001I will go ahead and get started welcome to the Wednesday April 12 2023 electronic meeting of the Ann Arbor design review board this meeting is held electronically to protect Public Health and safety due to the covid-19 virus and to comply with orders issued by the governor of the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services and or the Washington County Health Department we intend to conduct this meeting similar to an in-person meeting however please be patient if there are technical issues public comment will be via telephone only so get ready to write down this information to speak during any of the public comment opportunities please call 877-852 or toll-free at 888-788-0099 and enter the following meeting ID 974-6174-9412 this information is also available in the published agenda in the Public Notices section of the city website
002and on the broadcast of this meeting on CTN Channel 16 at T channel 99 and online at www.a2gov.org watchctn the design review board is a volunteer resident board appointed pointed by the mayor and confirmed by the city council the purpose of the design review board is to Foster excellence in the design of Ann Arbor's built environment and to advise applicants on how a project can meet the spirit and intent of the downtown design guidelines first the applicant will have 15 minutes to present their proposed project to the design review board then the board will hold a discussion on the design of the project following the presentation and discussion members of the public are permitted to comment for up to three minutes okay ready for roll call hink uh member Perkins member Singleton present ever Burns
003here Amber Cooper Howard Kinley here Mitchell here Emma Ramson here hammer katarsky here you have a quorum hey um I will Begin by requesting the approval of the agenda all moved second all in favor of approving the agenda I I I've had it approval of the minutes of the March 8 2023 design review board meeting I had just one small item that I think was missed um was um I think we had a comment about um suggesting getting more natural light or any natural light into the stairwells the emergency exit stairwells um to promote safety and health and Energy savings so that was the only thing sorry I didn't get that to you before the meeting okay so do we have uh any other amendments to the agenda or to the minutes from last meeting
004I move approval of the minutes with that Amendment a second all in favor of approving the minutes with the amendment Tara Tamara mentioned yep aye yes I I okay approved um next um we have gen um this Vice chair could I just have a quick uh repeat of who moved and seconded for the approval of the agenda we missed that um I move the agenda Bill the agenda who's the second one remember who seconded did I okay you think I did Burns thank you okay great I've already forgot okay um now we do have our general public comment period before we enter into the regular business of um the day any focus on or calling in for a general public comment just give it two seconds to see if anyone raises their hand and I
005can refresh that the number is 877-852-5247 enter meeting ID 974-6174 -9412 I don't see any colors or hands okay on to regular business 333 East Williams Street oh we're going to be moving over our panelists uh if you'll just give us one moment and if the presentation team could let me know if there are any other outstanding team members that have not been promoted that would be great I think we have hi I'm Ashwini denoi the dwell Design Studio I think you'll need to get Andrew and Luke owner as well owner as well here I am can everybody hear me yes all right uh are we ready to go can I start the presentation we're ready to go okay so you're with me uh sorry just one more person if you don't mind moving uh
006Jay Silverman as well please then promoted it does look like we're seeing your screen in presenter mode I don't know if that's what your intention is but that's what we're all seeing that is not my intention thank you I did that the other day too here I will uh after that our point I have the PDF just in case that happened what about now um are seeing the PowerPoint screen like you're working on it to put it in full screen mode it isn't fully here let's see here I'm going to re-share sorry about that there we go all right well hello everybody good afternoon uh I'm Andy Savoy with core spaces uh we are the developer um of the proposed project at 333 East William um you can see the site in question uh in
007this small image at the bottom of the screen highlighted in yellow um a little bit about who we are because I know we only have 15 minutes so um I want to just blow through this so we are a uh National developer based out of Chicago and what that's on the line we have uh Luke Bonner of Honor advisory he's helping us through the public process we have uh ashfini and Jay there with our architect well-designed Studio and our civil engineer if he's in uh he's probably just listening on the on the uh as a as an attendee but that's Midwestern Consulting Scott Bethel uh is likely on as well that is the project team we've been working on this project for several months now since basically December and we're at a point now where
008we have something uh to talk about and something to share so a little bit about core before we go uh much further so as I said we're a national developer based out of Chicago uh we've been active for about a decade and we've delivered about 000 units um in the past 10 years and so that's roughly 40 000 beds uh we're mostly a housing developer um we started in the student housing and student oriented kind of housing area uh but we've also done co-living and Bill Durant basically kind of single-family homes uh that are for rent and so we developed those kinds of uh products around the country um and as you can see uh in the awards and accolades section to the right we've gotten a design award almost every single year that we've
009been in business this is not up to date it ends in 2021 but um the point of me bringing that up is we are very focused on design we're eager to hear what you guys have to say about our proposed design here and with that I can kind of uh show you where we've done our projects it's basically all across the country we have done work in Ann Arbor before we did the Hub on campus which we do not own we actually sold in 2019 but we did develop that um and sold that to ACC and uh our typical MO is to hold on to the projects after we develop them it's actually not uh common that we sell a building and so our typical ammo is to hold on to our properties and manage
