001e e e I am also promoting bill so okay good recording in progress all right welcome to the Wednesday December 11 2024 design review board meeting public comment is by Zoom or by phone by calling 852 5247 or 888 78899 and entering meeting ID 974 sorry about that uh ID 974 9412 this information is also available on the published a published agenda in the Public Notices section of the city website and on the broadcast of this meeting on CTN ch Channel 16 AT&T channel 99 and online at www.a2gov.org slatch CN the volunteer resident design review board appointed by the mayor and confirmed by city council Fosters excellence in Ann Arbor's built environment design and advises applicants on meeting downtown design guidelines first the applicant presents their proposed project for 15 minutes then the board discusses
002the design after that members of the public can comment for up to 3 minutes each and Hank if you would uh take the [Music] role board member Perkins here board member Burns board member Singleton here board member Kinley here member Mitchell here uh liazon karski here board member Ramson here you have a quorum okay thank you for that Hank uh next on the agenda is uh approval of the agenda um everybody's had a chance to look at it I will entertain a motion and second motion to approve second moved by Bill and seconded with his hands up by dick uh all those any further discussion all those in favor signify by saying I I I same sign and the agenda is approved next item is approved approval of the minutes of the November 13 design
003review board meeting uh entertain a motion in second moved second I'm gonna say moved by Wendy and seconded by Lori any further discussion all those in favor signify by saying I I I osed same sign and November 13 2024 minutes are approved um next item is Communications uh Britney according to your notes there were none is that still the case that still holds true okay all right good um and then on to public comment Britney um so far we have no one with their H hands raised so there's no public comment at this time all right well there will be an opportunity for that later in the meeting so on to unfinished business um Dr 24-5 601 South Main Street um apparently the application has been withdrawn so nothing to uh deal with there I
004presume uh that is the case I just wanted to just briefly say that um the applicant is working on getting uh further approvals from the ownership of the property and they may come back at some point in the future but they are having renewed discussions with the ownership about their alignment on development of that okay stay tuned thank you for your early comments and we will uh let you know when they're ready to return all right thank you for that Hank uh then on to regular business uh dr24 d61 uh 1208 South University Avenue and 610 South Forest Avenue um looks like Matt is the planner assigned to this one um I guess let me read this uh brief thing here that Britney gave me and then I'll turn it over to you Matt uh
005an update to the original site plan to incorporate the adjacent parcel at 610 South Forest Avenue the project will be an 18 story mixed use residential and Retail Tower the proposed development consists of 259 rental apartment units and 5,189 square ft of ground level commercial tenant space the ground floor also incorporates storage for 52 bikes and 29 garage parking spaces parking and loading have been concealed off the Southside alley and additional 54 garage parking spaces are contained on level two for a total of 83 garage parking spaces within the building um and then Matt if you can uh take it from there um good afternoon everybody Matt kski city planner here um actually we have Mr John lski on the the um in the meeting right now and he will be doing the presentation for
006this project and then I'll kind of touch Bas after that with a little bit of a summary so at this time I'd like to turn it over to Mr M and share your screen for the presentation I believe you have I don't have it up could you share do you have it by chance yeah yeah I could I yep yep I've got it ready um here we go so let [Music] me thank you appreciate that okay yep no problem wait is that the that's the first right yep yeah you click you could click to the next one um if you don't mind I think overall this was just I want to do this because there's not a lot of time but this was what you saw the last time we came in and so I
007just wanted to show you basically what we had and then the next image is going to show you where we're adding on so hopefully it pops out here but I think it will if you don't mind clicking to the next one here we go there you can see where that portion of the extension of the building sticks out and that's what I'll kind of walk you through but that's conceptually the biggest difference Way by far from a massing perspective so if you click to the next this is actually talking about the materials that's the other aspect that's changed um currently the building the only difference that you see from this view which you saw the last time is we have added an extra floor in we were able to basically squeeze in an extra floor
008within the height requirements by taking a little bit out of each floor we still are maintaining 9 foot um basically 9 foot 10 floor to floor so our ceilings will be right around 8 foot1 so we still have you know a really decent ceiling height and then a higher ceiling height up above and basically a very high ceiling down on the very first floor so none of that is really changed material-wise everything is exactly the same except the last time we spoke with you there was a concern about everything above the brick being made out of ephis or Stow panels and um we were able to work with Landmark construction Landmark design to get them to agree to the idea of doing this out of metal panel which I think is a huge upgrade and
