June 1, 2026 — Meeting Transcript

Good evening, everyone, and welcome to the Plan Commission ARB for June 1st. If you have any electronic gadgets, please silence them. And Hobie will start with the roll call.

Steve Lichtenfeld? Here. Helen DiFate?

Steve Lichtenfeld? Here. Helen DeFate?

Here.

Jim Marcineau? Here. Chris Brennan? Blair Kweskin? Jeff Morrisey? Here. We have minutes. Susan Buse?

Jim Marcineau? Here. Chris Brennan? Blair Queskin? Jeff Morrissey? Here. We have minutes. Susan Buse?

Here.

Oh, I'm sorry. I sort of jumped in front. We have minutes from the previous meeting on May 18th. Are there any changes or updates? Seeing none, do we have a motion?

Move to approve as submitted.

Second. All in favor? Aye. Opposed? Okay. This is the time for an open forum. If anyone either in the council chambers or online has anything to question or comment on, not on tonight's matters. I don't see anyone, so we will move on. Our first item is old business, 221 Brighton Way, and we'll get started. with the uh staff report

yeah do you have a question

yeah um so this application was reviewed at the previous pcrb meeting on may 18th 2026 and was continued to this meeting the application is for request to use siding as part of a residential addition which does not meet the material proportion requirements of the clayton gardens urban design district The plans for this meeting have since been revised to conform to the setback, which will require modification of work already completed and to use cement fiber siding. The expanded use of siding does not meet the material ratio requirements of the Clayton Gardens Urban Design District. Therefore, it must be reviewed by the Architecture Review Board. The remainder of the project scope is reviewable administratively as part of a building permit. The revised plans propose removing the existing vinyl siding and installing cement fiber siding in both the pre-existing and new additions. The siding color is noted as SW wicker rocker to match existing brick. Per section 410.380.A.1, accent materials may not exceed 25% of any wall elevation in Clayton Gardens. the applicant is seeking approval via alternative compliance. The proposal would increase the secondary material ratio on the side elevations from approximately 40% to approximately 50%. Given the projects in an expansion of an existing addition and is located in a rear yard, staff are of the opinion that the expanded use of siding would have minimal visual impact. Therefore, staff are of opinion that the proposal has met the criteria for alternative compliance. given that deck materials have not been specified, staff are of the opinion that they should not consist of vinyl and staff recommend approval with that condition that the deck materials not be a vinyl.

Okay. Thank you. Welcome back.

Thank you all for having me. Zach Roth, represent 221 Brighton Way. Hopefully this is really simple and easy. I hope so. As requested and agreed upon at the last meeting, we agreed to replace all the existing vinyl siding with fiber cement vinyl siding. I brought the sample. And I don't know if I need to say anything else, but the plans have been changed. The plans now show that all vinyl siding has been removed. It is now replaced with fiber cement, again, as I believe that was the request. And I guess I should yield questions now.

Is that the color? This is,

yes.

That's pretty close

to the color. Correct. Yeah. If you guys want to see it, I went and got it. It looks good. Oh,

yep. I think we've come to an agreement on how to do that. I think it'll look better than what had been there before and will enhance the value of your property. So I have no... problem as long as you agree with the condition that the deck material shall not be vinyl.

Yes,

I agree with that. Yes.

Ellen?

I do have one question. Does that come in a vertical board so that you can butt to the existing brick house?

A trim piece?

Yeah. Okay.

I'm sure, yes. I'm sure there are trim pieces. Yes. I'm not a siding person, but there are trim pieces, yes, that can be

built. Okay. There are. I've seen the exterior, but I bet there's an interior one also.

Yeah, they have these... I've seen these inside and outside corner trim pieces. They're vertical.

Yeah. What brand is that? Curiosity.

Yeah, this... Allura. I got this at Menards. I

think that's a Sherwin-Williams.

Yeah, the paint is, yeah, Sherwin-Williums. That's correct.

Yeah.

I looked it up. It's a variation of LP SmartSide.

No other questions.

I just want to make sure, and you're going to be using that in the lap siding because it also comes in like four foot by 10 and five foot by 10 like sheets. And I just wanted to make sure that it's, Oh yeah. Yes, sir. Okay. Yeah. And it does say, it does say that there's color match trim on there on little things. So we should be fine there. Thank you. Quick question for Ana, as far as the deck materials, is that something that would just need to be administratively approved when the it came through. Right. So decks

are eligible for administrative approval and only if they don't use vinyl. So we just reiterated that in the staff recommendation.

Just for clarification, and it did say this last thing, but there is a keynote number two here. It says composite deck boards. So that's not, I wouldn't call that vinyl, but.

That's correct. I think the railing wasn't specified, the railing material. So we'll check both of those under your building permit. Okay. Thank you.

So just for the safety, when we make a motion, should we say deck material to be administratively approved on top of this? Sure.

Yeah. Okay.

I don't have any other questions.