010them we have in-house management capability too this is a sampling of our projects throughout the Midwest uh all of them Super A Plus quality a plus location we provide retail where it makes sense and we strive for the very highest quality of design as you can see um you know in in the projects that I'm showing here all throughout the Upper Midwest uh region um and so I'm going to start with a few of the um few materials that have been shown to the public uh informally and then we just had our public pres our formal citizens meeting on Monday of this week and so what you're seeing here is the project site and some images of the context um so to the west of our our property is is the library the property sits
011between William and Library Lane and so to the north of the site is actually a Subterranean parking deck that beneath Library Lane to the east of our site we have some older kind of low-lying structures which are mostly apartment buildings and same to the South across Williams Street there is a street that almost dead ends right into our property um Hamilton Street it is a little bit offset but there is a street that kind of almost dead in into our property there one thing I'd point out as well that we found uh important was there's a nice new bike lane I think you'd see it better here um it's a nice new bike lane with two curb cuts uh where the current Credit Union building is and we think that's really nice and we want
012to try to disturb that as little as possible and even make it better if we can and so you'll see um you know we're proposing to get rid of one of those curb cuts to kind of reduce the number of instances where a car will have to cross that bike lane and you'll see that later um just a quick zoning overview and an overview of the schedule and this didn't really print to a PDF is as cleanly as I thought but the height limit uh and uh we're in D1 zoning so the height limit is 180 feet we are below that right now we're not requesting any change on that front uh there is no setback requirements we're not requesting any kind of change on that um the base far is 400 and you can
013get up to 900 with on menu premiums and so those premiums include affordable housing um sustainable construction and provision of public amenity space public exterior space and so what we're proposing here is a lead gold building um that would make use of the affordable housing premium for 20 percent of uh renewable area those two premiums together get us another 400 percent and then we're also providing a public connector which gives us another 8 000-ish square feet of far so we're at about 880 percent uh so just under the 900 maximum for far and our setbacks or step backs excuse me are five feet above the second or third floor so um we are complying with that so we're not requesting any change uh in that as well and so our citizens participation meeting was on
014the 10th that's on Monday this is the design review board presentation and we are shooting two um make a formal application for site plan review uh either in mid-may or mid-june of this year so we'd like to so we've collected our citizen participation meeting comments we're looking forward to collecting yours as well um so that we can incorporate any changes we need to make and still hit that mid-may or mid-june application date this is a massing of the site that was initially shown uh on January 26th at an informal community meeting and probably 30 or 40 people there and it's I'm showing it here because it kind of cleanly shows you the big idea of what this project would be um and that is you have a tower which sits on a Podium and steps
015back in both the North and South Plains of that uh and also is kind of a c shape giving some relief to the east side of the site since that's where some lower buildings are uh with some kind of accessible roof area and so you see this kind of uh top element for the building which is in white um we are substantially in compliance with this and it's a really clean way to show you know where we are and what we're about to present um as I mentioned earlier the maximum that they are here is nine or at 8.8 um because we're going with lead construction the maximum allowable height is 234 feet we're well below that probably five stories below that and we were projecting at the time between 190 and 210 units and
016between 600 and 700 beds right now we're at 195 units and about 640 beds and 16 story building if you count the uh there's a mezzanine floor that I am counting in that and so um that's kind of the big idea another thing that was presented earlier to the public was how we see ourselves connecting to the surrounding uses and so in red we've highlighted here these kind of large-scale Civic uses um and the massing of these buildings is also very Civic scale with not a whole lot of window openings or pedestrian scale uh and then we're kind of bridging that Gap in between these low-lying apartment buildings that front onto Division Street and this area where we have a lot a lot of large Civic uses and so we've kind of shown here in
017kind of block color coding where we initially thought we were going to locate our program and so we have Lobby and amenity spaces basically active uses along William with town homes that would actually touch the ground floor um attaching to you know flanking the East and North sides and then we've taken all of our back of house and mechanical space and put that in the northwest corner uh basically across the street from a similar area on the library parcel where you have loading and parking we thought that was the most appropriate place to locate that program and so this is what we started out with it's basically this massing and this diagram for how we would allocate uses on the ground floor and so everything after this slide is is new I'll show you how
018that all panned out and where we ended up so on the left I'm so I'm showing you this is the ground floor site plan on the left is the survey that shows the current use and that green dotted line is the bike lane and those two orange triangles there are the curb cuts uh that where where cars basically cross a bike lane on their way in and into and out of the site you know you have five minutes left oh my God okay so on the right um You See what we're proposing to do uh and so we have our our active amenity space is in Peak basically that's along William we have town homes in the yellow blocks uh basically very similar to the way I stated earlier we have a pedestrian connector that
