001the wednesday august 12 2020 electronic meeting of the ann arbor design review board this meeting is in accordance with orders to affect social distancing and to mitigate the spread of covid19 we intend to conduct this meeting similarly to an in-person meeting however please be patient as there are often technical difficulties as we've just seen public comment will be via telephone to speak uh during either of the two public comment opportunities please call 888-788-0099 which is toll-free and enter the meeting id which is seven i'm sorry nine seven eight zero one zero zero six two four this information is also available in the public notices section of the city website and on the broadcast of this meeting on ctn channel 16 18t channel 99 and online at www slash watch the design review board is a
002volunteer resident board appointed by the mayor and confirmed by city council the purpose of the design review board is to foster excellence in the design of ann arbor's environment and to advise applicants on how a project can the spirit and intent of the downtown design guidelines when we get to the applicant's piece of the meeting there will be a two minute period for the applicant to make their presentation as proposed to the design review board and then the design review 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 um so could we do the rope kristen okay how about dick mitchell yep tamara burns here william kinley here gary cooper here lori singleton here corey
003buckwalter here john kotarsky yeah and jeff perkins okay good everybody's here thank you um has everyone had a chance to review the agenda and are there any changes anyone would like to see no i i have a few um i'd like to talk about the sustainability guideline review we've proposed something to brett and he has responded so let's talk about that under regular business um oh and i had bill's recusal but that's been taken care of um with that change is does the agenda look okay to everyone the only uh thing that i mentioned earlier is that uh john and i got left off as attendees at the last meeting i don't think you were here yet dick so that just needs to be corrected okay so that that'll be in the minutes okay would
004someone like to move approval of the general as amended the moved camera glory please say that all right thank you anyone opposed hey thank you okay now approval of the minutes you had jeff and gary as attendee okay i have one other job uh regarding minutes of it indicates that we recommended um potential murals on the east elevation it's a typo that should read south elevation i believe yeah good catch anything else so we'll make those three changes and adding two people in in the mural location would someone like to move the minutes be approved so moved okay gary in a second second camera seconds all in favor line ratio hi thank you all right so this is our first public comment period there are two public comments period periods this is the one anyone
005from the public would like to implement a night not on our agenda today this is opportunities for people to go up to three minutes to comment please call zero zero 888.788.009 nine which is toll-free and enter the meeting id not i'm sorry meeting id is nine seven eight zero one zero zero two city staff will select caller and have raised their hand one by one using the last three digits of their phone number in order to electronically move your hand your desire to speak please press nine on your phone you will hear an automized automated announcement that the host is allowing you to speak when speaking please move to a quiet area and mute any television or background sound so that we may hear you clearly please state your name and then beginning of your
006account so we'll give a minute or so here to see if anything comes no callers have indicated okay we'll close public commentary move on to regular business um this is design review board number two row dash zero zero five at 300 west huron street um a default board application to construct a five-story 93-room 42 926 foot hotel at the northwest corner of westeron and north first in the d2 zoning district four parking spaces are proposed with seven surface spaces proposed in an access easement on the parcel northwest the applicant is proposing a leak gold project the project proposes to combine three parcels to create the site 300 west chiron 308 west huron and 111 northwest one-way drive is proposed from norfolk to west huron to accommodate delivery and drop-offs in four parking spaces and solid
007waste pickup um before we get started uh we we would have a staff in portland and hand it over to um we have realized today that the application is lacking a few items of the contextual photograph and holding section which we need given limited mobility and ability to visit the site um so we would like to propose to the applicant um that we would still be willing to do a review today to give you input all assembled but it would require that you return next month with a full application and it will revisit things and otherwise we would just have to table the application to next month so i'll ask the applicant if they can win now would you like to have the review and come back next month or should it be able to
008next month um samir thanks guys um uh yeah i would like to still have the drb hearing today um i i guess what exactly was not included in the application we had turned it into jeff and uh he said that you know the application was uh complete so i'm a little confused on what was left out you'll see in in the paperwork that's attached that it also requires contextual photographs okay general area and it requires building sections got it uh and i apologize that we missed that and it just came up amongst members today we would have given you more notice sure no no problem um yeah so uh since we already have everyone here together uh i'd love to get you know the feedback uh on our design and then uh we can submit
009those uh uh pictures and building sections over to you uh what would it be for chris chen yep yep we'll send it over to chris uh i guess would it be like next month's meeting with it all over again is it more than administrative like you know no we would well you would probably hear the bulk of our time today and unless you make changes between this middle and the new one um we don't want the right people look so it it would be a full meaning got it and uh most of it today though got it okay uh yeah yeah no worries let's go ahead and present it today and then we can follow up with any additional information that you guys need so uh yep would you like me to go ahead and
