 27th architecture review board meeting to order. You've already run through the roll call. I can do that if you'd like. To be official if you wouldn't mind doing that again now that we're yep adjourned for session. Sounds good. Joe Clark. Here. Marcus. Here. Jerry Jones. Richard. Here. Here. Pam. Robert and Charlie. Sounds like we have a quorum with four. All right. Thank you, Steve. If I could ask everyone to please stand in their respective locations, face the flag or east for the pledge of allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, the Republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible with liberty and justice for all. Somebody will get that in sync. Right. I think the trick is not to listen to the other folks. Item 1.3 any potential conflicts of interest that need to be identified today. Hearing none, I'll move to item 2.1 approval of the minutes from the July 13th meeting. Move to approve. Marcus Savalia. Thank you, Marcus. Do we have a second? Second. Was that Richard seconding? Yep. Yep. Richard seconding. Perfect. All right. Thank you. Any further discussion? Oh, he turned it off. Hearing no additional discussion items. Steve, if you could call the roll for the votes. Sure. Joe. Marcus. Aye. Richard. Aye. And Robert. Thank you, everyone. That brings us to item 3.1, the discussion and possible action on the 1402 Union Avenue. Chad, if you could take the podium and tell us what is being discussed and proposed, please. So, thank you, Chair. This is Chad, the planning director, and I'm here to talk about the property at 1402 Union Avenue. So, on the packet, those that are in attendance have a drawing, but in the actual item, there's a side elevation of this building. This building is on the corner of 14th and Union. If you've driven down Union Avenue, you've seen this building. It's the side of the brick. Cream City brick is falling off at the top of the building. There's been Joe Schmidt and Son barricades around it for probably a good six to eight months. So, the city building inspector wrote this property up. We were going to move forward with a raise order and after touring the inside of the building decided that raising it wasn't the best option because we would have been just stuck with a vacant lot on a prime intersection that we would have had to mow the grass on for the next five years. So, the idea came up of it was going into foreclosure at the time. So, we left the building go into foreclosure and the city negotiated a deal in lieu of the building code citations on the property to have them deed it over to the city for a dollar from the bank. So, Wisconsin Bank and Trust turned the building over to the city a couple weeks ago and so now we're in the process. We've got a couple interested parties and we would like to get some thoughts on how to handle this brick in a cost-effective manner versus re-bricking this whole side back up. So, the estimates from cautious construction and Schmidt construction that the lender Wisconsin Bank and Trust obtained were almost $200,000 and the property is assessed at $90,000. So, we're looking at what options are out there. We've talked to the interested party that the city probably would be interested in selling it to and they recommended taking the brick down halfway. So, splitting the first and the second levels and then capping it off and then putting some type of either siding or a material of plastic looking siding, plastic looking brick that I have in the chambers with me. So, you're going to have to base it on your friends here at the table to see what this stuff looks like. But basically, it's a product that you buy at Menards. It would be a siding, but it would act like brick and you can get it in different colors. And the idea would be do you put something like this back up because from a distance it would look like it was, you know, that it wasn't the cream city. Maybe you tie it into the color that's on the front of the building on that far southeast corner. You can see where there's a different color like a reddish brick and then wraps around to the front. So, do you bring that around in the same kind of material on a higher up? They're going to have to do some insulating to deal with this and deal with some structural stuff. But the owner that's interested in the property, the buyer, is saying that he believes it can be done. It's just that it's going to have to be done in a cost effective manner. So, what we're trying to understand from the committee is, number one, what would you guys accept? What's your recommendations? And if you have recommendations, are they something that's relatively inexpensive that we can keep this property on the tax roll, get some use in this building and be able to, you know, move forward with life because the rest of the building is in relatively good shape. Chad, can you clarify for us on the elevation that's on our screens now or was on our screens exactly how much brick is needing to be removed? Is it just this elevation and what is the extent that has to be taken this ago all the way to the corners or do we just go to the window jam? The idea the idea was is we thought as staff that it would make sense to on that elevation just behind that taller tree there's like an exhaust fan in some place you know a foot or so above that exhaust fan to break it. So if you broke it where the floor trust maybe is between the two floors took it down to that point and took it corner to corner and maybe I the build the this is the only elevation that has this problem. The north and south or the front