019basically connects William to Library Lane and that would be open to the public well-lit at all times and we think that's a better better use there so we're actually getting rid of that curb cut that goes into the site there um along Williams Street and then we have our loading and bicycle loading and utility access basically through this alley and uh garbage trucks would actually be able to pull in and completely turn around and pull out so we wanted to avoid garbage trucks stopping in the middle of that bike lane which we did by basically providing the turnaround capabilities on site this is uh showing the plans going from the ground floor all the way up so leftmost plan we just went through it's just a little bit clearer in this View the mezzanine plan
020that's the top floor of those town homes and so the point there is that all this space along William Street is double double height space at 21 feet clear there so very dramatic uh Active Space um the second floor uh is there is a Paris area above our our Podium that's private Terraces so we wanted to minimize the sound and light pollution since we're very close to three at that level which is why we made that private as we go up we see our typical floor and so as mean Studio a means one bedroom b means two bedrooms c means three bedroom and d means four bedrooms pretty self-explanatory uh and at the top level so this is level 14 or level 15 if you count the mezzanine uh you'll see we have some additional
021limiting space and an exterior Terrace with a pool uh and that's where we imagine most of the congregation happening and so that's well above street level and out of uh the realm of being a nuisance any Neighbors at that point uh and then this level 15 just shows the second story of those town homes and communicates that either many of these spaces are double height these are the elevations and so the idea here we're trying to incorporate a lot of the themes that we read in the design guidelines some of them are breaking the plane uh of the building between the basically dividing the building into a bottom middle and top and breaking the plane in uh and materiality at those uh junctures and so at the bottom we have a high proportion of storefront
022glass high level of transparency we do have an inset entry area uh that you can see here and here as you wrap around this pedestrian connector this is on the East space of the building you see our town homes which are carved into this um kind of brick base which is you know very Civic scale along William because you have these double height kind of fenestration elements here we get to the back of the building you have a few uh additional Townhomes that actually open right up on the Library Lane um and you have this undulating kind of window pattern above trying to create some visual interest for the tower piece and then the west elevation shows that Alleyway there's a bike room entrance and then our loading area and then this is uh some
023window these are some windows into our amenity space this section shows you know we're setting back uh on both the North and South sides blue is amenity space so that faces out onto uh William on the left side here and then you have additional amending space for the pool Terrace also facing William which is South so great sun exposure there this is what that rendering looks like and so you see we have this entry canopy very clearly defined entrance at the corner of the site um your pedestrian connector will be along these Town Homes here okay well I'm almost there and so the building sets back uh from the from the edge to provide some relief to these lower line buildings that face on the division uh and you can see there is a top
024element but it's set back so much from the from the edge of the building that you can't even see it really from the street but there is a a top element there and so I think we've uh when it comes to increasing The Pedestrian qualities of of the ground plane we have done a lot of the uh we have followed a lot of recommendations in the design guidelines um as well as the specific building elements when it comes to query defined entrance uh entry canopies and basically enlivening the ground floor plane of The Pedestrian uh you know where the where the building hits The Pedestrian realm so I feel like I'm running low on time so I think I'll stop there and we can open it up for questions comments discussion that was a pretty
025impressive run through at exactly 15 minutes um yeah open up to questions from the board I um I'll give you a few more minutes to talk about the building because I was wondering if you would describe the materials on the exterior a little more like what what are the materials that you're touching and feeling on the base um because it was a little unclear in the elevations sorry so yeah so we have uh we wanted to go with um kind of a solid um more Civic type of material for the ground floor and that's because we're next to that Library building we're replacing this Credit Union and so we have this kind of sandstone colored brick that forms um most of this Podium level which is the bottom two levels and then along William we've
026very liberally placed a lot of glass so there's tons of transparency along William but then as you turn and you get these little town home units carved into it we have um basically some kind of cementitious panel uh and and perhaps Uh Wood slatting so that it's more a tactile when you get to those uh spaces that are actually dwelling units and much more Civic and kind of double story in the areas where uh you're looking at basically a mini Lobby or our leasing office or a kind of a fitness center amenity those are kind of expressed in the more Civic double story language and then once you turn around to the town homes you have these uh you know carved into the brick Mass you have these um these kind of panelized uh and