010get started or usually this is when i usually put jeff kahn on the spot to do a staff report and i'm really putting chris on the spot because he's filling in for jeff are you prepared to get a report chris or sure we can just launch it i let's just launch in the only background information i have is what you've already read uh regarding the description of the project so i would say if samir's got a presentation let's begin there yeah go ahead smear sure so uh i i don't have a presentation uh just what we sent in to you guys uh but uh i guess before we dig into the project specifically i want to give you a little background on uh you know hawkeye hotels and who we are uh just because i
011think the the developer behind the development is just as important so my name is samir patel i'm a senior development manager at hawkeye hotels we were founded in 1982 by bob and angie patel they purchased a 18-room motel in mina arkansas that was their first introduction in the hospitality industry the hotel was shut down at the time actually bob and angie renovated it themselves uh made it profitable again and eventually sold it for a slightly larger property and they kind of continued their expansion throughout the mississippi valley they grew the company throughout the late 80s by a few new construction projects and then in the early 1990s they got into the world of franchising and actually became marriott international's first minority franchisee in north america in 1994. um during the great recession hawkeye was the
012fastest growing developer within the marriott system we built or acquired 15 hotels during that downturn uh so i i'll fast forward through a couple decades of history just for the sake of time but uh as of today uh q2 2020 hawkeye owns and manages 45 hotels uh throughout the u.s we have an additional 10 hotels under construction primarily with hilton marriott and intercontinental one of our most exciting projects and i would say the most high profile project is actually this one in downtown ann arbor uh we've been circling the market for about five six years now just kind of waiting for the right opportunity to arise i'm sure you guys are all well aware that finding uh real estate in downtown ann arbor isn't too easy especially for a a project this size so we've
013been looking for a while we stumbled across this site uh really like the location just in its uh how it's located uh in downtown it's kind of the entrance coming downtown from the west side uh of the city so uh yeah really excited for this project uh i see that you have pulled up our dod presentation uh i will let dynamic design ninten and ross they'll kind of dive into some of our site-specific layout and some of our exterior finishes that we're uh using on this project so nathan ross i will hand it over to you guys good thanks amir um and uh thanks everyone for taking the time to uh you know hear your presentation today um i wish we could do this in person but hopefully we'll save it for the next meeting
014um kristen do you want to switch over to the slides or do you want to control the money or um i will navigate the presentation just let me know when it hit next slide okay you can hit next one okay um so estimates that you know we we have a pretty prominent location you know the site's located at the intersection of north first and west huron street and you know as you'll see later in the rendering we really wanted to take advantage of this property being located at this prominent intersection so you know we took advantage of that through our design language but for uh to walk you guys to the site you know we i think dick had already reached on some of the high level points we have a total of 95 restrooms
015we have two entrances or one one-way entrance up in north first street and that's exiting off of uh west ground street which gives us access to a small courtyard and then also gives access for public works to uh for trash and recycling pickup our main entrance is located on north first street into the main hotel lobby where we have mainly public and amenity spaces so you know once we get into the operations you'll see there's a lot of transparency between uh on the ground floor with a lot of glass so it creates sort of that relationship between the pedestrian and inside the hotel um also we we collaborated with christina gomez through a lot of this uh throughout a lot of this process so um you know went went back and forth quite a bit
016so we feel pretty good about you know how everything's laid out and works um kristen if you want to go to the next slide um this is just to briefly briefly show you and introduce you to the uh level plans um you know typically it's all guest rooms with a little bit of backup house space christine you can go to the next slide as well and on the third floor you can see that on the primary street elevations uh the rooms are recessed back into king-sized rooms to create that five-foot setback at the street wall yep and then uh you can go to the next line as well okay so moving into the elevations um as i mentioned before we wanted to take advantage of the corner feature so what we did was we used
017a high-end material metal panel with floor to ceiling glass and the guest rooms there and also raised the parapet in order to accentuate that corner itself and then for the street wall we use more of a traditional material that was more content contextually appropriate for you know some of the buildings that are there surrounding the site so we use brick as a primary material on the first two floors with some wood look accents and then use a lot of storefront as i mentioned also before to create that relationship and you know create a transparency there um the rest of the levels on the upper floors are we use two accents of metal panels so we're also utilizing the high-end material there as well kristen you can go to the next slide sort of the same