and back of the building appear to be in good shape so they you know they may leave a course or two of brick on those corners to wrap it around and then try to just feel to kind of mimic what you see on the front corner where the the front brick color wraps around to the east elevation maybe you leave the cream city on that north east corner like a row or two of that brick and then just fill in the in the middle if you will. My initial look at the elevation I had thought that if we could leave everything from the window sills down this brick that would be aesthetically a nice breaking point but structurally if the brick needs to come down all the way to the floor level then yes we could consider that my personal preference would be to go with some sort of a different siding material rather than the fake brick and personal preference not to mix the real with the fake brick on the same building so something horizontal siding or a panelized siding of some sort would be my preference there other board members your thoughts Mr. Chairman Mr. Lindy yes it sounds to me like we're trying to he's turned off again one the latest don't touch it oh okay there you go you're good you like okay sounds to me like we're trying to design by committee I have a suggestion that we hire an architect namely me at a fee of zero to do a study to find out what can actually be done and what will look reasonable and report back at the next meeting we we could go with that we like to zero because we have we paid a buck for this so we don't have much money but we could we could work with you and come up with some concepts I think the plan I was hoping was that we could given that the council process takes three weeks and we've got brick that's a safety hazard that's falling off of that building and you know in neighbors that are there's a whole sheet that's ready to just fall you can see it above that window we were hoping to get an answer today that's why we amended the agenda to be discussion and possible actions so we can include that in the offer and hopefully start the council process to sell this property sooner than later but if it's the committee's wishes we can hold off for two weeks Mr. Chairman yes with that Bob this Marcus I've got a question thank you is there anything preventing us from taking down the dangerous portion of the brick without a plan to replace it at this point in time Chad there is nothing there is nothing doing that I we're going to have to hire a contractor to do it city staff won't take this on so I don't have any money budgeted to do this so yeah I guess we can you know get somebody in there and see what they're you know what the problem is is when you look at it it's like where do you stop so you know just because that piece is is loose the rest of it you can see is pulling away from the windows below and and on the side but we can get the real rough stuff off I guess as soon as we can I'll just have to find money to pay for it just a chime in here this is Bob I agree with what Joe said I like the idea of stopping at the cell if it structurally can do that and I also agree with not using the fake brick but using the siding for what it's worth so I don't know if I don't think we're going to be I pet I Rick and I were out there and I don't think we're going to be able to stop at the sill it looks like they're peeling away further at the sill I I think there's a point in between where we're hoping to go and where the sill stop is so you know hopefully we can I don't think it's going to be at the sill though when I look at it it looks like that's already pulled away in some areas as well but we would do have them you know disturb the minimum I think there are a number of steps that we need to take on this the first one would be the safety factor architecture review board isn't in the position to have any input on the safety of that that's something we'd have to leave to to you chatter the city to evaluate to see if something needs to be done right away or if it can be left until there's a direction and get a contractor in there to do all the work at once so if if we could defer that to the city powers of the be to make that assessment second piece the cost it sounds as if most folks have weighed in that some sort of siding approach would be acceptable obviously we'll work with the city as best we can to get a budget approach that is still aesthetically pleasing and doesn't set horrible precedents for us but then I think we we do need to have some sort of assessment of the existing structure there how much brick can safely be saved or whether so much of it's deteriorated that pretty much that entire elevation would need to be addressed and I think if that's something that the inspector has been able to establish and can review with Dick Lindy then I I would love to take him up on his wonderful offer of doing architectural work for no fee to be able to take a look at some suggestions otherwise as he said where we're designing by committee a lot of arm waving and doing this remotely is really going to be difficult so if that's something that can be done fairly soon for the next council meeting and your schedule chat is this something that if Dick's able to come up with ideas and we can review this with board members via email to be able to get some consensus and then leave it to staff to make that approval to the council I think that would work Mr. Chair what I would recommend is that as part of your motion if you just so we can get it in the minutes that you're authorizing staff to work with Mr. Lindy and