027wood panel expressions for each of those Townhomes there and then above that level um we have uh something that you know we were considering a sto panel a Stow panel system which is a a panelized system it's extremely nice I had the Architects take that note off of this because I I want to be able to be able to use any system even if it's not a Stow system so I didn't want that in any of the drawings that went in but what we're going for is some kind of cementitious panelized system uh with floor-to-ceiling windows that would then alternate and create you know we have a tall building here so we do want to create some visual interest and so we've taken a shot at that with these kind of Windows that change positions
028there's certain windows that are you know living rooms that you can't really change because it's the position of them but other windows for the bedrooms you can and so we're trying to play this game of getting this really kind of dynamic uh and and um rhythmic kind of facade going for this Tower element because it is a big thing and this is set back the black is actually set back five or six feet from this white element year so there is a plane break there as well and then we are showing kind of a two-tone uh cementitious panel system up here that's closer to the actual um color of the brick at the bottom and so this building really has a you know a bottom a middle and a top that are then connected and
029you can kind of see uh there's some uh plane changes around the building that start to draw connections between these elements but from the primary facade you kind of you know this is set back and then this is set back and so there is a plane break and a material change for the bottom middle and top there and and just one follow-up question um in the rendering it looked like the there's sort of a almost like a ribbon that um goes around horizontally sort of the light lighter color is that just a lighter panel this here right yeah so that's a slab Edge cover and so our um the initial intent was to form a grid that was every two floors and so we try to get this panel to show up as close to
030the windows it's kind of not we want that panel to go away but what that is is a slab Edge cover so you're gonna have to have something that actually uh houses the edge of your slab and insulates the edge of it so that cold air doesn't make the slab cold and then you have really cold floors by your windows and so we want that to be a material that basically goes away and so really these black um Expressions that are every two floors are what we want you to see uh and not every other um uh slavage cover the way it's showing now um but that was the intent we do have some work to do in that front um but the intent was to actually break this up so it really you're looking
031at one two three four five six you know modules of this grid rather than 12. I say and maybe it's just the rendering but it look it to me it adds um just another layer of um detail that's kind of nice it's and it's not as heavy as the every other floor piece um so I I again I wasn't quite sure what it was but I kind of caught my eye um I just think it adds another layer of of uh character to the building I don't know I will learn that I don't know if others feel that way but um I mean I think in general um you've done a really nice job I think Echo Lori and saying you did a great job presenting this very concisely um and you know I like
032the materials um you know the the thoughtfulness of the materials that the base uh where people are walking um you know the breakdown of the towers tall buildings are hard to design well and I think you 've you know done a nice job I like the variation of the windows and I don't know if there's other places you could add that in you know not just on the South South Side right yeah we're looking to kind of apply the same um Rhythm everywhere it's just I think we've not gotten the that part yet but that's the sort of I would just Echo Tamara's um sentiment as well I think you've done a really nice job of kind of leveraging all the tools at your disposal shifts in massing the you know articulation at a variety
033of scales changing materials at the base there's a richness of the solids on the ground plane versus the kind of more Lacy effect of the patterns above um so not a lot of comments on the building itself I do have comments about the site plan I'm um how wide is the driveway I know you're using the current curb cut but how wide is that curb cut that's about 17 feet wide okay and I'm not sure if the midwestern has done a turning movement study yet but I'm having a lot of trouble imagining how one actually removes trash turns around and gets back out of there and actually I mean those two dumpsters are stacked one by the others I don't know how you get to the one behind the one in front of it um
034it's a trash truck making that turn or is that a vehicle making a car making that turn that is a trash truck and so this is a little bit different because you're right when we after we submitted for the drb but uh we had this done and we needed a little bit more space and so this is the current state of that plan right now not to bog you down with the details but that red shape is that is that trash truck turn and so um our trash room is here we would actually have to Stage the dumpsters out here and that trash truck would have to pull in turn and then turn around and then lift the dumpsters uh while it's facing down and so they don't waste management does not back out of
035a site so we actually had to had to provide them with the ability to turn all the way around on site so at this point we've had those conversations we do need more room than we were initially showing and in this site plan this is not enough room but we have corrected that in the current uh plans which are not much different uh but but a little bit different than what I just presented okay great thank you and is there any wall or fencing or any element along the property line between the library parking lot and your property right now there is not one contemplated but there is a meaningful grade change there so we will have to likely replace that um that uh retaining wall there because there is a retaining wall and I'm
036not sure if you can really see it the site image difficult to see but there is a retaining wall and some grade change uh you know you can actually kind of see it in Topo if you zoom in here there's several several feet of gray change very quickly and so um it's to be determined I think it's probably smart to put some kind of fence there just to um stop a trash truck from maybe accidentally pulling off the edge of that or something um or maybe continuing that uh retaining wall up a few feet just to provide a really solid barrier that a vehicle could accidentally roll over yeah I'm not too concerned about rolling over I actually think it's nice that you have a buffer of it looks like almost 10 feet for any
