SUMMARY MINUTES OF A WORK SESSION

OF THE CHAPEL HILL TOWN COUNCIL

ON DESIGN OF LOT 5 AND THE WALLACE PARKING DECK

THURSDAY, AUGUST 18, 2005 AT 5:30 P.M.

Mayor Foy called the meeting to order at 5:30 p.m.

Council members present were Sally Greene, Ed Harrison, Cam Hill, Mark Kleinschmidt, Bill Strom, Dorothy Verkerk, Jim Ward, and Edith Wiggins.

Staff members present were Town Manager Cal Horton, Deputy Town Manager Florentine Miller, Assistant Town Manager Bruce Heflin, Town Attorney Ralph Karpinos, Town Information Officer Catherine Lazorko, Acting Planning Director J.B. Culpepper, Senior Long Range Planner Chris Berndt, Principal Planner Gene Poveromo, Principal Long Range Planner Gordon Sutherland, and Town Clerk Sabrina Oliver.

Representatives of RAM Development were Susan Tjarksen-Roussos, Ivy Greaner, and Casey Cummings. Others present working with RAM Development were John Felton with Cline Design Associates, Tom Lowe with Duany Plater-Zyberk, and Josh Gurlitz of GGA Architects.

Item 1 – Discussion of Key Project Design Issues

1a.       Parking Lot #5 Potential Elevations

Town Manager Cal Horton said this was a continuation of a discussion from June 29, when they went through a process of considering a number of different issues and gave feedback to RAM so that they could perform additional work and come back with alternatives for consideration.  He said there was two different elements, one for development of Lot 5 and one for development of the Wallace Deck.  Mr. Horton stated that the RAM team would present their ideas and get feedback from the Council.

Mr. Horton said they had been involved in two productive negotiating sessions authorized by the Council, noting the issues were complex but the parties were working well together.  He said they were working towards development of a Memorandum of Understanding which would incorporate the principles of agreement and subsequent to that a Development Agreement that would outline in greater detail how we might proceed.

Presentation by RAM Development

Casey Cummings, President of RAM Development, said they received very specific feedback from the Council in June on the suggested direction in the architectural style and theme of the project.  He said the results they had to show were three distinct concepts from one view, and then the new concept for the Wallace Deck portion.

Mr. Cummings said they had started with eight or 10 types of looks and feels from the Council’s feedback, and had narrowed it down to six.  From that, he said, they more fully developed three plans, and he believed the Council would see that the more they developed the three plans, the more they looked alike.  Mr. Cummings said they took that as a good sign that they were heading in the right direction.

Since the June 29 meeting, Mr. Cummings said, they had held several two to three-day design sessions, adding that their philosophy was not to send any one person off to do the design.  He said they had taken the feedback from the Council and together had gone on some walking tours.  Mr. Cummings said they had looked at photos from all over the world, and then spent several days together designing.

Mr. Cummings said that when they were ready to show perspective renderings with color and materials and window locations, it was typically nine to 12 months into a design development process.  He said they had accelerated that process, and what the Council would see tonight was a work in process and was by no means final, particularly some of the schematics that Tom Lowe would present.  Mr. Cummings said what they would present was their raw work.  He said when they came before the Council in its role as a regulatory authority the plans would be much further developed.

Mr. Cummings said he knew the Council would most likely have specific questions such as how many units is it now or how many square feet is it now.  He said they did not know the answers to those questions at this point, noting that the purpose of today’s meeting was to get feedback on the style and the direction they were heading.

Mr. Cummings said they did not have any more specifics regarding costs, but would have that when they were further along in the process.  He said that the level of quality of what they were showing the Council today would be significantly enhanced from what they had initially showed them, and that the cost was most likely higher as well.

Mr. Cummings said he was even happier today regarding the design team, their diverse backgrounds, and the way they worked together than he was in the beginning.  He said they had thought long and hard on putting together the right team.  Mr. Cummings said there were “rock star” architects that received a lot of attention, had lots of articles published about them, and designed great buildings.  Mr. Cummings said those buildings were also very expensive, and generally speaking those buildings had a hard time relating to the neighborhoods in which they were located because they tend to be built to satisfy a particular objective.  He said they were not doing that here, that that was not their objective, and they did not believe that was what the Town wanted.

Mr. Cummings said that Duany Plater-Zyberk (DPZ) was world renown, but they did not bring them onto the team so they could have a “rock star” architect to “wow” the Council.  He said they brought DPZ in because they were the world’s preeminent town planners and urban architects.  Mr. Cummings said their role on the team was to help them understand the place-making principles and to apply those place-making principles to this specific site.  He said they started looking at the Town as a whole, and then focused on the site in the context of the Town, and then focus on what it would take to make a great place.  Mr. Cummings said what the Council could see this evening was a mixture of DPZ’s urban architect and town planning principles working collectively with Cline and with GGA to make sure that they had the local understanding and knowledge.  He said they believed that they had the best design team to do that, and felt good about the design. Mr. Cummings said that Tom Lowe with Duany Plater-Zyberk would present the design.

Mr. Lowe said the collaboration with the team had been positive, but very complicated.  He said it was now coming together and they were excited about sharing what DPZ did well.  Mr. Lowe said he had a brief three-part presentation, with the first part being some background history on place-making principles, the second was how they took all of these great principles and created an operating system to apply to today’s world in terms of zoning, design, construction and safety.  Mr. Lowe said the third part was how it applied to this specific site of Lot 5, and how one could dial it certain ways based on the feedback from the Council.