018thing here we continued the rhythm around the corner on uh west here on elevation um the difference here is as you can see we have a pretty uh pretty big great change here um so that's that's kind of the main driving factor on this elevation um next slide um so as we turn the corner on the main on the two sides that are actually visible from the primary street we're still wrapping the building with the brick and metal panel and we're trying to create um some window penetrations in in the uh in the corridor to get a little bit more daylight for the occupants within the courtyard within the courtyard elevations we're primarily using ephis to sort of balance out the materials there and then if you go to the next slide you can see
019we created the same thing but we were able to get a little bit more window penetrations on that side elevation because of the separation of the property line so thanks this is a street view rendering to show you know little perspective of what the ground floor would feel like from a pedestrian point of view um you can see uh there's a there's you know there's a lot of opportunity for activity within you know the end of creating a relationship between headboard and outdoor um and then if you go to the next slide you can see a little bit you can see it a little bit more holistically with the street wall and the wood look accents for you know that creates a little bit of warmth for the pedestrians and then the next slide will
020give you the overall view of the entire property so with that with that said um i'll open it up to any questions or comments that you guys might have okay who would uh like to start us off i just wanted to say that it's unclear how the gray change takes place in the courtyard you come in at higher elevation off first and then you drop down that the same gray changes on the south elevation but in your elevations it's not visible um there should be that happens within the drive under as you come out first as you're driving under the building to get into the rear courtyard that's where the slope down to make up the grain change happens so below the building it takes all the great change there that's correct do you have
021a retaining wall between you and the property to the west i don't believe so yeah ross let me uh jump in can can you guys hear me yes um i'll introduce myself my name is jason van ryan uh we're for naderveld we're a local civil firm here in ann arbor um so we we've uh unfortunately our site plan doesn't i don't know uh christine i don't know if you were able to include that in the in the presentation or not um it didn't for some reason didn't get included with drb but we we did provide some slopes on that drive that runs through the courtyard um so basically you are correct the elevation of first street where our driveway connects to first is quite a bit higher than where we're exiting ontario street um so
022we were able to you know it's basically about a five percent slope under the building and then through the courtyard area it levels off it's only like it's like between one and two percent to keep it relatively friendly for ada use and then as we pass back under the building heading toward huron street um it goes back to five percent so the drive aisles essentially are five percent and then the courtyard area is about between one to two percent um a retaining wall may be necessary it drops off quite a bit um in the north very north west corner of the site um you know i think and maybe if it is mr kinley's building or phoenix west lc it looks like the owner which i believe that's him that building is is almost right
023up against the property line and if you go out there today there's actually a pretty big retaining wall uh down to our site so that that we may have to have a retaining wall in that corner but the goal is to use the building um you know along our west property line and then maybe a small retaining wall to make up that grade it looks like a retaining wall on the is drawn on the site plan but i don't know how accurate that is and then also you have some trash cans that are trash containers that are going to be exposed in the back and simply rolled into the aisle when necessary that's correct so we'll we'll have we'll have staff members the owner will have staff members there in place to roll it out
024um we've worked with christina gomez public works to uh work that whole routine out um we have a trash room there um adjacent to the exit drive aisle onto west huron and so i think it's at four o'clock in the morning obviously the hotel's 24 hours uh whichever staff member designated to roll those trash cans out into that um assigned space they would it would roll out to there and then you know public works would come in and service trash cans and then we roll them back in okay hello hi cameron hello and thanks for coming in um i um wanted to talk about i guess the the massing on the scale i think um i think you've done a really good job for that corner in terms of the scale and and masking for
025that corner um it it fits it's i like the setbacks i like the uh focus on the corner and um you know got the drive around the back that all seems to work really well um i think the reason we were you know we really wanted to see these contextual pictures as part of your presentation um and why it's a requirement is that we always want to see how you look at the context around these buildings and how you're getting cues from that and um i feel like with the materials that you've used um that's where i think the um building could use some work it's um it doesn't to me feel um like a good gateway it's basically a gateway to the city it's also a gateway to the west side and so i'm
026just not sure how you're picking up on the materials in that area there's a lot of brick and you have picked up on that i'm just i'm not sure about the uh the cementitious wood and what is that painted is that color what what is what is that and why is that it's not painted and we spoke with frank about that and it was or sorry jeffrey about that and um it was it was to create an accent uh with you know within the primary use of brick uh so it's just it was just to create a little bit of relief um on the ground floor to create a little bit more warmth but it is um it's more like a niche hot panel um oh did you have more tamara go ahead yeah um