037overhang of the front of the truck or anything like that that would swing and hit impact the parking over there so just that Gap alone it isn't as fine for me having a barrier there is probably just a recipe for asking someone to hit it yeah that's all I have sting right can I oh sorry I like to back up a little bit uh to context um I guess I'm disappointed that there's no mention of the surrounding historic district and the elevation does not indicate anything to the east um no discussion about how a building of this size and granted it's a D1 but it's in the Liberty division character District it's not in the Midtown character District by one site um so how do you address the building of the size next to a
038historic district so it's unlikely to develop in the same scale you have townhouses facing into private yards um and a public walkway as well how how are you addressing all that well the town homes and the public walkway were both uh intended to address that condition because we felt that given the smaller scale of those buildings they're more tactile you're going to have people out in their backyards and we wanted to face flank those areas with uh presentable spaces that could be used and accessed by um you know the people that live just to the east of us um and so that is why we chose that side for the townhomes and not the trash we thought that you know the best place for the trash is a place where nobody's gonna see it and
039the best place for actually some active ground hor ground floor uses uh would be right across from where we have other kind of low-rise buildings and so we are you can see we've basically this is roughly the ground floor is in a c-shape face to the left but once we get above we face that c shape to the right so that there is some relief basically provided where there's Terraces and so this face of the building at least and I agree it's not you know the best but this face is providing some relief to those uh kind of lower low uh lower buildings that are in that um historic district uh and so you know we did try to design the building basically to provide that relief here provide a really strong line along these
040Town Homes to relate to the height that's across the street there or across the way which would be the the backyards of these buildings the okay one other thing I would say is that we're kind of in between two things we have the historic district to the right but to the left on this image we've uh highlighted all the larger Civic scale projects and so we're trying to bridge the gap here we are building a high-rise building we can't make that look like an old building it's it's going to need to have a modern design um otherwise it's somewhat of a lie uh in terms of the actual design and so we don't want to disguise that or or try to make it look like a clock tower or anything like that but we do
041in terms of form and in terms of program to address those uh historic properties along Division Street and we've done so with our step back which is in basically the middle of the property here and by providing these town home uh elements that flank that that kind of uh property line with active uses and uh but but not so active that they're loud but still kind of residential kind of two-story scale uses no I was just going to ask what the dimension is on the plot what's called The Plaza on that East Edge what's the width it's uh 10 feet wide by 200 feet long okay thanks uh as we developed the plan we can better show um the the um the interaction between the historic uh structures and the and that Plaza space um
042and develop that edge a little bit better with our landscape architect and consider um either um uh some sort of fencing to to distinguish um the not not like full height fence but some some sort of of a barrier to suggest a boundary between that historic structure and our our site um and and maybe as well address the parking lots um as you head towards Library Lane which are at the back of those properties we can look at that I think um I guess just one more comment I just in general and maybe this is addressed to Hank and Chris um some maps in the staff report that would indicate that type of I mean it wasn't mentioned anywhere about the historic district so I just would hope that in the future you can have
043that as a part of the the staff report that's all thanks goodly noted thank you for that comment I I want to wanted to continue with some slight issues um either for Hank or Chris from the city I noticed in your report one of the comments was the service alley needed major redesigned for trash and and Jay has walked us through revisions so are you too satisfied that this meets the city's requirements now or is it moving in the right direction can we stop talking about it I would say dick that that's going to be a standard comment that we make on every review uh this seems to be coming up when it comes in for site plan review so it was more I put it in there I don't know if it meets or
044not and if it's meet and scrutiny by the solid waste but I do know that it's been coming up and I just wanted to make the applicant aware that it's going to be scrutinized by our Solid Waste Department so you'll probably see it on future reports also is this a standard comment thanks and my other side questions for Jay um was 640 students living in the building there's going to be a lot of calls to Amazon and doordash and various retail and food delivery businesses and this is a hard site for that because the the most active Street William um is shut off from people pulling over to the side on the north side of the street due to the curbed bike Lanes the service alley doesn't I don't see any accommodation for deliveries within
045the service alley and there's no room on the east side so how do you plan to accommodate that and I should add to that we've had complaints about the other core building in Ann Arbor on Huron Street with just this very thing doordash and other delivery services parking and other people's property trying to make their deliveries foreign I'll just go ahead and take it so we have had um discussions um with the Downtown Development Authority about this they are willing to help us out with uh there's two parking spaces on the south side of William Street William Street right across the uh street from our property they're willing to help us have those be 15-minute spaces which would help with the Ubers and doordash deliveries um we were thinking a lot about that problem that's