Mr. Lowe displayed pictures of different types of architecture, noting the spaces they created, the facades, the circulation and uses, including active and passive.

Mr. Lowe said they had created a separate and parallel operating system to be able to include those physical elements to make it work.  He exhibited a slide that he said was a “Smart Code” that was form-based zoning, where the kinds of places, whether rural or urban, the physical form was important as to how they functioned.  Mr. Lowe said they had been careful to plug in all kinds of elements in order to create the Smart Code, which showed the transition from rural to urban.  He said if you think visually about what the places look like as you feather in or feather out from urban to rural, how the scale and character evolves, you can design entire villages and towns.

Mr. Lowe said that was exactly how Chapel Hill worked.  He said as you step into Franklin Street and start feathering out into the neighborhoods, you experience that very quickly in a few minutes walk.  Mr. Lowe said if you used the Smart Code to determine what zone this site was in, it would be somewhere between T-5 and T-6, which was urban center and urban core.  He said this meant that the Town had the character somewhere between a village and a town, and in some cases you were thinking between a town and a small city in terms of the personality, the character, and the feel of it.

Mr. Lowe said this project may have elements of both, and they could dial it up or dial it down based on what they heard from the Council.  For example, he said, when you talk about the frontage along sidewalks, when you were in rural conditions you had pathways and trails and random trees, but as you feather into the town the sidewalks get wider, trees go into planting wells, covered arcades or may disappear altogether.  Mr. Lowe said all of these details were important.  He explained the types of trees as they transition from rural to urban, as well as street lights that were less formal in rural areas but became more formal in urban areas.  Mr. Lowe said all of that was what they meant by place-making.

Mr. Lowe said the question was how did that relate to the site.  He displayed a scale comparison between Market Square in Lake Forest, Illinois and Palmer Square in Princeton, New Jersey and the Lot 5 site.  Mr. Lowe pointed out the hardscape, green and open space, the amount of sidewalks and circulation, and the building footprints.  He said if you applied the current site plan to this, it was very similar.  Mr. Lowe said what they were saying was, they think they’ve gotten it right.

Mr. Lowe provided drawings that explained the place-making elements in order to give the Council an idea of what they had been thinking as a team, such as what kind of buildings, what kind of spatial quality were they creating, and how everything was going to relate to each other.

Mr. Lowe said when they were looking at the site, they were thinking about this as a place-making ensemble of elements.  He said as a twist to this, you could think in terms of did you want it to have a more urban feeling, or a more village feeling, and you can dial it up or dial it down based on the elements used.  Mr. Lowe said for instance, you could introduce covered arcades, more trees, cantilevered canopies, or other elements.

Mr. Lowe said one question might be if you make it more urban, do you make it less green.  He said the answer was no, in fact you were just doing the green component in a different and possibly more lush way.  Mr. Lowe said he was interested in talking with the Council about the place-making elements, and once that’s established then they could begin to look at the buildings.

John Felton, with Cline Design Associates, said they had conducted several working sessions and used a lot of tracing paper.  He said they had taken the principles that Mr. Lowe had described for urban creation of the space and worked with some understanding of how they believed the units would work.  Mr. Felton said they wanted the units to be open with a lot of glass, and the Council would see that the elevations had floor to ceiling glass in them.

Mr. Felton displayed a rendering of Concept A, which was a view from Franklin Street looking at the plaza.  He said the rendering was shown without the place-making landscaping so that the buildings could be seen.  Mr. Felton said they had created a four-story expression line at Franklin Street, brought it back into the plaza, dropped it off, and then picked it up again at the part of the building that turned onto Church Street.  He noted the vertical core line of the building, and the change in materials at the upper portion to break up the vertical massing and to indicate a penthouse level.  Mr. Felton showed a rendering of the same view with landscaping included with additional hardscape.

Mr. Felton exhibited a rendering of Concept B, using the same view.  He said you could see the difference in scale and massing from Concept A when the mid-rise building became larger and became more of a unified element.  Mr. Felton said the circulation pattern had been moved over to affect the massing scale, and they had still used the lower portions of the building to correct the portions for the urban space.  He noted that all the rooftops were terraces for the residents.  Mr. Felton then displayed a rendering of the same concept, but with landscaping that took the street pattern of tree planting and turned it in and hugged the building.  He said that allowed the public space to be exposed to the street and not hidden by the street tree pattern.

Mr. Felton displayed a rendering of Concept C, using the same view, where a lot more glass was used in the mid-rise building.  He said they had hung balconies in different locations, and had not broken up the top two floors but extended them down, and had changed the vertical massing at the four-story line.  Mr. Felton noted they had experimented with the smaller building with a glass and steel bay that helped define the vertical element that was the volume space inside the loft unit that led out to the balcony.  He then displayed another rendering of the same concept, but with an expression of the public space that anticipated a large grouping of trees along the street, with the remainder of the space remaining open.

Comments on Lot 5 from Members of the Council

Council Member Verkerk said she found the sliding scale to be helpful.  She said as they were moving through the drawings, she believed the last one, which was more urban, most closely resembled how she wanted that outdoor room to function.