Jeff? Yeah, I'm only picking up on the deck comment. The guardrail that appears in the detail is wood. I'm assuming that's painted wood. I'm looking at four on 3.0. That's 3.0. Is that correct?

I mean, yeah, it would be painted. Yeah. I mean, we have to seal it, otherwise it'll...

Okay. And obviously, it's a structural engineer doing it, so he's going to put it together in a way that meets force requirements. Okay. Yeah, because I didn't see the... Just to the rest of everyone here, I didn't see a note on the elevation, but the details seem to indicate it's a wood guardrail. So that's all I've got.

Thank you.

Thanks. Susan?

No questions.

Any questions from the audience? I assume there's no one online.

Yeah, okay.

Okay, well, we have a staff recommendation. It'll be modified. Do we have a motion?

I move to approve as submitted with the staff recommendation that the deck material should not consist of final and additionally that the deck materials will be up administratively approved.

All in favor. Opposed okay. Thank you back and good luck.

Thank you all so much. This is very challenging for someone who doesn't do this on a normal basis ever. Thank you all. Hopefully it's over.

Get home to that family.

Thanks. Okay, we'll move on to new business and that's 8109 Maryland Avenue. And I know you're here.

Rata Tessie,

hi. As usual, we'll start with the staff report.

The applicant is seeking a conditional use permit to allow for operation of a wine bar. The subject property is located on the north side of Maryland Avenue between North Brentwood Boulevard and North Forsyth Boulevard, and has a zoning designation of neighborhood mixed use. The tenant, Retta Jane, I think that's a good pronunciation, is a multi-purpose concept which proposes retail clothing space, commercial slash office space for interior design services, and a wine bar space known as a reading room. The proposed hours of operation are 9 a.m. to 11 p.m. Monday through Saturday and 10 a.m. To 11 p.m on Sundays. The applicant notes and documents provided that the real hours of operation will likely be less. However, the applicant would like flexibility for private events, brand partnerships and seasonal programming. The wine bar space is projected to have up to 36 seats. Deliveries will be made during business hours via the rear alley, and the tenant will use the existing recycling and garbage pickup services at the property. The property is developed with a one-story structure intended for retail and commercial uses. Adjacent uses include a variety of restaurants, retail, commercial, office, and residential uses. The proposed use is compatible with the surrounding uses and the neighborhood character. The application documents note the space comes with three parking spaces. The city's parking regulations allow property with non-conforming parking conditions to be reoccupied without acquiring additional parking spaces so long as the use is similar or less restrictive in nature. or more restrictive in nature, sorry. The site is also served by street parking and nearby parking garages. Staff are of the opinion that parking will be adequately managed. Staff are of opinion that the wine bar component meets the requirements contained in the regulations governing conditional uses. The use is compatible in the size and use to existing buildings in the surrounding area. The proposed hours of operation and method of deliveries are consistent with other businesses and restaurants. Based on the information regarding the operation of the wine bar as provided by the applicant, staff are of the opinion that the business is compatible, and staff recommend approval of the conditional use to the City Council.

Thank you. Good evening.

Good evening.

You could identify yourself and then say whatever you'd like.

Give a little bit about it. So I'm Retta Tussie. Retta Jane is actually a business that's been around for a long time. So we started as an interior design firm probably 20 years ago. I've been doing residential interior design here in St. Louis. And in 2023, I launched an offshoot of that, which is girls clothing. So it's for adolescent girls. It's called Retta Jane. And so as we've progressed and both businesses have grown, we identified that we needed a space where we could operate both. So it will be a mix of home and clothing retail. Our design businesses will be inside. And then this idea of bringing in a wine bar is truly a community driver. a place where we could do private events, a place where we can have trunk shows. Let's say a mother and a daughter are shopping for a dress on a weekend. The mom might get a glass of wine afterwards and the girl gets a little bite. So it's really more of an experiential component of the overall picture of the store. So it's not our money driver. It is truly just a side, a little side thing that we have on the inside that hopefully will break even, but it's going to be our design business and our retail that really drives our revenue.

Well, I must say your presentation was horrific.

Thank you.

And my 14 year old granddaughter was over when I was looking at it. And she may be one of your first customers. I was impressed with it. What I was surprised was that the spaces are relatively small. Would you be able to differentiate your three functions in there?

Yes. And if you look at, I don't know if it's on one of the pages, I think it's one of the very first ones. Let's see. One of the first pages in there does a location overview. And you can see on the east side of the building, I think it used to be Happy Up Toys. And that's our office side. And it actually has its own functional door. So as of now, those will be our offices. And we have an adjacent interior door where we can open it and expand if we need to. But we've already spoken... as a team on the business side that hopefully if this does well, we can always take the offices out, move them elsewhere and expand our footprint on the inside. I

know really all we're doing is the conditional use permit, which is the wine bar, but it's a very interesting proposition to merge all these three. I think it sounds exciting, but we'll move it on to Helen.