046kind of a not so new anymore but it's something that nobody thinks about and it has a real effect when you have all those people ordering doordash and ordering Ubers and so I think getting those two spaces across the street to be 15-minute parking spaces would help that's something that the Downtown Development Authority has uh kind of lightly expressed as possible and something to be willing to help us out with another thing we're exploring and that I can't promise at all yet is uh trying to get these Transformers out of the way and actually connect to Library Lane um with a curb cut that would likely take an easement from the city which I'm not sure we can get in a timely manner but that's something we are exploring I think that might be uh
047kind of a best case scenario because then you could actually have uh your Ubers and doordash pull in we would provide uh some kind of increase on the side here and then they would just pull through the Library Lane but right now and what I want to present and the only thing I want to promise is what I'm showing here because I I don't know if I can get that curb cut onto Library Lane and I can't say that I can definitively which is why we have the plan B of getting those two parking spaces on the south side of William Street in in you know and obviously the way doordash and other companies work the driver just goes to the place that's most convenient and makes his Dash and so it has to be
048pretty intuitive for it to be used and for it to work and again we've had bad experience with your other project in Ann Arbor so I'd really urge you to keep working on that and get something more solid I hear you it is high up on the list of things we're working on right now just just for clarification it the route or most people coming in to the space when they're moving in um is generally is going to be off the Library Lane through the route where you go into the plaza or whatever you're calling it then through that um route that goes through the building sort of a z-shaped system to get to the elevators is that right that is one uh route that I would expect our property management team to make use
049of this is showing a little bit better the revisions of the plan we do have now kind of six spaces here which would be most of the time for employees of our property management staff but on move-in weekend that would be staging area for people moving in this entire whip would and so you could move in through here would probably be the easiest way which is basically through the loading dock and right into the elevator core within a secondary way it could be off of Library Lane down through The Pedestrian connector which is what I'd like to call it and then through that Corridor and down to the lobby so you know we have a couple weekends a year where we move in 640 people that is not an easy task and so I think
050having both of those um Alternatives uh helps us out a little bit as long as we're talking about that site plan how about bicycle parking because I assume that a lot of the folks will be coming to the building from the University uh with bicycles you got that right so they'll bring the bike in through that same path to get into that that storage huh that's correct okay and I really think Library Lane might have more to offer than than you've you've gotten to so far it it's a it's going to be a dedicated it is a dedicated East-West but under trafficked and um as opposed to William um I think there's more potential there to get some of the business done of the building and um I'd just encourage you to to Snoop in
051that direction more and continue to I I certainly agree if I had my preference I would I would really love for us to be able to connect the Library Lane via a curb cut that would make a lot of things easier and smoother um and and I totally agree with you uh Jake could you explain when you were looking at the elevations I'm switching to the exterior now you said you asked The Architects to take um one of the descriptors of the cementitious panels off so are you equating an ether system with a cementitious panel system or could you explain just what these systems are those are both generic terms I might need your help with this but uh the the point of the comment was that we had called out a specific brand name
052proprietary system on the drawing it's called a stove panel sto yeah right and so we didn't want to basically pigeonhole ourselves to a manufacturer and so Jay maybe you can talk through the actual detail of what that Panel System typically looks like yeah I believe that um that what we are are currently um considering at this point is a um is a um a fiber cement panel um that would be on a um that would be on uh over uh insulation um and and support it out from the building um similar to um to a uh to a dry design or or another panel we don't obviously that's not a specific we don't know exactly what system that that we'd want to use but but a um but probably a a durable fiber cement Panel
053System uh with uh with um Z channels that are that are over insulation attached to the outside of the exterior face um of the material um there the um again I think we're still investigating um the um the that that option versus um the other option of of doing a um an insulated exterior finish system um either an insulated exterior stucco system or or um or or an efis system so you are keeping the door open for an EFA system um at this point although I think the the design team's intent is to is to try and explore a um a fire panel system we've got to work through some of the details of the of the um the strategy for lead gold um and how that relates to exterior skin and some of that
054will relate to the energy model as well as our uh our um our mechanical systems design I think it's going to be hard to get the level of detail that we're showing and this with you know these little line expressions with an epit system it's going to be hard to get those edges I I don't anticipate that we will use that maybe if we had if it somehow turned out cheaper to just do the in the panels with eat this which I doubt maybe but yeah I I think that's going to end up being a cementitious panel and not eat this yeah that's what we'd like to do there thank you any other comments from board members oh John has stand up uh yeah thank you um I love the building and um I think