Mayor Foy questioned with the maximum of what they had shown, how would that feel set down in the middle of Town.  He wondered if it would feel out of place, noting that the sense of Franklin Street now had a more gentle, village like character.  Mayor Foy asked if there were any other places in Town that would be similar to this.  Mr. Lowe responded that the buildings at the corner of Franklin and Columbia Streets were much more urban in character, because they were taller and had similar elements.  He said any building that was successful from an urban point of view would have those elements within them.  Mr. Lowe said the Top of the Hill was a prime example.

Mr. Lowe said there were other parts of Franklin Street that had the 1940s, one or two story colonial revival character, so the Town had both.  He said they had given the Council a range of options that said “this is your heritage, and now you are growing up.”

Council Member Hill said the Post Office was not particularly tall, but all of those buildings in that area were hardscape.  He said given the elements that were present, the scale depicts that area as urban.  Council Member Hill said that would be what they were getting.  Mr. Lowe said that the space in front of the Post Office was a very urban detailed plaza.

Mr. Gurlitz said there were a series of elements that are layers that they overlay the basic physical forms within the square that they were creating.  He said one of the challenges for the design team was to choose those elements, and a great deal of the success of how this fits in with the rest of the Town was how they choose those elements that make this a separate place yet have reference to other places in Town.  Mr. Gurlitz asked that a particular slide be displayed, then said there was a hierarchy of elements that would come together to form the public space, however they do have quite a choice in what they do.  He said as they move through the designs, they would be closer to making those choices.  Mr. Gurlitz said those choices would help to weave this project into the fabric of the Town.

Mayor Foy asked if the Council was comfortable with saying that this slide was in line with what the Council wanted than the prior slide.

Ms. Tjarksen-Roussos displayed the slides again to refresh the Council’s memory.

Mayor Foy said he believed the slide with the taller trees gave the Council an idea of what a more urban setting would ultimately look like, though not necessarily with that many trees.  Mr. Gurlitz said this slide showed a set of elements between the trees and the projected canopies.  He said this showed what happens when you put together certain elements, though the elements shown in the slide would not necessarily be what was ultimately chosen.

Mayor Foy said it made the space less park-line in the sense that there was not really green space within it, but was more plaza-like.  Mr. Lowe said the level of green was probably the same in each slide, but the level of how it was used was different.

Mr. Cummings said they would like comments that would give them a sense of what direction the Council was headed, then when they came back to the Council with a site plan and perspective renderings, they could present features that lean more towards that direction.

Mr. Lowe said for instance, should it be more village, town, urban or city.  He said he believed one slide was more village-town, and one was more urban-city.  Mr. Lowe said the Council needed to give them some idea of which direction they preferred.  He said they did not have to be that specific, they could say one was village, and one was town.

Council Member Strom said he would like to see the two slides that were Concept B with the plaza, and Concept C with the plaza.  He said Concept C showed 40-foot trees that would not be there, and he feared a stark unwelcoming place.  Council Member Strom said he liked the urban nature of Concept C, but liked the more welcoming softness of Concept B.  He said he would shy away from Concept A, because the trees did not perform any space-making but were objects you look at.

Mayor Foy asked was it the case that Concept C with the plaza was an accurate reflection of RAM’s most urban sketch.  Mr. Lowe said it was a different approach, noting that with Concept C the existing buildings on the other side of Church Street took a less connected role.  He said in Concept C you created an outdoor room with the large trees on the left, and that became the breakpoint.  Mr. Lowe said it was a way to actually create space.

Council Member Kleinschmidt said he was attracted to something like Concept C in principle because it seemed to be more open and had less boundaries.  He said he did not like Concept A, and did not like the idea of tree wells with marked off sidewalks because it seemed too defined as if to say “you’re not supposed to be here.”  Council Member Kleinschmidt in the more formal sketch that was shown with the tall trees, that seemed to him to say that the only thing he could do in that space was go into the stores and when he was done to get out.  He said it was too formal, and he did not think that was the type of space we wanted.

Council Member Kleinschmidt said he liked Concept C, but Concept B was probably more welcoming.  He said the problem he saw with Concept C was you had large trees to one side and nothing in the front where it was facing University Square.  Council Member Kleinschmidt said you had a really wide street in front of it and then a wide parking lot before you actually got to another building, and the fourth wall of this “room” was gone.  He said if it was facing something like the 100 block of Franklin Street, then that kind of thing would have been perfect, but it did not work here because if was missing a fourth wall.

Mr. Lowe said he was optimistic about University Square, noting he believed at some point they would want to update it to become more urban.  He said three to five years down the road they might actually contribute that fourth wall with landscaping or a building.  Mr. Lowe said the concept showed the plaza area as an oval, and as you walked down the street you could step into that room that was defined on all four sides with the trees.

Council Member Kleinschmidt said the problem he had with Concept A was the shrubbery with the smaller trees. Again, he said that seemed problematic because it created yet another boundary that you would not move through.  Council Member Kleinschmidt said that space needed to be as free flowing in circulation as possible.

Council Member Kleinschmidt said generally, the way they had articulated the rooms and talked about the use of materials was exactly the way he had always thought this space could function as a public space, but was not able to articulate it.