027so i think i just i i worry about that kind of material there um and i guess i'd just like to see maybe if you're coming back in next week if you could maybe have some of those materials that we could look at i mean i know we can't look at them in person but um because that i'm just i'm not sure what that really looks like and you can't tell from the um renderings i'm very concerned with the use of isis all over the building i'm around the back you can i was looking through again looking at google maps and trying to see but you can view the back of the building from around the neighborhood and um you know the the homeless shelter next door is all brick um and i i guess
028i'm not sure why that your materials can be brought around the entire building and not sort of stopped short of the rear i think the awnings uh you could that's where there's a real um opportunity to bring in some character from that area right now they're they're they seem way too modern for that area of town again this is a transition between old west side and and downtown um it's just a awnings are a great flow you know great spot to bring in some of that character and there there's there's not much to them right now i was thinking that might be something you could focus on um also you i think you mentioned i saw in the write up something about through wall air conditioning but nothing is shown on the or pointed out
029on the uh the facades so it might be something you could add and render because i was looking at the renderings i don't see any of the maybe the the quality of the pdf but i couldn't see any change in those areas um that's a big really makes a big difference on the facade of the building um there's a few other things uh you noticed in your steer towers you don't have any windows just something that we always try to encourage designers to put in for safety and light and saving energy i think just in summary you know i think that the scale and massing is is very nice and very appropriate um but it just seems like the character is a is just not quite right for that area and i i just um
030hope you can go back and and look at that context um again thanks laurie i think i saw your hand yeah i think i would agree with um tamara's comments you know i do like the richness of the brick at the ground level i think the general proportions and sense of um highlighting the corner are good i also are concerned about the wood finish cementitious panel i mean faux materials in general are something i'm really concerned about using but using them at grade where you can actually walk up and touch them is even more concerning to me so i think especially one of the challenges i would like to see those materials too because if if there is faux wood it should age appropriate it should look like aged appropriate wood not an interior finish
031of wood and that's where you get the warmth when you use wood with the kind of stained character and it just i found that it looks very unnatural and awkward when tried to be kind of that kind of rich stained wood polished finish or whatever it is on an exterior application i think also because it's being used in a way that you wouldn't normally use wood and framing a window that's of a more sturdy material i think it also feels sort of awkward so i'm wondering if there isn't another way to use even cementitious panel to get that warmth without it trying to be a material that it is not that would be i guess my first inclination um i think proportionately it works i think that's the other challenge i see is the linear
032strips as would feel very unnatural it doesn't seem like a way that wood would behave especially if it's horizontally articulated so i just would urge you to rethink the finish of that material even if it's cementitious panel what could it be to get the same effect i would say that i think there's a lot going on on the building facade i think in the elevation it's probably more pronounced than it would be in real life based on kind of the seaming of the materials that would be more subtle but i i do feel like it gets a bit intense especially at the corner where you have several different you know kind of window arrangements the vertical striations in the facade um which are much different than the kind of punched uh squared windows across the
033rest of the elevation and i feel like it could use some simplification even potentially just um a simpler way to handle that striated linear horizontal band the blue gray gray accent piece i think i mean i i really think that that's an aesthetic that has sort of seen its time in the early 2000s and i feel like it's going to feel dated pretty soon once this gets built so even something simpler might have color might have some accent in its texture but i think that kind of linear alternating bat staggered bands um is something that maybe we could try to come up with something that's um that that's different from that and maybe isn't as visually distracting um but that also celebrates and highlights that corner i think if you look at the image that's
034like the corner view i think at the um what's slide 10 and your presentation you can kind of see where there's a lot of different alignments coming in with the folded metal panel at the entrances the corner articulation and the windows there's just a lot of lines a lot of things that aren't aligning with each other um that just make it feel a little bit messy for that really kind of important moment along the street so um i don't i know if we're not all looking at this at the same thing but i that i think there just needs to be a bit more stud study and refinement and simplification of how all of that comes together it does it the windows feel well scaled they feel like they're in the right place i think
035it's maybe just where we draw the lines for where the metal panel starts and where the windows stop i think that's it for me oh i have a clarification question that um you're calling it a courtyard that's that's just the upgrade parking and service functions that are behind the building right it's not there's nothing on top of that parking layer that's enclosed okay that's correct thank you thanks laurie gary i just wanted to ask about the streetscape um along 1st street there's a very wide curve cut for the current use and it appears to be still intact although i think the intention is to create a drop off has that been run by traffic and is it a will it be modified to be a drop off and then on the site line i'm looking