OK, I do have a question. Yes. Looking at the details and I suspect it's an oversight. You say you will have eight seated at the bar.

Oh, no, it should be less than that. I think it's only.

Yeah, it's two. It's six. That is a typo. I think it's a neat concept, and really, it's a very new concept. A lot of the retail, the trade magazines are talking about combining coffee and a speakeasy, and I know... downtown west dorsa market is doing a market with the speakeasy um and we have ggs that we just approved that will turn from coffee to wine in the evening so this is kind of a tweak on that. And I think it's a great idea. You know, I'm glad to see Clayton being ahead rather than following later.

Well, and I feel like retails the Wild Wild West. Right now, and you see it in some of the major cities where it is, it's a coffee shop inside or some sort of restaurant or cafe and they're doing it. Now, it tends to be larger companies and larger footprints. But I think the concept still plays. And I think you can start at small. And I have a feeling as we grow, the Clayton community or the St. Louis community is going to dictate how we evolve and and how they use it. And if it's private events, maybe from time to time, book club or something that wants to be in there in the evening. And that's why we were hoping for the extended hours on those rare nights.

Okay. No other questions, Helen.

Jim? Yeah, you talk about the scale and honestly what it reminds me back going to Chicago and restoration hardware first opened the three arts cafe up there and then you see it and you see like, you know, oh, you know, what does, you know, furniture and brunch and wine have to do with each other and then you step foot in that space and you're like, oh, it actually works fantastic. So yeah, I was very excited to see this. I was very excited hear about it on the St. Louis Magazine podcast when I first heard about it. So I think I yelled out in my car when I even, because I had even, I've checked up on this address before. And so it's like, oh, that's like the perfect thing to go there. And it's something that Clayton really doesn't have right now, especially in the downtown area. So I think it brings something new there. Yeah. And I'm very excited for it. And like Steve, I think, I think I might've spent two hours going through this packet. I just really enjoyed we usually don't get this many materials. So when there's that much to kind of like dive into, I think we like to nerd out a little bit and kind of like go through everything. So

I had no idea. So I figured it was better just to give you a lot than a little.

Yeah. So much appreciated. I think it's going to be a fantastic space and I'm very supportive.

Thank you.

Jeff. hi um yeah no other comments beyond uh repeating what my colleagues have said here and uh good luck

thank you

susan uh from this vantage point it's it's really exciting and a lot of fun i know it's a ton of work at your vantage point so thank you it looks really great the one question i had i i get the idea of having the the um the library there or the reading room and Is it open to the public as

well? Absolutely. Absolutely. So somebody could come in truly and just be shopping and browsing. They could bring in their laptop or just, I had a woman today who's a female executive in Clayton. And she said to me, she goes, you know, my husband goes to the cigar bar at the Ritz if he's got some time between something in the evening. And she goes, I'll have a babysitter and I'll have an hour between meetings and I don't want to go home, but it's too late to go to a coffee shop. She goes, this idea that I could just pop in pull open like a design book and have a glass of wine and then go home. She's like, I'm all for it. So I think there's stuff like that that's starting to percolate from this too. That'll be really interesting. Yeah, thank you. Thank you.

What is your schedule?

Hoping if all went well, Art Fair weekend would be my North Star for the grand opening weekend. I don't know if we can hit it. We have about two months of build out once we get all the approvals and things through. So we'll see. But fall.

Good. Well, we do have a staff recommendation to approve the CUP.

I move to recommend approval of the conditional use permit as submitted to the City Council.

Second. All in favor? Aye. Opposed? Okay. good luck thank

you we're

excited to see this occur i

will welcome you all there so please look

forward to it

thank you

thank you well this may have been our shortest meeting on record um but let's see if we have any further comments jeff nope i'm good thank you tim

Yeah, I'll just say briefly, with the city council for our planned unit developments that was discussed, I think there was a lot of discussion. There was a LEED silver minimum on that, and there was a question of if it should go be pushed up to LEED gold, which I think is a minimum for a planned unit development is probably... Uh, a little steep. Uh, but I also think that that's where kind of we come in with some of this stuff as far as being able to explain that. So my hope is to be able to go to the city council meeting on the 23rd and make comments. Kind of on some of the difference between the plateaus of lead silver and lead gold to, uh. know explain it's like well you know well what's 10 points well let's explain what 10 points is on that scale and what that difference is and what that could mean for development in the city um so just something that is listening along that i wanted to bring up especially because it's pertinent to this board and something that we spent a lot of time discussing

ellen nothing to add susan

Nothing except reacting to that is really was asking for more information on what it takes if we were trying to push it further. So the board's looking forward to that information.

Anything further, Hobie?

Nothing from me.

Anna? Good to see you. Thank you. Well, we like to keep it long when you come. So nice seeing you. Well, we will reconvene two weeks from now on the 15th. Enjoy the short meeting. We'll be adjourned.