009we're very excited about it because it'll be a Precision wall panel that's basically um assembled and fastened on the outside of the building it's not something where somebody's going to have scaff or anything hanging over the side and it allow us to get those crisp edges that were kind of a bit of concern um so it worked out really well so basically everything you see above that third the third story which is all brick at the base on this view we switch then to metal panel the corner is still glass like it was before and the metal panels basically come in three different colors there's the dark dark charcoal color there is the composite metal panel which we're going to match the brick on it won't be a direct match but it'll pick up on
010that concept of color and then there's the silver panel uh the bands everything that you see is basically exactly the same as what you had seen before so why don't we wrap around to some of the other views I think the next one's the same view oh that's good the big the big difference you see here now it's kind of hard on the plan but on the lower right hand side there's is that extension that goes out to Forest and that just allowed us to basically Stack Up and add that much more to the building that property came for sale after we were approved and that was just something that our client decided it wouldn't be a good idea to add it um the part behind that in the lower level which we refer to
011as the Transformer Park is something we're going to work with DTE the Downtown Development Authority in the city and every other kind of engineering aspect that's within that building to see what we can do to kind of fix it up um probably can't get rid of the Transformers not intending to get rid of trees but there's going to be a lot of work that's going to go on there not for our building but for DTE to provide more power to this part of town so we're hoping what can come out of it is a major Improvement to not only the with the building there but to that partk the only other thing I would point out is previously where our trucks pull so in and out was not owned by our client but it is
012currently owned doesn't change the building but where you'd see the trash dumpsters wheeled out on the property that's now private property with an easement so the city can go in and out as as they please but it gives um us the ability to have a place to store the trash outside when it's picked up generally speaking other than adding parking as was mentioned we we added an additional 73 units we added 275 beds we picked up six extra parking spaces and added about 612 Square ft to the retail area which was something we were asked to do and then we also picked up 42 B bike parking spaces that just meets code we have plenty of bike parking um it is something that is intended so everybody understands that the post office is going to
013come back in in this plan they'll be in that upper right hand corner right next to the bike storage which fronts the street that was also a request that we received from the community and then if we just go to the next plan just a second floor parking that was here before but on the wing that sticks out we have a two-story fitness center over on Forest so we have weights pounding below and above our residence It's Kind of Perfect Situation over there and then the next level starts to show more of a typical floor I think you can click to the next one that just has a study this is very much the typical floor and you can see how that extension kind of sticks out we go to the next one that's just
014showing the same thing next one that takes us to our roof deck that hasn't really changed except there is that big extension that sticks out we've always had the pool up there in that open Terrace area um one of our primary kind of amenity spaces sits across the south side of that smaller portion of the building that sticks up on the 18th floor and then the next uh image shows you how we've been able to add the solar to meet the requirements for 60% of the roof this is literally one of the only projects where this is achievable because the we're focusing on the addition now with the 60% so you can see we're we are actually able to cover it pretty much everywhere except where we have to pull it back four to six
015feet for the fire department and for our window washing cleaning equipment around the outside edges and then the only thing we don't have it on top of because there's just not a lot of space and we have to have a big m of exhaust fan is on top of our stair and elevator but that is going to help us achieve what's needed to get to the requirement for solar and next let this just runs through all the numbers which I've basically already kind of run through so I think with that I would just open it up to any questions that you have we can go through these if you want real quick Matt why don't you click through them that that doesn't that doesn't show anything different sorry the next one will that actually shows
016the extension of the addition on the left side sticking out towards Forest the rest of the building was basically exactly the same as you see before now you see it actually sticking along the park to the South now a good third of that was already there before but then we extended it out all the way to Forest Avenue and you can see the parking garage is kind of shaded in and if you look very closely there's a dashed line a lot of this you won't see because the parking garage hides it um I think as we explained last night in our community meeting we have a good neighbor to our South for anybody who's concerned about height in Mass because that's actually owned by uh the university and the city the parking garage and that