036at right now i can see some planners that maybe are an extension of the uh heron uh streetscape that may come down there so there looks like there would be two openings maybe three street trees on on the here on street side i don't see any trees or landscape on the other two sides and no landscape between the building and the sidewalk can you just kind of describe what your thoughts are yeah gary i can hop in here just bring jamie with naterveld um so we were actually worked with um amber miller at the dda focusing both on first street and huron street and what you're seeing on the here on treat side is actually all existing they renovated all the street tape space there not too long ago so our intent is to leave
037it as is as for um the first street side um i know the city's actually in the process right now of reconstructing per street it is going to be converted from a one-way into a two-way street with a protected bike lane um so both the dda and smith group were able to provide us with the design drawing so we actually implemented those drawings as much as we could along first street there were no landscape uh landscape planters proposed in that section of per street just south of the 115 property all along our frontage um we are proposing to have a guest drop-off space though i think that is dimension was that is going to be 40 feet in length so it will pretty much run uh the full length of the canopy that we show
038in the elevations otherwise we are looking at expanding the public sidewalk as much as possible so i know that was one of the concerns that jeff and ambred brought up when we were working for the design process so we definitely want to focus in on expanding what they're proposing on the six foot sidewalk along first and we're proposing almost 10 feet at the netherlands portion now i think on your original submission i can see the uh proposed redesign of first street in the dedicated bike line and it's just visible on that drawing but it's not on uh today's submission i don't think i guess i would i wonder sorry not to cut you off kristen did you get the drawings that we also sent over to you um that were the site plan drawings that
039i think jason sent over this might detail out a little bit better what we're trying to plan here on the site plan version you're muted christian can you say um the end of that again you said you were the site plan drawings yeah so i i believe jason and correct me if i'm around jason um we sent over some side plane drawings that uh natoral provided that's more detailed specifically looking at the street state space and the way the drive vials are laid out okay so those were not included with the dynamic presentation okay so in the agenda there is the original submittal package that's about 20-ish pages and then um last not last last week i believe some more materials were sent over to jeff um and those are also included in the agenda
040i'm not aware okay no you're you're good um a part of that original submission that i think is 27 pages the two the two uh site plan uh pages i think they are i think i can look at the exact page numbers too they are page 9 and 10. those would be the ones i'm referring to gary they go a little more detail so that is that's that's that's our most up-to-date plan when it comes to site plan yeah i see a c205 and yep i mean c206 will be more specifically for access management premises so we're showing the alignments uh for garbage truck turn movements through through the lanes as well as having how we work through with the fire department there were there were a number of different things that we had to
041meet for the fire department so you'll see those on c206 as well i i don't think we're opposed to um providing some green space um we we were just directed to provide as large of a pedestrian area uh as we could i think so i think there is some space for for planters or you know some some kind of a raised bed or something i feel like i think on north or on first street north of the drop-off there's a sniffing area that could have street trees that grade and planters could have some ground plantings uh at least something to consider i i i'm speaking for the team but i i don't believe that's an issue at all i think we're not opposed to that we can probably provide that for the next month's meeting
042anyone else corey or john or jeff yeah jeff oh jeff you're on mute there you go oh i want to support um laurie's comment and i think somebody else maybe tamara commented about the faux wood um i'm against that as a material and i would be against wood being used even if it were the real thing because bringing it right down to grade especially along um along the sidewalk there will be impossible to maintain it it won't it's an inappropriate material for uh this downtown site and i'm definitely against any kind of uh faux material uh being introduced um i think camera mentioned the ac units i'd like to see those delineated on these renderings because they become a prominent part of a building facade and i mean unless it's unless it's not being done
043with through-the-wall units i'd like to see what what the architect has in mind there i had a question about the lobby it's an awfully big space and there is no delineation or no designation as to how that space is going to be used um you know where's the on-site manager's office going to be is there going to be any kind of kitchen or kitchenette facility it's definitely a lobby uh too big for 90 some rooms so i'd like to see some uh articulation of how that space is going to be used where is the sign-in desk going to be lounge areas etc and along those lines i mean if that space is really just going to be lobby and not dining or that sort of thing um i'd like to see the corner opened up
044a little bit more um it sacrifices usable floor space on the inside but it's an area that's so big anyway that it would be nice to open that corner up for sort of a sheltered uh pedestrian experience there at the corner uh people are going to be coming out checking out and uh you know waiting for uber or waiting for their ride or whatever it'd be nice to have some some kind of a sheltered space for them uh maybe even some kind of benches that sort of thing um i think the corner material was mentioned the sort of helter skelter metal panel different color kind of thing i i don't like it um i'm even having a hard time reading the word fairfield at the top of what's here just in the rendering and people
