 All right, looks as if it is four o'clock. We will call the March 22nd Architecture Review Board to order. Steve, if you could please run us through the roll call. Joe Clark. Present. Present. Jerry Jones. Present. Richard Lindy. Present. Pam Langen was excused. Robert Heimerl was excused. Charlie Wig. Charlie Wig. We have forum. We have a qualm. Excellent, thank you. If I could please ask everyone then to stand for the Pledge of Allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible. And under item 1.3, if any of the board members have a potential conflict of interest with today's items, hearing none, I will move to the approval of the minutes from February 22nd. Presumably everyone had a chance to review those. This is Jerry, make a motion to approve as presented. Second. Marcus Savalio. Thank you both. We have a motion and a second. Any further discussion? Hearing none, do a voice vote on this one? Yeah, we could do a voice vote. Let's do a voice vote. All those in favor signify by saying aye. Aye. Aye. Opposed? And with the echoes it was very unanimous. Yes. All right, thank you, the minutes are approved. Item 3.1, first item today is the proposed construction of a new Popeyes restaurant at 3207 South Business Drive. And I believe the presenter for that, Mark, that would be you on the phone. Yeah, I represent the developer. And I think we have James Burkhardt with Excel engineering who's helping us with development as well. Excellent, thank you. If one of you could just give us a brief synopsis of what it is you're proposing, and then we'll take it up for discussion. Yes, I think we purchased the lot, which was the former Ryder Truck Service Center. And it was quite a large lot. So we actually are in the process of splitting that into two separate lots. And on the northern half of that lot, which is roughly about, I don't know, James would have the measurements, but we want to build a freestanding Popeyes QSR restaurant that is illustrated in the slides that I guess someone has present. But yeah, so it's just a traditional freestanding QSR with a drive-through. Okay, thank you. Steve, I know the city had some comments on this one. Would you review those for us, please? Sure. And James or Mark, I think maybe before I go into the city comments, maybe one of you could speak in terms of the architecture of the building, the elevation drawing that the board is considering today. So if someone wants to go through those building elevations and plans, now would be the time to do that. Yeah, James, I'll divert to you, probably the better. Sure. So on the front elevation, we're looking at a majority of EFIS along with some fiber cement wood siding, which is the brown material. The towers would be fiber cement in the form of a brick texture. And then the rest of the buildings mainly EFIS as well. Okay. All right, if you want to go through some of the comments. So a couple of comments that staff had with regards to the project. One of them was that in that particular section of South Business Drive, you have the Washington Square Development and you have several outlets on the west side. And much of that is brick. So one of the questions that staff had for the board was the applicants proposing horizontal fiber cement pattern on the front towers and portions of north and south elevations. But they show a vertical fiber cement wood pattern on the main tower element. And so the question that staff had was applicant might want to explain the reasoning behind that design because staff is unsure about the vertical fiber cement on that section. And should that same horizontal design be used to the building in order to be uniform? Also, should there be more brick instead of EFIS on that front South Business Drive elevation to be more consistent with the other development in that neighborhood? Couple other comments were with regards to the shutters on the north and south sides of the rear of the building that those are presently teal in color. And staff was questioning whether or not there was any reason why the shutters couldn't be a similar color to that of the trim or the awning colors located on a building similar to the other Popeyes brand orange and red accents on the building. Any thoughts on the freezer design? The freezer just kind of looks like it's placed at the back of the building with a design that really doesn't relate to the rest of the building. There are several horizontal band elements that just seem to dead end. And is there any reason why these bands couldn't extend throughout the sides of the building? Is there any reason why the brick on the main entry south elevation where it says, love that chicken could not be stepped up above the EFIS portion of the building similar to the building design on the drive-through on the north elevation? And would the parapets just cover the mechanicals? So those were just a couple of comments that staff had that the board and the applicant can address. And those were great comments. Thanks, Steve. And they summarized all the thoughts I had had so nicely I figured it was easiest to run through them that way. Maybe Mark and James was it? If you want to respond to those and then have additional discussion? Yeah, I'll try to touch on a few of them and then James could probably elaborate. As far as the, you'd mentioned kind of the disparity between the horizontal applications and the vertical applications, as far as the EFIS, I give, they're the only horizontal segments that I guess you would reference as really the differentiation and the color of the EFIS material on the bottom portion and the top portion. Other than that, there's really not any kind of horizontal patterns