055it's a well-defined uh Podium it uh softens the mass I think well you're putting a big building um right downtown and uh it's being built as Wendy uh uh uh articulated next to a historic district it's going to be a challenge uh I I agree with Richard uh that um and others that you might want to consider more use of Library Lane it seems to me I I use Library Lane a lot I I use William a lot too um and particularly I I think if there's some way to uh to get your you know deliveries um um I don't know but I think it has a lot of potential and um I would encourage you to uh to use it I think the facade is exceptional um I I think the the design Works
056um and uh you've mixed uh um uh glass and and and hard surface extremely well I think and and and the the grid system isn't uh obvious it just it it fits it works uh I I really like the entrance and I like the town homes on uh on that East Side uh that and and kind of uh facing it with that historic district and and and having that that that walk through Plaza um I think it it'll be a great place to live um I have um uh a couple of questions um I'm the the member that uh is also on the public art commission so I asked this of all the developers uh have you considered public art uh for this project and um um where and and what sort uh Andy or
057we are not considered public art but to be clear um we're happy to coordinate perhaps at the library or with you know any other kind of public artist that everybody can agree on to kind of integrate public art into the project I think that makes for a better project and we wanted to get a little bit further down the line uh before identifying a place for where that could go a couple ideas though um we have a a blank wall back here that could be great for a mural uh it's a big blank wall and it needs something there's also smaller kind of opportunities we've just slapped our logo on a few different kind of blank walls around the bottom but those could easily be mural walls that could be worked out um you know
058with uh with the public to to you know be some kind of public art installation um and then also we do have some space out front it would have to be small if you actually look at the uh kind of the current um layout we have a small setback maybe there's something that could go you know up against this wall or something like that but that's really kind of close to the entrance and I think that if you want something that's going to be visible from people just walking by I think that the murals could be a great thing and that's something we'd be we'd be happy to do and actually prefer to do I think that that sounds great and uh the public art commission would be more than happy to work with you
059and we've developed some best practices and um that and you might want to think uh not just painted murals but a mosaic I think Richard has an excellent example of how a mural would be on a wall on the fourth and Washington parking structure and if if you are going to to have a Graphic uh maybe a high pressure laminate which would would really be um it'd be it'd be a nice sort of effect um so I I applaud that and uh if when you get further in the design um just uh let the art commission know and would be happy to sort of help you think through how to approach it uh additionally you're going to have a small Lobby and and you said there might be a small place uh there um I
060would uh you might want to think about uh kind of a rotating uh Art Gallery may maybe only one or two small pieces but that would rotate through there every few months or so uh and um uh so those are two options and I'm I'm glad that you're open uh to uh to considering that uh the the other thing that um that I wanted to ask you about I know that the staff has recommended solar and um uh I just think that the the the the the the city is is um wants to leverage as much as they can for getting renewable energy into a building so uh I would um I would agree with the with the um with staff for solar and you know it it doesn't just have to be on roofs
061so um I you know you're going to be up high and I don't know whether you could incorporate uh photovoltaican in a in a in a in a sort of a side wall but uh you know you and you can make it creative so it could be kind of looking like sort of an art piece but um I I would encourage you to explore those uh the those areas and and finally um that um are you going to put natural gas in um in in in the building and I'm sure you're probably aware of it the the Ann Arbor energy commission has come out strong uh asking the city council to um to not allow any natural gas you know in buildings and and uh sort of leveraging heat pumps and things like that so
062uh have you gotten to that point of thinking um heating through and and and how you might approach uh that issue uh we have and so we are very in tune with that conversation and so right now we are uh we are assuming a fully electric building um so we're assuming that that will go through and we are poised to deal with that um and so this would be probably a vrf variable refrigerant flow system um that would be all electric um and that's what we have in our kind of preliminary cost estimates right now so we are very aware that we are are ready and willing to comply if that's the way that it goes and then as far as the solar panel uh question goes um we are kind of sizing our mechanical
063systems right now and and it's a little too early to start uh you know figuring out where we could put solar panels but once we have um those mechanical system size we'll know where exactly we can put solar panels and how many we can do but it's probably going to be on top of this this roof uh is is uh you know kind of a an easy place to put them to the extent we have some extra room left over uh after sizing our mechanical systems uh and then we also do Envision um you know making use of of green roofs as well to to basically um hold some of our storm water and that that helps us with sizing our underground attention so Andrew if I could um so this is a lead gold