045are going to have to find this building so i'd like to see something maybe a little bit more we've been keeping with uh with kind of a downtown type material and then the relationship of this building to the adjacent building since we don't have photographs to evaluate from and you don't you don't show those in your renderings i'd like to see you know i'd like to be able to evaluate kind of you know how this building bangs up against its neighbors um i think that's about it um i like the idea that you drive through the site in order to to accommodate drop-offs and i like the fact that you've at least provided a little bit of parking on site maybe for staff or whatever but i like the idea that uh you know we
046have another downtown hotel now that does not accommodate any kind of drive through like this and i think this actually works pretty well so i like that um and i like the the rest of the massing of the building um so when you guys come back next month you know maybe maybe you can address some of those things jeff brought up about the lobby do you could you guys talk about that a little bit so i think i mean i think probably all of our concern would be that um those spaces become i don't know offices or something and you the shades down all the time instead of windows out on the street could you just talk a little bit about what that large space is going to be hi tomorrow so the ground floor
047space um and to address the uh jeff's comment as well from earlier uh we haven't gotten that far into the design of the ground floor yet but what we intend to do is put all the public amenities spaces along the uh along the storefront so you'll see a lot of activity there's not going to be much backup house spaces that are aligned towards the primary streets we'll keep those back house functions and administrative offices towards the parking courtyard in the back um so everything that you will see along this uh along the street front will be you know public amenity spaces uh the dining area where guests are eating breakfast in the morning you know registration hotel check-in and things like that okay thank you continuing well while we're talking about that i had a
048question on that too i noticed there there were three what look like guest rooms in the lobby are those guest rooms or are those management overnight spaces those are guest rooms and what what will happen was once once we finalize the layout for the ground floor uh there'll be a separation wall that separates uh the guest room corridors uh versus the rest of the wing so oftentimes if you if you uh go into a hotel you'll see the public amenity spaces and then you'll see a corridor that leads off into guest rooms on the ground floor it'll be similar to that okay thank you uh is there a basement under this building no no basement thank you john yes thanks richard and i don't know i want to talk about the streetscape as well uh
049and i don't know whether that's jason or brandon but uh i'm the new kid on the board uh i'm uh the liaison from the public art commission so my pitch is for public art uh the city council unanimously wanted the art commission to sort of um touch base with new developers who come into town and encourage public art in in their building in their projects so i guess my first question uh um jason or brandon uh have you considered uh public art there are some nice locations uh uh within your project uh and if so what are your thoughts i'm going to go over this um so we haven't no but i um speaking from the team i'm sure we're opened into looking at different ways to display public art along our street fronts that
050that that's great and along with and i really like uh that i can see into that building as a pedestrian so i think the pedestrian experience is awesome um and um you know i'm with jeff and in terms of you know i'm not so sure i think he said helter skelter uh sort of a uh a knockoff mondrian or whatever on on the building i'm not so sure uh that that really fits within the surroundings um but there is the corner it's a very prominent corner it is a gateway other people have have talked about it in fact what would be the back of the building is probably going to be the most prominent coming up from here on uh so that uh that back of the building really i think deserves us some attention
051um the corner that's there there there is kind of a a cut out and i think jeff mentioned possibly for people waiting for uber and things like that um that might i mean even inside because there's all around it or um you know a relief on the side or if you do as jeff suggested open that space up uh that it would be a very nice location uh for a kind of some sculpture or and um a rotating art gallery uh a number of people have been very uh interested in it so that it would keep it unusual there are a lot of local artists that uh you could find to be able to supply a sculpture uh for for for your site and i i noticed the the entrance on on first uh there's
052that uh wall that's that's lit um that would be an excellent location you know for a mural it'd be really dramatic and it would be a nice way of engaging folks that come into that that courtyard and um i think in your presentation you mentioned that it it is a prominent location it's also a very historic location i don't know if if you realize that but right across the street is where the first framed house in ann arbor was built elisha ramsey's home was built there and so that it elijah ramsey and john allen were the two folks that came together and purchased the land uh and there's some bronze plaques that are there you know you might want to think about recognizing that and leveraging that either inside or um or however but i
053like the massing of the building i really like the the open uh the windows and from what i hear you're going to maintain that so that as a pedestrian that's that's an exciting place i would cross the street to go kind of check it out a little bit so uh well done uh and i would encourage a public art um if you could thanks thanks john see who hasn't had a chance anyone else i would just uh support some a lot of the comments made um tamara's point about the awnings um i think they're an interesting gesture but they're on the generic side and i like the words you know adding some character if possible would be ideal um that's for the designer to work out but um you know that i think that there's