Mayor Foy said when the Council gave RAM its comments, he believed it would help them to hear whether the Council preferred more urban, or more village.  He asked Council Member Kleinschmidt what his preference was.

Council Member Kleinschmidt said his preference was more town, not so much the village and not so much the highly formalized urban.  He said using the developers’ sliding scale, he was around a 5.1 or 5.2.

Council Member Greene said she agreed that Concept A with the plaza was too formal, and that Concept C was not particularly graceful.  She said she understood that the trees were put there to demarcate one wall of the room, but it was important to remember that at times they would want to expand the room and use Church Street as part of the public space, so the tress might not be appropriate for such an occasion.

Council Member Greene stated that in Concept C it looked like the grass was no longer an oval, but was a square of grass.  She said in Concept B it looked like the oval was there, but not so much set off by bricks.  Council Member Greene asked if there were stairs around it, adding she thought it would be good because experience with public space showed that people liked to sit on steps.  Mr. Felton noted they were not steps, but benches.  He said they could add some steps because there was a grade change there of about two feet.

Council Member Greene said she did not have enough information to say definitively, but using the scale she believed that town was just about right.

Mr. Felton asked the Council did they like the grass.  Mayor Foy and Council Members Greene and Kleinschmidt responded yes.  Council Member Kleinschmidt added they had seen that work in other parts of the community.  Mr. Felton said then they would not want it to be cluttered with other kinds of plantings.  Council Member Greene responded yes.

Mayor pro tem Wiggins said she liked Concept B with the plaza.  She said she liked the idea of having places for people to sit, noting some people liked to sit on the grass but others needed something higher because of difficulties in rising from low positions. Mayor pro tem Wiggins said she believed that would draw people into the area.

Mayor pro tem Wiggins said during the presentation, it was pointed out that on top of the buildings there would be private terraces for the residents.  She asked did that mean that the private area on the ground had now been moved to the top of the building.  Mr. Felton said the terraces on the top of the buildings were private to each individual unit.  Mr. Cummings said the public space between the middle building and the Rosemary Street building was still there, but they were ruminating about how to make it work.

Mayor pro tem Wiggins said if she had to state a preference for the plaza as well as the buildings she would say that Concept B with the plaza was the closest to her choice.

Council Member Ward stated that Concept B with the plaza was the one that he would choose.  He said when looking at the sketches, he was struck by how influential that plaza space was to how the buildings would work and how they felt.  Council Member Ward said it created a completely different feel depending on whether the street trees were lined up on Church or sprinkled around the center or on the perimeter.  He said he believed there needed to be more discussion on what they wanted that green space to do, and how they wanted to use it.

Council Member Ward said he liked the idea of benches, but maybe people needed to be directed towards something else depending on the uses they have in mind.  He said that maybe a different shape other than an oval would provide a direction that people might want to look towards rather than around the perimeter of an oval or other shape. Council Member Ward said he would like more thought put into that before a shaped was decided on.

Council Member Ward said the plaza in Concept B seemed to do a much better job of taking advantage of Church Street to create opportunities to spread out.  He said that drawing was illustrated with street trees that they might actually want, which looked to be small flowering trees.

Mr. Lowe said there were two spaces, one in the back and the one in front that they were discussing here. He said he would call that a green space or a square, and the other space would be more urban or more village like.  Mr. Lowe said one could be more passive and one more active, meaning that one would be where you could sit and read a book, and the other would be a great place for a café with more active uses. He said rather that it being about a space that was more town or more urban, maybe they should look at it as whether they want more passive or more active. Mr. Lowe said you could actually say that one space should be more active, and one space should be more village, meaning you could have both or a mix of each. He said in more active spaces a bolted-down bench was not flexible.

Council Member Ward said he was seeing this space as an active space, and due to proximity the back space between the buildings would be less active.  He said both spaces were needed, and if done right they would serve an underserved purpose, so they both needed to be seen as active space.

Mayor Foy commented that he wanted to talk about this in terms of the sketches rather than the concepts. He said the more urban sketch was what he preferred in general, stating what he liked about it was that the space needed to accommodate a lot of people, and that the more urban space fits more people which was what made it urban.  Mayor Foy said the nature of it was for more density, and not just density in terms of the buildings but also of the number of people who could fit in there and use the space.  He said he was not necessarily saying that those were the elements that they would pick, but simply was his sense of what they could do. Mayor Foy said he did not like the sketch showing the taller trees.

Mr. Felton said the overall idea he was getting was that this space should be more like a village, but an active village, but the smaller space more urban active.

Mayor Foy said that was not what he was saying.  He said he was not picking the elements of the space, he said he wanted it to tip more towards the urban.  Mayor Foy said when you think of Rosemary Street, the biggest new thing would be extremely urban, and as it fills up towards downtown it would continue to be more urban.  He said he saw this site as the transition point between old Franklin and new Rosemary.

Mr. Cummings said it was interesting that the way it had been depicted as that urban equaled formal.  He said he believed what most had said was that they wanted it tilted toward urban, tilted toward active, but informal.

Council Member Kleinschmidt said he believed that was correct, noting his concerns were about the formality of the space rather than the application of some word like urban.  Mr. Cummings said certainly people wanted it to be free-flowing, wanted it to be inviting, wanted it to be open rather than cluttered, wanted it not to have a lot of boundary, and wanted places for people to sit and be active.  He said when he thought of something less urban and more village, he thought of places that had shrubs and bushes and flowers, and had much more landscape.  Mr. Cummings said by definition when you had more landscape you didn’t want it to be trampled on so there was less room for people.