064you said that's one of the premiums yes ma'am so so what had you envisioned then to lead to lead to lead gold we don't know exactly they're in the scorecard and it is uh it's done later on in design where you have to you know use a certain amount of recycled materials and there's a lot of other kind of things we haven't preliminarily filled that out preliminarily filled that out yet but we we are you know we have gone lead gold in other projects we're carrying uh a little bit extra in our budget because we know we're gonna have to go for those premium systems that use less energy maybe a little bit more expensive to to be able to get there but I can't tell you exactly how yet because we haven't done our
065scorecard yet that's something we would do um once we get design development drawings started which would be after we have a site plan approval uh could we back go back just one question on uh regarding the parking situation you said that the DDA was you're toying with the idea of giving you 15-minute spaces across the street which would mean that all those folks making the temporary deliveries would be Crossing mid block no matter how many times you tell them to go up the corner they'll be Crossing mid block it aren't there some aren't there parking spaces along Library Lane could you get a couple of those spaces instead of right on William those are the spaces we actually asked them for and they were less confident that they could get those although I agree with
066you that makes way more sense and so we you know we will continue this exploration of how how we can leverage Library Lane both with the curb cut and with some temporary use of those parking spaces that's likely going to uh involve an easement with the city um but it's something I'm happy to explore because I think it makes the project better and I agree with you that is a much better place than across William I think it's going to be dangerous with all the running back and forth but I'm not telling you anything you haven't already thought about but thank you if we could talk about the exterior for a minute more I am following up on some of John's comments I I always View the the entire building as an opportunity for artistic
067expression and it's really a drab building in uh climate where we can experience four to six weeks of No Sunshine um at a time in the winter and I I think there's I'd encourage you to pursue opportunities to inject color um even though we don't get Sunshine we do get daylight of course every day and so the textural differences in order to get the shadow that adds visual interest need to be pronounced they they subtle textural differences work in a Southern Climate where there's more Sunshine but they don't work as well here and the building reads really flat in in a gray building in a gray climate just um is a missed opportunity I think so I didn't encourage you I know you can do it you've got lots of great examples of terrific design
068but I'd encourage you to push that a little more go for more color and go for more textural differences maybe just the setback of material changes can be increased from two inches to four inches to create a shadow would help absolutely hear you and we'll work on that because I do agree any other comments from the board okay if not um we can open it up to public comment let me find um man I'm sure if I could do minus staff repeat back to you what we heard from the board to ensure that we have your comments sure summarized correctly and if I could ask our guests to stop sharing screen so that we can see one another be appreciated and I'm going to turn it over to uh planner Chris Chang okay I took
069some just these are just general notes we'll have more specific notes but what I've heard at least I'll I'll kind of summarize everybody's the comments that they generally like materials the breakdown of the floors and the the variation of the windows um also issues regarding you know how uh pickup and delivery are going to be made Solid Waste how it's going to make sure that it meets at the site plan stage um definitely want to explore more access to Library Lane that seemed to be a a general consensus possibly retaining walls or a fence on the West Side possibly even on the east side to screen from from the historic neighborhood uh same thing we need to list it on the East side that is a historic district seems like we like you liked the
070townhouse is facing the historic district so we will uh you know be a little more expansive on that um again yep just looking at it other comments regarding the service alley and I will drop offs pick-offs be made um try to move the Transformers if possible I think that was more from the from the petitioner asking about trying to move that uh Transformers to get that curb cut onto a Library Lane um we did go over the bicycle storage and the path into the building and let's see oh the exterior we'll have to look into that more it sounds like just to make sure what type of material doesn't sound like ephus was something that was going to be looked upon favorably uh public art from katarski um they would like to see they'd be
071all about for murals uh I would add on top of that anything with the with the murals is fine but don't put anything type that's going to advertise your business or something that's going to be counted towards a sign we wouldn't count that as public art that's just an aside you could also use mosaics um uh Explore More of the leave gold premium uh how is this going to be achieved that's going to need to be complied with for the for the premiums uh let's see yep 15 minutes oh mid-block Crossings I think we just finished that up with the 15-minute spaces for delivery again another General theme let's connect or at least have spaces along Library Lane um and then finally just add some color to the building uh since we're in a gray
072climate with a great building did I kind of capture it or is there something else I was missing thank you I had a comment too about textural differences in materials all right well with that um I think that ends that part of the agenda were there any in public um comments or questions there are no current hands raised still no hands raised I don't think you have any commenters today okay great thank you um on to unfinished business anything anyone wants to raise this unfinished business no Communications nope I'll uh one more chance at public comment generally without that if anybody wants to move to adjourn Tamara moves to adjourn with that hand thank you support okay all in favor of adjournment of this session of Ann Arbor's design review board I awake and uh
073and an eye all at the same time thank you everybody thanks Lori thank you everyone