054some potential there i like i like the gesture of it though um the just a couple of little points that um i was supporting as we talked as we're all engaged here um given that the the street is becoming a two-way street i think we don't want to miss the opportunity to get some landscaping in there on first there's quite a bit of space there i think if it's sometimes if it's too wide open it just turns into like a little bit of a to open space right um it's a chance if it is becoming a two-way street that's gonna be a big change for ann arbor people that are used to it as a one-way street kind of speeding that kind of just if you have deciduous trees there it'll slow down the flow
055and become more integrated to the ann arbor feeling i would strongly suggest incorporating those um i would like to see like tamara mentioned the beginning more context as the planner here it it's really it's going to be helpful to get more of the photos and things like that in there i'd love to see what you do with that but i think it's i think it's a neat project um i do wonder about the the broken shapes and rectangles and things um if that's the busyness of it is it what is it saying besides busy um i just it doesn't do a lot um as far as like a message or even interesting shapes to me and that's it okay thank you i um most of my comments have been said already but i'll add a
056few i i agree with the comments about ephesus in a northern climate it it sort of had its day here most of us have stopped using it so you might want to look into that a little bit the the spots that would particularly concern me are at the roof line of the second floor on the east and south facades above the projected second floor then that would come in contact potentially with drifted snow we get a lot of that and i know dynamic is based in atlanta so we have to think about snow and durability here and ephesus has been problematic and so too has cement board if there are any places where where that would come in contact with moisture it just doesn't have the longevity that you might hope for so i give
057that some thought i also agree that the multi-colored panels in the tower are too busy and a little confusing um and jeff touched on this a bit i think the chris is there any chance you could pull up one of the renderings yes from the um presentation today or from the agenda one of the last ones that shows the corner the very last one number 12 maybe and then up at the top in and i i understand the geometry of the tower and it's defined by this upside-down u-shape thin element but i wonder if at the top if you should drop that lower line significantly maybe all the way down to the window heads below so you create a large valance up there and um in a top and then it also gives you a
058backdrop for the signage that that top could be monochromatic and the signage could be pin mounted to it and it'd be clearly seen i agree with jeff that it gets kind of lost in the confusion of all the multi-colored panels and i'm just not in this is a personal taste thing it's not in our guidelines but the multi-colored panels i think are lacking um city hall attempted a similar thing and and i don't think it's been all that successful it's really the only other place i can think of that that is trying to um and that the this is more a thing for kristen and chris i noticed in the write-up that going for lee gold um brings with it a premium of uh going from 200 to 350 far which is significant and that's
059like a 75 percent upgrade and as all of us know when when you're you're going for lead you don't know if you've attained it until after the building is built and usgb does their their inspection and and makes the award so i don't know where that leaves the city if you don't attain leed certification and and the building was enlarged significantly based on that assumption and i bring that up in this one because i think lee gold is a pretty high bar for a boutique hotel like this there are going to be 93 unit ventilators that are controlled by guests and there's a large laundry facility there's no sign of solar which i i saw in the in richard this is ross with dynamic we've actually met with and have a sustained green consultant on
060board and have gone through and identified our path to getting the lead gold so we're confident that we're going to have five or six points above the threshold needed to get lead goal that we are targeting so that even if some don't come to fruition down the road as we get through the project if you know for whatever reason the contractor is unable to dispose of waste and gain that point that we've got extra points to give so we'll cross that threshold for leaked gold does it include solar not necessarily that's one of the ones we've identified as an option for extra points beyond what we need because what we're required to provide to get that point but we aren't including that in our base design at this time okay then i i bring it
061up just for the sake of chris and and kristen it's really not in in our purview but it concerns me it seems like a high bar for this type of building but i'll let that go um so then that is everybody um what what we try to do because the turnaround time is so short for you to submit uh for next month's meeting that we try to give you a summary and i think i've seen chris writing did do you have a summary you could provide and then we we could all weigh in and say what two or three items we think are most important yep i've been taking notes so is this customary then you want to get uh some feedback on what uh what the issues there that were brought up so i
062was gonna i was also gonna write them up also but we can go over some of those issues richard it might it might be helpful if we recap because we've been taking our news since we're very familiar with the project obviously it might help we kind of read back what our interpretation is of what design direction we've been given and you guys can get your name on whether we got the message is that would you rather chris if there is yeah i'm willing to do that there's something that so these are the the main items that i've noted that the general massing of the building is good but then we should revisit a few things in terms of color material selection uh number one being we're not doing the wood at the incense because it's