017neighbor is not going to change in the foreseeable future this actually shows you if we're on basically the Rick side over on the other side you can see it and the building is kind of very similar on that side to what you had seen before except metal panel versus eus and those are insulated panels next and these just run through all the elevations so I'm more than happy to go through that I I think everybody has that the building is all electric as it was before it's always been a concern for a lot of folks we just want to make sure they're aware of it and it does fit into all the specific height requirements that were required to meet as it did before thank you Matt thank you John thank you for that um
018Matt you have a staff review that you can present to us please yes thank you um so uh pish good good did a good job of summarizing up the current project and they touched a little bit on the history as you know this project in a slightly reduced form was before you guys I think exactly a year ago um so that this project has already been so the previous project that the drb S has seen about a year ago that has already been approved by Planning Commission so they do have an approved site plan for the site based on the design review board plans that were previously presented um so again like it was an interesting project because again staff's comments most of which staff's comments were the original way uh time around most of
019them were equate by the drb and they and they've been addressed by the petitioner through the first review staff had concerns about the use of the sto panels that was addressed um also additional retail space and um some organization of the bicycle parking those they've through the between the drb and the Planning Commission last year those issues have been addressed so really at this time staff did not does not have any design uh issues to to point out um however there there is kind of the project does bring up a newer issue with the petitioner has touched on which is kind of that Frontage along of the Transformer park for lack of a better word so the frontage along that South that has now been opened up quite a bit now that the petitioner has
020control over that entire the frontage along that the uh Plaza Park area to the um directly to the South so as you can see from their their building designs they have um they're they're utilizing that space for mostly like emergency erass or like um I think it's access to a Stairway and things like that so um so that part of the project is new where staff would be looking for planning staff a little bit clarification and again this was pointed out with the partitioner and and he mentioned it as well just now that they're going to look to to work with City staff as well as probably will end up getting the DDA involved and ultimately seeing what dte's plans are for that area because a lot is of course dependent on them um so
021at this time really staff's only remaining comments would be to continue to work with the petitioner which we will through the development pro pro process we imagine this Project's going to be submitted shortly for another site plan review which will ultimately uh require City Planning Commission approval once again so um that kind of summarizes up my my staff report at this time I think again because it was a project that was reviewed in almost the same form especially along the South you Frontage there wasn't really a lot for staff to to pick out at this I tried I tried to pick something but you know it they did a pretty good job addressing most of the concerns last time so I'm obviously available for any questions I can pull up the presentation as well thank
022you all right man thanks it's always kind of refreshing to me when a reviewer comes across a project and says hey it looks good I don't really have anything to uh to complain about here so uh uh I like that uh so uh if any of the uh members of the uh board have comments uh go ahead and jump in dick hi John and John could you tell us I I can't remember we probably saw them before who Josh and Tucker and Lucas are oh sure Josh is with our office he's a principal within our firm and Tucker is with Landmark development a project manager um and I I remember the last time we talked about this there was concern and a lot of conversation about the coming and going of cars uh trash pickup
023uh door Dash that kind of things and how it potentially might have conflicted with pedestrians so what has changed in am I reading this correctly that the dumpster is now being picked up off forest and I think that's a new thing am I right um it's actually still being picked up off of the I'll call it the alley although I guess it's a city street to the South so we still are picking up in that it's exact same location the differ the difference is Landmark purchased that property from the city they're not building anything over it but they purchase the property so they have the right to roll the dumpsters out and have it become a pickup and access point okay we still I think we're all going to work together to try to keep