provide some estimates and that maybe option one is to preserve as much brick as you can so you know option one might be only to take it down to the windows if that's possible and then if absolute worse has to go a little bit further than that there's an option to and that it's documented in the minutes I think to help you out the motion would be to authorize staff to work with Dick Lindy to come up with a plan that would be shared with the committee via email with option one being to leave the brick intact up to the bottom of the window sills and then if that's not possible option two would be to go to the first you know row of bricks that are structurally sound that can stay in place so moved careful thank you Marcus do we have a second second Marcus and Dick perfect thank you any further discussion one one sorry sorry Joe one other question is that the potential purchaser of the building was thinking of converting the downstairs unit downstairs a commercial unit to a residential unit and had talked about maybe some windows in that first floor elevation on the east side and you know on the drawing that I gave the group there he's got them as horizontal windows or vertical or whatever you guys call them in the architectural world I'm of the opinion that they should kind of match the upstairs windows so the idea of in that kind of sorry to throw this in there but in that kind of south southeast corridor basically between the bush and the corner of the the front of the building would be to put in some windows there that if they were if those were bedrooms they would have some daylight so what is is the committee you know and we could work with dick on some recommendations of what that might look like but would you guys be against adding some additional kind of street level windows on that east elevation if this became a two-unit apartment building from my standpoint I don't have an issue with that but I think it's going to be difficult to save brick and cut openings into it by the time you're putting new lintels in for that you're probably better off taking the brick all the way down to maybe a wainscote height and that isn't even worth saving at that point do you know if there's any sort of plan anticipated for that residential conversion to know where the windows should be located we seem to be expanding the scope that a volunteer to work for I don't want it to get beyond what he's comfortable with at this stage I don't know that for surely underneath the two windows that are on the on the top side there would probably be a need to have at least two on the the bottom side and that towards the front of the building but I don't that would be up to that that would be up to them to present and come forward with at a later date I don't think I would have Dick look at that I think that's more structural and they can hire their own architect to do so could I comment on that too Joe please do in order to convert that to a two family they would have to go through a conditional use permit process so maybe at that time when that gentleman has that more put together if he chooses to go that direction he would have a bit more of a floor plan and then if he would choose to do some windows or something to that effect he could have you know he could review that and come in at that time and we could review that aspect of it then if he chooses to move forward that way I think we can certainly split it into a near-term and long-term evaluation my my concern with that is in setting up this first phase do we then take some of the options off the table for what they can do in the future whereas if we do exactly what we're doing now being able to evaluate it all at once would definitely be preferable but it sounds as if that just isn't an option dick the only other thing I would ask of you is is that something that is you're looking at the elevation you could make some recommendations based on as that elevation is coming together with the infill of the siding where lower level windows might architecturally be most appropriate and then they can try to work a plan to those windows even though we wouldn't have actually approved those yet I'd be comfortable with that and mr chairman that would be fantastic and I'm sorry I'm volunteering you for more work not a problem I seem to have plenty of time excellent so we have a motion and a second and I believe we were then amending that to include the possibility of residential windows on the lower floor are the motioner and seconder comfortable with that amendment yes sure any further discussion needed on those points if not Steve could you please call the roll for the vote sure Joe I Marcus I Richard I and Robert as if it is approved the chat does that get you what you need to be able to move it forward it does and I thank you for this because we wanted to have it documented before we started the council selling process and I think this is a good plan moving forward to keep the building on the tax rolls and standing and get somebody in there that can use it glad to help and if through the development Dick and Steve if there's additional feedback needed from the board please contact us and we'll try to help you expedite this to get it so that it keeps your schedule on track sounds good next meeting is looking like August 10th do we have things on the agenda for that yet Steve yes all right perfect and with that I think we are done unless anyone has anything else just a motion to adjourn move to adjourn second all those in favor hi anyone opposed okay we are adjourned all right thanks everyone