063either photo wood that nobody likes or a sustainability issue or a maintenance issue down the road so we're going to revisit that material selection the colored metal panels at the uh at the corner we're gonna revisit so that it's not as busy looking and perhaps a different uh patterning or indoor color selection there so that it is a little more contemporary and not as dated or a random feeling a request for revisiting the rear side of the building and that was one thing we want to get clarification on is to one degree we need to address that since what the understanding what the guidelines say is that the street fronting facades or facades that are visible from the uh immediately adjacent street are the ones that need high quality materials to what extent we need
064to address that around the courtyard sort of side of the building so that may be something we can touch base with you on separately after this that for our rendering and for our elevations we need to more clearly call out where our ptac units are the the three-wall units uh but there was a request to look at whether or not we could do windows in the stairs uh and to take another look at the audience similarly how a lot of the horizontal elements are lining up across the building so that there's better alignment and sort of or visual and organization floor to look at uh making sure we have all as much information as we can of the ground floor layout so you can see that our public spaces and open spaces are the ones
065that are fronting the street facade and then we look at doing some planting along first street so that we have probably north of the drop-off uh either a planting bed raised planter or well of some kind and then last that we take into consideration uh some way of trying to incorporate public art whether it's at the ground level uh or on the courtyard side on the uh large exposed beside their uh engaging the context more by incorporating some public art or other contextually appropriate treatment that was what we had as our main takeaways i don't know did i miss anyone's big ticket items i i would also add maybe it was mentioned and it went right over my head uh take a look at the awnings uh you know ethis doesn't sound like because of
066the northern climate it's something that's going to be supported um you know make sure to state if there's a retaining wall that's either shared with the west property obviously bring that contextual pictures to the next meeting yep um so you mentioned the streetscape uh possibly i believe uh mr perkins had brought up possibly a sheltered space maybe at the corner or something depending on how the lobby's laid out to um possibly have like a a you know a pickup area or maybe a park bench or something there right that would be part of our looking at the ground floor layout and all the internal space to see if we can carve some space at that corner to make it a little more opened up but that's yeah i think everything else was mentioned but if
067not by all means it's a good time to discuss if there's more information that you want flushed out camera um you just said uh asked for some more clarification on the rear um materials are certainly more probably important on those uh two primary facades but also we we talk about in the guidelines the materials reinforcing the massing and the concept and the character and the context so we don't just say on two sides of it you know it's a it's a three-dimensional building you can see that um backside if you go to the west end street um i was able to at least get that far on google maps and view and you look right into the whole back area there's a lot of around there by pedestrians and in the neighborhood where you're going
068to be able to see that back area i mean just it's a it's a building you know make it a three-dimensional building don't just it's not a two-dimensional thing um so that's that's why i wanted the clarification everyone's uh design guidelines are written a little bit differently and so we are just making sure we have the correct interpretation before we revisit that side yeah and i mean i understand why looking at that um i just would encourage you to you know what i said just you know looking at it as as as a full building uh if the homeless shelter can do brick on all sides if you can bring your materials around all four or six sides whatever you got um just one more little thing um just maybe when you come back with
069your renderings just uh take a look at the diversity of the um people on the street just to go back to the streetscape for a moment it seems to me that that 40-foot drop-off is really close to the intercept just my experience with city engineering and traffic i'm a little surprised but allow it that close somebody stopped stopped at the light since you know it blocks the car from pulling out of the drop off i think the drop-off is centered on the doors that you have don't know that that's really necessary the drop off could slide north a little bit and maybe allow you a street tree on either side of the drop off and some landscaping again further north but just something to check out anything else i think the summary was pretty good
070yes okay all right thank you very much we'll see you next week um and i think our our meetings are the second wednesday of every month so that'll be whatever date that is in september can everyone else stay on we're not done yet um also under new because i i added the idea that corey brought up about adding sustainability features to our guidelines and um so we propose that and leonard supports the idea of us forming a subcommittee to um look into that he gave us some direction so i think so far laurie and corey have experienced interest so anyone else is interested just let me know and i'll i'll send you around and figure out a time that we can meet and um and decide what we want to do um there's one more
071public period this is the opportunity for persons to speak for up to three minutes to comment please call 80 eight zero zero nine three and enter the meeting id which is nine one two five four two six one one one four city staff will select followers on your in order to electronically raise your hand to include your desire to speak please please through your phone you'll hear an automated announcement and the host that host is allowing you just double give it a minute you say anything kristin have callers okay all right so i think we're done we've missed something someone would like to bring out okay would someone like to move a german so moved hey gary in a second tamara all in favor say hi hi hi everybody thank you okay thank you you