024the kind of public Plaza and there is some requirement for some parking along there and we want to work with the DDA to actually promote as much pickup and access as we can off of that Plaza because it still makes the most sense you know to be able to have that become active but fundamentally as far as um South University nothing has changed and everything that was set up there is basically set up after going back and forth with the fire department and the DDA and City staff so we haven't changed anything there okay um that's it for now no other comments I sort of echo a little bit of what Matt said where you know we did look at this project before and I think one of the major concerns for me anyway was
025uh the picking up of that orphan parcel uh on South University so or on South Forest I'm sorry um so I'm really glad to see that um another comment that um I agreed with from the last go around was the um substitution of some other building material besides um besides uh Stow or whatever drive it or whatever product uh was being proposed and so I'm really glad to see the uh the metal panel substitution I hope that you know as projects evolve and budgeting happens and things come and go and the whole push and pull thing I I hope it stays uh but um I don't have anything uh I guess further to add Lori the very minor point but um I don't recall how what the Finish was on the last go round of
026the metal railings on the balconies um I see that they're noted as painted to match the brick and this may be just a personal opinion but I think that color on the railing to me doesn't feel very sophisticated or exhibit kind of a quality or a richness that something that maybe a black or a charcoal or something would would have to me I'm having trouble visualizing that in a you know a reddish color for just the railings in front of I don't know to me it doesn't it doesn't jive with the design and and the kind of quality and a painted finish that's red seems a little odd to me but if I'm an odd man out on that perception uh and other reviewers don't agree then I could set that aside just felt the
027need to flag it and I would add we wouldn't have any problems studying that in Black so that or charcoal you know some some mother cumbler so the colors came about because we've been challenged by some of our residents in an arbor to punch the building and have more color now they would really like this to be super bright colors um we're trying to find something that's a little bit more respectable but I I totally get what you've said and would be more than happy to study that and kind of work with Matt to see what we think makes sense for everybody thank you all right thanks Lorie and John you need another voice voice I I'm comfortable with what I've seen today did you want to say something else okay all right um anybody
028else I just wanted to uh it seems like there's sort of a winnowing of comments and typically we just do a quick staff recap to make sure that the report that will be circulated to the board is accurate and reflects what your comments are today so I just wanted to invite planner Kowski to share just a brief summary of what he's heard yes though it is as a formality to just d triple check that we've understood your direction yes thank you that's a good reminder yeah I mean so generally there seems to be agreement the building is pretty similar to what was presented previously and generally favorable input there's we had the question about the trash pickup but I think we address address that about the consistent or or where that's coming from and how
029that would be served um glad that the Stow panels that was a comment that which was again brought up tonight was brought up previously glad that was addressed um we played for the better looking material and then really the only issue I have flagged is the you know potentially the color of the building or sorry building the uh railings along the balconies and tishner is indicated yeah they're willing to work with changing color um I get that that's probably one of those issues that right came out of a community input to splash some color some places so we can certainly work with them that's not a big deal at all so that those are really the only issues I had otherwise in that it seems like people are generally supportive of it as more or
030less in the same form as it was already seen so Hank always uh reminds us to to relate our comments to the guidelines which is a good thing and and so I I it might be useful to say that guidelines a 1.7 a 4.1 and a 4.3 all relate to vehicular pedestrian interaction and the petitioner has assured us nothing has changed from the site planine that we saw earlier thank you for that it really does help us with our notes and also drawing the link for the petitioner back to the the relationship of this board Visa the other staff comments they get in other forums so thank you for that all right well thank you to the developer and team for bringing this back to us um and uh it looks like it's going to
031be a good project so good luck going forward thank you very much appreciate it thank you all right uh public comment uh I guess we at the second you have one more action item Mr chair ah I don't see it here um what what are we doing Hank uh sorry it may not have been in the script it is in your agenda you need to approve your meeting calendar for next year yeah it was in the agenda um no worries uh so just by uh to let you know I know that you are curious the status of you your board how long you will continue to serve right now I it's the same status as we gave you last month it has there has been a presentation on how to implement the council resolution directing