that really exist. It's pretty a uniform application over the surface area. The vertical wood panelings are kind of a Nietzsche hop paneling that the brand has kind of applied. So I'm not really sure whether they have the acceptance of want to turn those horizontal or not. It's kind of up to the design team at Popeyes specifically. The freezer material, we've gone to a paintable surface of those freezer panels instead of what you a lot of times see as a galvanized steel material. We gravitated towards more of a paintable surface, which we generally try to match the color of the EFIS material that's the most predominant that you see everywhere else. They had mentioned a couple of color variations that they see in this site versus some other ones. Well, not sure if you're aware, but Popeyes as a brand is going in through a re-imaging process where they're transitioning the image that you're probably most familiar with into what you see here. It's a newer image. We built the same model in Green Bay and eventually over the next three to five years, a lot of the existing Popeyes that you know now will be bound to re-imaging to this new design anyway. So a lot of the colors that you see on shutters and such are going to this. I would say the only variation that we've gotten, and this is a newer update that we've gotten from the brand is they've actually gone and changed those red awnings to match the same teal. I'm not sure exactly why. I thought maybe they thought it was more uniform, but you're actually going to see more of that teal in the awnings as well, not the red. That's not reflected in these plans, but that's something that the brand has been pushing lately. And so other than that, everything is pretty consistent. You mentioned the love of chicken emblem that's on the one elevation. I guess maybe I misunderstood where that was proposed to be relocated, but I think where it's at is really the only applicable surface because the contrast of color really only stands out on that brick. If you tried to put it on an ethos material, you wouldn't be able to see it. Now, if I could interrupt there, I don't think the current was related to the location of that element. It was referencing the lack of a parapet at that point. That appears to be sort of the main entry element to the building, and yet it's getting less hierarchy in treatment than any of the other ancillary pieces. So it seems like it would want to draw more attention to that rather than have it tie in at the same height. Yeah, I'm not really sure. I mean, it's more of just a graphic, the main entrance being the double doors with the awning over it as far as the, yeah, as far as the elevation of where that's placed, I'm not really sure. I mean, again, a lot of the design elements that we are bound to are more of a corporate, branding design decision, not so much on our individual design, or I don't know how much jurisdiction we have over those decisions. We can definitely, there is some ability to kind of negotiate with small variations of it when you talk about cities that have requirements in terms of brick requirements or other types of materials, but I mean, if we want to propose moving the elevation of that art, we can definitely propose it. I don't see why there would be an objection to it. I think it's more probably. The issue is not moving the location of that art. It's that the element that that art is on with the main entrance does not have a parapet. The height of that hole, is that the fake brick there, dies at the same camp line as everything else, whereas like your drive-through mass and the front mass are projected above with parapets. It just seems like that. That wall that you see is a parapet extension. So the roof line is actually below that. So like the actual roof line is not flushed with the top of what you see as a black band. So let me restate that. It's not the parapet issue, it's the different height element for that entry block. Just take a look at the drive-through side compared to the entry side. You'll see that the drive-through side is a little bit taller than the elevation or to the sections of the building to the east and west of it. I don't think it is though, that drive-through side, if you're looking at that elevation, the drive-through has an extension outward, so the visual may be a little off. We're looking in elevation, so it should not be an issue of perspective. Are you right? No, I'm okay, I apologize. Yeah, you are correct. Yeah, I don't know if they just wanted some variations for the design, I don't know. But as far as the difference in height of the parapet, I think it's more just designed than it is for any structural integrity. James, do you have anything to add to that? Yeah, from the corporate runs we had received, there was nothing about that tower on the main entrance side that was raised up, but I understand their questioning of the tower on the drive-through side's raised up a foot, so why isn't the main entrance side raised up a foot? I guess that goes back to corporate, and if they have leniency to approve that to be a foot higher on that main entrance side. Yeah, I would have to visit with the brand about it, but it's something I've ran into before. Okay, the other elements that were brought up that I'd like to discuss more. First one is that the building seems disjointed to me. I don't know how the rest of the board feels, but it's a very simple boxy building, but it's been broken up into a lot of separate elements that don't seem to have a lot of pieces to then re-tie them back together again, and I'm just feeling that for me, there's too much disjointedness, and I would like to have things start