Mayor Foy said, for example, the first picture of the plaza that had been shown earlier of the Piazza del Campidoglio in Rome, was more the nature of how he saw it being used, in that a lot of people could be there.  He said the same was true with the picture of the Piazza Navona.  Mr. Cummings said such spaces were termed “unprogrammed space,” and were sometimes referred to as “a learning green.”  He said such spaces were completely flexible in its use, and much more organic

Council Member Harrison said regarding Concept B with the plaza, it had been mentioned earlier when plazas in other locations were discussed that they could be active/passive/shady/sunny, and that was what this concept did the most of.  He said for the several years that the community had been talking about public space here, and this was more what they had in mind because of those adjectives.  Council Member Harrison said with that arrangement of small trees you had the option of shade or sun.  He said the open space he had referred to for over a year now was Pailey Park in New York City that was an incredible experience for so urban an environment.  Council Member Harrison said he believed they could have the same thing here, but did not believe the experience would be as good with fixed benches.  He said being able to move them around would be helpful.

Council Member Harrison said when talking about facing the street and a fourth wall across it, he understood that Rosemary and Church Streets would get pedestrian upgrades through our bond money.  Mr. Horton said yes, sections of them would.  Council Member Harrison said those improvements he believed would fit well with what was depicted in Concept B.  He said it was obvious this concept was the one that was favored.

Council Member Verkerk said when asking themselves what was the most successful urban space in Town it was obvious it was the space in front of the Post Office.  She said there was no grass or flowers.  Council Member Verkerk said in her opinion the new plaza should be less grass, with steps and other places to sit, and lots of flexibility. She said she wanted to push hard for less grass, moving up on the sliding scale to around a T-6.

Council Member Greene said she liked the grass and liked the oval, and she new it was a maintenance issue but the Town had great maintenance employees.  She asked what the dimensions of that oval were as proposed.  Mr. Cummings said he did not have that information.

Mayor Foy noted that brought up the issue of having the site chalked off so the Council could see where the buildings would be, and hoped that would happen.

Council Member Greene said the reason she asked was because of the idea of having a place for a band concert or some sort of performances.  She said she believed it was a good-sized space, and the fact that it was oval made it flexible as far as placement of a stage or performance area.  Mr. Lowe said another way to think about it was that you could contain the space from building edge to building edge.

Council Member Greene said regarding the smaller space shaped like a wedge, she agreed that a café would be nice in that area, but if you turned the entire space into a café then it was no longer public space.  She said that was a decision they would have to think about, because she had envisioned the café space would be only around the edges of the buildings.  Mr. Lowe said there were ways to make the space less private and more public, and they would keep that in mind.

Council Member Ward asked in the three concepts, were all the buildings basically the same.  He asked if the covered walkway, or arcade, was present in all three concepts.  Mr. Cummings said the different depictions of what happens in the plaza in Concept A, B, and C would happen with any of the buildings.  He said they would like to get the building feedback along with the other feedback.  Mr. Felton said that there was an arcade indicated in Concept A in the mid-rise building as well as the front building.  He said the same was true for the other concepts.

Mayor pro tem Wiggins said when they talked before, RAM had felt that private terrace space on the ground level was important for the marketability for those residential units.  She said she would like for the negotiation team to keep as much of the ground level space as absolutely possible open as public space.  Mayor pro tem Wiggins said she believed it would be awkward whether it was day or night to have ground level space that citizens could not use.

Mayor Foy agreed.

Council Member Greene did not agree, stating that would put public open space in people’s backyards.  Mr. Cummings said they were developing a lot of different treatments between the Rosemary building and the middle building, and this might not be an issue when the next generation of designs was created.

Mayor Foy suggested that the Council now talk about the buildings and leave the plazas out of the discussion.  Mr. Cummings said it was important to remember when looking at the Concepts that the Franklin building from Concept C could work with the middle building from Concept B, so they could be mixed.

Mayor pro tem Wiggins said she favored Concept A for both buildings and the plaza.

Mayor Foy said he liked Concept A for the middle building, as well as the way it seemed to be lots of different buildings but were all unified.  He said he liked the way the column went up the center of the taller building.  Mayor Foy said for the building on the right, he preferred the building in Concept C because of the use of glass.  He said he did not particularly like the very bottom of it, preferring the bottom of Concept B.

Mayor Foy said in all three concepts he liked the effect of having a smaller building adjoining the mid-rise, although it was all the same building.  He said it brought the scale down.

Council Member Greene said she liked a lot about Concept A, noting she particularly liked the base of the Franklin Street building because of the red textured brick.  She said she also liked the structure of how the balconies worked along with the middle building.  Council Member Greene said both Concept B and C were not as interesting, and Concept A had a cleaner look.

Council Member Ward said the middle building in Concept A had too many different colors and too many materials.  He said he liked the middle building in Concept B the best of the three.  Council Member Ward said he was concerned about the use of glass, because of the potential to see laundry hanging up or other sights when you have floor to ceiling windows.  He asked in Ram’s experience had that been an issue.

