to close the kitchen.

OK. Kami, any comments?

No comment.

Ellen.

No comments.

Good to see Carolyn in person.

Carolyn. You're sweet. It's good to be here too.

David. Nothing tonight.

Stephanie. Any words of wisdom for the next meeting?

Well, our due date for submittal since the next meeting is on a Tuesday. It's tomorrow. So far. I don't expect any large, we don't have any large PUDs or public hearing set, so it will be all smaller. Yes,

it's

Tuesday, Tuesday the 21st.

We have to dispose of that Winokur drive case that we put at the bottom.

Thank you, Bob.

And I will not be here at the next meeting. I'll be out of town. Yes.

750 Wenneker Drive. We need to table that.

I'll move to table that to June 21st. Second. All in favor?

Aye.

Thank you, everyone. We'll see you in two weeks and one day. I remember

that.

And

then you didn't come

back. Steve, we need a motion to adjourn.

Motion to adjourn.

Oh, oops.

That's all right. Just yell it out.

I do not second. We all

have to stay

here.

Second. All in favor? Aye. Yes. Thank you.

So cute. I wish I had gotten a couple of different colors.

Fine. How about you? We went to, have you been to Asheville, North Carolina?