032staff to uh incorporate the um design reviews at the staff level to Sunset the design review board however we have not progressed past that recommendation we do expect something some ordinance language to be presented to the Planning Commission in the new year but that I know for a fact will not be at either of the January meetings so we're looking at the earliest that this language would be presented to the Planning Commission would be February I will check in with you um as we know more however as it stands you have a draft meeting schedule because there still will be under the the current the current guidance and regulations of the UniFi development code you will still continue to receive projects until that time we're grateful for everyone continuing to serve in this un certain
033um scenario and we do appreciate your service to interpret and apply the the design guidance that that you have and your expertise while we do have you so please let me know if you think that you will be dropping off of the board early but um before before it uh is does have um a recommended closure date but this is this is the current meeting schedule that we're proposing and I'm happy to for me or miss Alexander to answer any questions you have about it he related to your comments about um the ending the drb we wrote a memo last summer I think to city council uh expressing our point of view on that and we we never got any feedback on that um will that be part of the packet that that goes to
034city council when they consider this that was already included in a city council packet I would have to check the date um but I believe that we did forward a communication to the board or it may have been a a verbal uh notification of the packet date in a meeting but I can follow back up with the lar information and confirming that if I'm wrong of course I will work with staff to make sure we get that on to their ridar ASAP but I remember that my to my recollection it was already put on a council agenda for consideration and I don't we did not receive further information back from Council as staff was there any turnover of Council in the November election yes one uh council member song um step down and um Matt
035uh someone helped me out with the last name for our new council member embarrassing my mind is blank right now no I I didn't expect you to pull that out of your hat I I'm just wondering if the new person could could get the information that existing council members are the forward to the new council member yeah it's John Malik I was going to say Malik I was like what if it's not Malik uh John Malik is the new W 2 council member was the the only incoming change and uh yes we could forward that communication to Mr Malik for his awareness thank you are there any of our appointments that are up for Renewal prior to um whatever the council decides Our Fate is going to be I think we're a member short right
036now and have been for quite a while yes I can basa be the timing because this has actually extended longer than we anticipated I will check with manager Leonard about potential uh new appointment to fill the vacancy that you have and I do know that we will need to know who would like to continue in their current capacity we're not removing anyone from the board if you however would not like to continue serving I need to know that before March because the deadline for us to send um continuation appoint um continue continuing rooll appointments to the city clerk's office is in March so please give me early notice and then I do believe that we will need to have a renewal of Interest form of some kind that we will circulate to uh the board
037of members in the New Year all right and then uh go ahead Wendy it looks like uh Jeff you and I expire we sunset in mayk for that information well given my age and stage of the game I'm about to Sunset any day now so that doesn't surprise me um and then what about uh I mean I'm happy to keep sharing this as long as I'm a member but uh it might be time for somebody else to uh consider taking over this role um when do we do that I think you should just stay Jeff and keep cheering you're doing great you can have an organizational meeting at we could incorporate something into one of your upcoming meetings if you'd like to vote on um an executive uh leadership for your board all right well
038uh anybody that wants to uh take that over um all you got to do is is volunteer um but I will continue to do it as long as you guys want me to um uh so I think we [Music] are on to public comment the second round of public comment I apologize you did not yet vote on adopting your calendar see I'm slipping already guys really need a new chair all right so any questions uh about the uh uh proposed schedule for 2025 all right then I will consider a motion in second to approve moved by Bill and seconded by Wendy uh any further discussion all those in favor signify by saying I I I oppose same sign all right so the schedule is approved um everybody can put it on their calendar for next
039year and Hank if you could let us know what our fate is going to be with the earliest possible opportunity so we can plan uh accordingly that would be great we do and you will receive calendar invitations from Miss Alexander um so as long as your email is up to date with us then um we can put it on calendar for you okay thank you now we can do the second round of public comment Brittney yes at this time you guys don't have um no participants have their hands raised all right well then we are on to adjournment uh before we do so I hope everybody uh has a happy holiday season and safe and prosperous New Year and uh it's been uh enjoyable serving with you all uh during 2024 and I look forward
040to seeing you all next year thank you all happy holidays thank you for your service