Council Member Ward said another issue about the glass was that it looked like it was put on the building because of how it would look from the outside rather than how it would serve the energy needs or demands on the users.  He said he hoped that would drive its use more than its looks.  Mr. Cummings said adherence to LEED Certification would drive the design.  Mr. Felton said that had been a concern of theirs, and had purposely pushed the amount of glass because of what they had heard from the Council during the previous discussions.

Council Member Ward said in Concept C the brick on the Franklin building looked heavy on the front corner as compared to A or B.  He said the proportions in B looked better with the brick framing, and the lighter looking metal framing was appealing as well. Council Member Ward said the glass bay on the Franklin Building was attractive to him, but he would be concerned about the LEED issues and the use of the building on the inside and the views from both directions.  He said he would echo what Mayor Foy had said, noting he liked he bottom floor of Concept B, but did not like Concept C and the way it was articulated on the first floor.

Council Member Strom said he agreed with Council Member Greene and Mayor Foy’s comments about the middle building, and was not certain that the dark metal on the top was the right material.  He said he liked the different textures and thought the building worked.  Council Member Strom said he liked Concept A for the Franklin Street building a lot, noting the structural elements that appeared throughout that design made sense.  He said the faux blocking that appeared in Concept B and C was something he wanted to avoid.

Council Member Hill said he liked the designs for the middle building in all three concepts.  He said what was important was the way the glazing was done.  Council Member Hill said aluminum store front treatment throughout would be a mistake.  He said in Concept C the bay window on the Franklin building was done in aluminum, and he did not think that would work.  Council Member Hill said he liked the mid-rise building in Concept B the best, with smaller corner glass.

Council Member Hill said he was conservative as far as the hard surfaces, and he did not like to see more than one type of brick per building.  He said it was okay to have brick, stucco and steel, but not two types of brick.

Council Member Hill said none of the facades bothered very much.

Council Member Harrison said none of the facades bothered him either.  He said regarding the color change in the top of the mid-rise building in Concept A, he wondered if that was something that would help reduce the apparent mass of the building.  Mr. Felton said changing the color would definitely affect your perception of the size of the building.  Council Member Harrison said it would take some getting use to, and citizens would probably want it to look smaller even though it was an illusion.  Mr. Cummings mentioned that the building may look darker in the picture than what they envision.

Council Member Kleinschmidt asked what the material was at the top that resulted in the change in color.  Mr. Felton said it was a corrugated coated metal.  Council Member Kleinschmidt asked if it would be a flat finish.  Mr. Felton said there were many different finishes, but it definitely would not be a reflective finish.  He added there were many different types of materials that could be used to reflect a change in color.  Council Member Kleinschmidt said he liked it, noting you usually saw buildings with the darker color on the bottom and the lighter color on top. Mr. Felton said using the darker color would help give the impression that the building receded, although the mass would still be there.

Council Member Kleinschmidt said he liked it and believed it was responsive to the comments the Council had given them.  Mr. Lowe added that the material was a light material and was corrugated, so it casts a shadow.  He said he believed what was being seen here was the shadow it created rather than a definite change in color.  Mr. Lowe said there were a lot of things you could do to create that change in color, including the use of materials.

Council Member Kleinschmidt said regarding Concept C, if you looked at it from the side it looked like Granville Towers.  He said he did not want Granville Towers reflected here and did not want that use of color or pattern.  Council Member Kleinschmidt said he believed that was what would come without a change in color and contrast.  He said that was one of the reasons he liked Concept A and would stay away from Concept C.

Council Member Kleinschmidt said he liked the balconies on the Franklin building in Concept A, and again it was responsive to the Council’s comments in June.  He said regarding the little part of the middle building, one of the things he did not like about buildings he had seen elsewhere was the attempt to create a false sense of separation.

Council Member Kleinschmidt wondered if that was how this would feel, and if it was then we need to be careful.

Mr. Felton said they had thought of that, and were trying to create a building that addressed the square.  He said much of the material would be used in both parts of the building, so he believed it would feel like the base of the building.  Mr. Lowe said when you design things in that way there needed to be a reason for it, and this was done to respond to the public room in front of it.

Council Member Strom said that Council Member Kleinschmidt was right when he said it was important to look out from this site and consider what was across the street, and he did not believe they should assume that anything across the street would be different in three or five or 10 years.  He said he believed all of the concepts were remarkably responsive to the Council’s comments.

Council Member Verkerk said in Concept A the Franklin building was very attractive, but the shorter building looked ungainly and awkward, noting she preferred the shorter building in Concept B.  She said another important issue was the placement of the signage on the buildings, stating that in Concept A it felt uncomfortable and too high, but in Concept B it was lower and felt more attuned to people.  Council Member Verkerk said one of the reasons she liked the smaller building in Concept B was because it was more regularized and symmetrical, making it feel more comfortable.  She added she liked the arcades a lot.

Council Member Greene said regarding the issue of whether the buildings looked separate or not, she believed that was most prominent when talking about neo-traditional architecture so it was a good thing that we were breaking away from that.  She said she thought it was fine to build buildings that articulated different levels.

Council Member Ward said the way that the first floor of the smaller building was treated in Concept B and C with the transition being dramatic after that floor was more appealing than in Concept A where that change took place on the second floor.  He said the transition edges created after the first, fourth, and seventh floor helped unite the building, and it felt right to see that as dominate features of the building.  Council Member Ward said it gave the building some continuity although the materials were different.

Mr. Cummings said they were pleasantly surprised that Council’s preferences closely mirrored their own.  He thanked the Council for their feedback.

Ms. Tjarksen-Roussos asked if the plan was still to have revisions back to the Council in mid-September.  Mayor Foy responded yes.  Ms. Tjarksen-Roussos said at that time they would plan to have a new perspective including the public space and the buildings themselves.  Mr. Cummings said they would continue to work at a feverish pace, and would continue to focus on the renderings for the Wallace Deck and bring those back to the Council on September 19.

1b.       Wallace Parking Deck Revised Concept Plan

Presentation by RAM Development

Mr. Felton displayed a sketch of Option 2 for the Wallace Deck.  He said they were keeping the alley where it was and depicting two separate buildings.  Mr. Felton said the first building would have between 5,000 and 6,000 square feet of retail space at the first level, with three levels of residential space above that.  He said they had pulled the building to just behind the Post Office to create a public space.

Mr. Felton said the structure that sat on top of the Wallace Deck sat all the way to the perimeter of the Wallace Deck and in front they had about 14 feet of property to bring a space down without taking some right-of-way.  He said they anticipated asking for a couple of feet of the right-of-way just to give them some additional space. Mr. Felton said the idea was that such a space at 14 feet deep with a brick wall at the back and glass at the front would be a great place for an artist’s studio, with a spiral staircase upstairs to the living level of that unit.  He pointed out where that one-bedroom unit was located.

Mr. Felton said the building hugged Rosemary Street with planted courtyards created on top.  He said they would arrange to have as many units as possible view that space.  Mr. Felton said when they come back in September they would have other options, but this was the one that made the most sense to them.

Mr. Felton pointed out the visitor entry, coming up the public elevator to a small entry court and then into the building.  He said you could access the units in that way.  Mr. Felton said they realized they needed to add an additional stairway.

Ms. Tjarksen-Roussos said they believed this was a better plan because it activated Rosemary Street, and it would be work/live space, and it could be art galleries or jewelry stores, and still had the ability to be connected to the residential space above it.  She said another thing they liked about it was that the new building on Henderson allowed for some meaningful public space.  Ms. Tjarksen-Roussos said now that they had made the space on top of the Deck private space, this plan allowed for some meaningful public space at the corner that actually gave them the opportunity to activate Henderson Street.

Ms. Tjarksen-Roussos said one of the things this plan did was that even though the courtyard was small, it could be highly used depending on who the retailer was in the corner.  She said an idea they were exploring was tying this new building to the Post Office by using a small portion of the grade as you descend down Henderson, so as you walk down Franklin your eye would wander that way and see the shops and awnings.  Ms. Tjarksen-Roussos said they anticipated one of the spaces to be used by a restaurant with outdoor seating, which would help to draw people down Henderson and around the corner onto Rosemary.

Ms. Tjarksen-Roussos said this plan had more or less the same residential square footage and units as the previous plan the Council was shown, but this plan offered about 2,500 square feet more of retail space which they believed would be a viable component of the Wallace Deck.  She said part of what they liked as much as activating Rosemary Street was that this plan would provide courtyard space that was now meaningful to the residential units.

Questions and Comments by the Council

Mayor Foy asked if the courtyard was public space or private space.  Ms. Tjarksen-Roussos responded it was private space for the residents.

Mayor Foy asked if Ms. Tjarksen-Roussos would elaborate on what she meant by connecting that building to the Post office.  Ms. Tjarksen-Roussos replied they would not be connected physically but they could start to be connected psychologically.  She said some of the space behind the Post Office as Henderson descends towards Rosemary could be activated with something that was compatible with the uses of the Post Office, and had an outside door that opened onto Henderson with a storefront window and canopy.  Ms. Tjarksen-Roussos said that would help to activate that corner and bring people down the street.

Council Member Harrison said he could see that the whole structure had been moved towards Rosemary Street, and asked if they still had the same number of lanes on Rosemary.  Mr. Cummings said they had not touched the roadway.  Ms. Tjarksen-Roussos said they would explore that, noting they only needed two feet and it would depend on the width of the sidewalk and how much treescape they wanted on Rosemary.  She said those things would determine the actual vehicular travel on Rosemary.

Council Member Hill said he was pleased with this plan, noting it was a good solution.  He said the footprint did not get any bigger than what was already there and did not impact the alley on the west side or south side.  Council Member Hill said if there was a way to make the alley to the west a few feet wider that would be worth considering, noting that the alley was problematic.

Mayor Foy asked how you would do that.  Council Member Hill said the alley to the east was not constrained until they built this building.  He said he wanted to consider whether we wanted to make it wider.  Ms. Tjarksen-Roussos said they could take a look at it.

Council Member Ward said he liked the notion of activating the rear of the Post Office with some type of store front.  He asked to be walked through the pedestrian connectivity from the corner of Franklin and Henderson over to the western edge of this building. Council Member Ward said it appeared the schematic did not show any above-grade crossover connectivity to the Bank of America building.  Ms. Tjarksen-Roussos said they had felt that it would be a better urban solution to provide that crossover at sidewalk level, down Franklin, down Henderson, and across Rosemary by activating all of that space and having people travel along it.  She said that meant if there was a retail component used there, they had a viable chance of walk-in traffic.

Council Member Ward then there would be no public access to the interior of that space.  Ms. Tjarksen-Roussos said there was not.  Council Member Ward asked if any diagonal crossing was provided.  Mr. Horton responded that people would continue to be able to move through the parking deck as many people do now to make that kind of diagonal crossing.

Council Member Ward said to the extent possible, he would like to see some improvements to the alley so that it was a more enjoyable walk.

Mayor Foy asked if there was any loss of parking spaces.  Ms. Tjarksen-Roussos said this plan did not anticipate any loss of parking or any new spaces.  Ms. Greaner said there would be 11 street spaces that would be lost.  Mayor Foy said it may be possible to put some parking on the street.  Ms. Tjarksen-Roussos said it depended on how many travel lanes they wanted on Rosemary, noting that if it was reduced to two lanes you could place parallel parking there.

Mayor Foy asked if the schematic showed the building overhanging Rosemary Street.  Ms. Tjarksen-Roussos said that area was over the existing light well that was located there now.  Mr. Cummings said they would endeavor when they come back in September to show the building all the way out to the street so the Council could see what happened to the lanes and the right-of-way.

Mayor Foy said he liked this plan, saying it took advantage of an opportunity to open up Rosemary Street in a place that was dead.

Ms. Tjarksen-Roussos said it would be helpful to have some direction on the exterior design, recognizing that the corner was subject to Historical Preservation guidelines.

Mayor pro tem Wiggins asked if September 19 had been decided as the return date.  Mr. Horton replied that the date was chosen because if was a date that already appeared on the Council’s calendar, and they believed it would be better to use an already scheduled date than create an additional meeting date.  Mayor pro tem Wiggins asked if the date was negotiable.  Mr. Horton responded yes.  Mayor pro tem Wiggins said she would be out of town.

Mayor Foy asked the Manager to research another possible date and let them know at a later time.

Mayor Foy said regarding the front of Rosemary Street, was that one face or many different units.  He asked how they envisioned that.  Ms. Tjarksen-Roussos said she did not believe they were ready to answer that, but said Rosemary Street had much more residential quality that Franklin Street.  She said they would come back with two different concepts and see which one was most appropriate.

Mr. Horton said from a regulatory standpoint he believed that the Historic District Commission would have to find that the design of the building at the corner of Rosemary and Henderson Streets was congruent with the surrounding development.  He said Ram would have to take into consideration the Historic District guidelines.  Ms. Tjarksen-Roussos responded that they had reviewed those and that was part of what had prompted this question.

Council Member Ward asked how many stories would be seen on Rosemary Street.  Mr. Cummings responded three stories over the deck.  Ms. Tjarksen-Roussos said you would actually see five, because the lower story was below grade.  Council Member Ward said he liked the previous proposal for Rosemary Street on Lot 5, adding he thought it would go well there.  But, he said, if it was significantly taller then maybe that was not the way to go.  Council Member Ward said he liked what had been proposed last time for that street front.

Mayor Foy said it was important to keep in mind what would be across when you design this street.  He added that unlike University Square, where that was likely to remain the same, this space across the street would not.

Mr. Cummings asked if there were any pieces of A, B, and C style components that they would like to see on the Wallace Deck.  Mayor Foy said he was inclined to be more conservative.  Mr. Cummings said such as more classical or more traditional.  The Council generally agreed.

Council Member Strom said the little element of the middle building would be a nice style, taking Council Member Verkerk’s comments into account.

Item 2 – Discussion of Next Steps

Council Member Strom said it would be useful for the Manager to talk about the time schedule and the key decision points in the dates that they were aiming for.

Mr. Horton said there was a lot to get done and the original target set by the Council was to have the authorization of the Development Agreement considered by the Council on October 10.  He said in order to do that they needed to have the materials distributed to the Council on October 5 to give them a chance to review the document.  Mr. Horton said in order to do that, he believed they would need to have the Memorandum of Understanding to the Council by September 19.  He said the Memorandum of Understanding would outline all of the key points, and it would become the basis for the Development Agreement.  Mr. Horton said if they did the work that they anticipated on the Memorandum of Understanding the Development Agreement would be a logical extension of that and every key decision would have already been explained to the Council in the Memorandum of Understanding.

Mr. Horton stated that in order to meet the needs of the Council, he believed they would need to see perspectives and elevations based on the feedback to the development team by September 19.  He said that would allow them enough time for the development team to make final adjustments.  Mr. Horton pointed out that these proposals would be going through the Town’s normal Special Use Permit process, including concept review by the Community Design Commission, the normal review by other Town boards and commissions, and final public hearings before the Planning Board and the Town Council.  He said he was certain that additional changes would be recommended through that process, and was certain that Mr. Cummings and his team would be developing changes as well.

Mr. Horton said they expected to have the possibility of a fourth negotiating team meeting on September 8 and were holding that date in reserve.  He said they would definitely have their third negotiating team meeting on August 31 to continue to work out the details of the Memorandum of Understanding.  Mr. Horton said there was much to do within a very tight schedule between now and October 10.  He said it was possible that the Council would not be ready to authorize the Development Agreement on October 10, but they were trying to stick to the original schedule that the Council had set.

The meeting was adjourned at 7:52 p.m.