to be better integrated. I think the comment about the awnings shifting to teal would actually start to help that, that at least then some of those colors carry through more continuously, but finding ways to get the massing blocks to be a little more related would be appreciated, and I think my last couple of comments, and I'll turn it over to the rest of the board, the masonry aspect, I think, and I did drive past there just to confirm that all of the new construction down in that area really does seem to have been the mostly masonry with EFAS or Fiber Cement as accents, but pretty predominantly everything has a masonry base, which I think is gonna hold up a lot better and provide a little, potentially a little more uniformity to the building, so I would like to see that pursued. The freezer enclosure does seem very kind of tacked on and utilitarian at the back, where we have been requiring for dumpster enclosures and things like the freezer enclosure to be more in keeping with the architecture and materials of the building, and those were my hot button issues. Board, other comments or thoughts? Feel free to contradict me. And talking with the representative from the corporation, it seems that the corporate image is more important than local consideration, so I would like to consider that we reject the application until they can take a look at the local situation a little more carefully and adapt their building more carefully to the comments that have been made today. Thank you, Dick. Other comments? Mark and James, we've been going on a bit here, give you guys a chance to participate in this discussion. Your thoughts and feedback? Yeah, I would definitely counter to say it. I don't think that our priority on the brand imaging is anywhere remotely more significant than the city's perspective by any means, so I don't want you guys to feel that that's our perspective. We've been in the Popeye system for 20 years, so we've had the luxury of building in multiple jurisdictions, and so we're definitely open to adapting discussions, and I have some familiarities with what the brand has been a little bit easier to negotiate with and which ones seem to be a little pressing for them. So for example, like with the brick, I know that there's been a lot of applications where the grayer color EFIS that you see has been substituted for a lot more of that brick application, so then you have this contrast of brick at the base, and then you have that more of that off-white EFIS material above it, so there definitely is some leverages to be made with those discussions. I mean, for that matter, I've seen applications that come in and they have brick over 80% of the surface area because of the area of development that they went in just had a strict regulation against it. So there is some discussions that can be had and there is some of the ability to kind of negotiate with the brand on what they will allow and what they want. We're fine with any of that. As the operators, we're individual franchisees, we're not stuck to the design that the brand dictated. They are a brand and we are under some of their jurisdiction, and so we have to kind of play nice with them, but ultimately we want a building that looks nice, and if that means changing some of the material, then we're completely open to that. So I didn't want it to make it sound like we are anti-adaptive. As the franchisee, we definitely are. We just have to kind of play around the red tape that the brand has. Being a national brand, an international brand, they like to flex a little bit on us from time to time, but we've learned to kind of play their game to some degree. So we can definitely have those discussions, so. Great, I appreciate that. We certainly appreciate Popeye's wanting to open up a restaurant there. We don't want to provide huge roadblocks for them, but at the same time we want to make sure that it's consistent with the other architecture in that area. Oh, 100%. And I think to come back and address the items that the city had included in the write-up, I know that staff with the city will be more than happy to work with you moving forward. So, Dick, was your comment a motion or just a comment? You're all set to go. Oh, okay. My comment was not a motion. It was an observation that the representative seems to be a little hesitant to consider any change. And I think his last comment indicates that they would be willing. So I would be willing to make a motion that we table the application until they can resubmit the drawings to be more consistent with what the comments were today. Great, thank you. We have a motion. Do we have a second for that motion? Second. Second. We have two seconds. Not sure who won that one. Any further discussion? So just so the applicants are aware so what they're talking about is just tabling this matter and that you would work with staff on just updating the drawings and then have those resubmitted for next meeting for the board to reconsider. And I can obviously work with you guys in terms of some of those comments. Yeah, James, do you have a pretty good understanding of what adjustments they'd like to see? Yeah, I believe so. Okay. So any additional discussion from the board? Hearing none, Steve, if you could run us through the roll call votes and let's just do an aye or a nay. So we just have to run through one. And this is the table for now. Joe Clark. Aye. Marcus Savaglio. Aye. Jerry Jones. Aye. Richard Lindy. Aye. And Charlie Wig. Aye. All right, thank you all very much. And I guess I can, if you could please. James and Mark, what we can do is this is Steve Sokolowski speaking, just kind of like what we've done to get to this point. If we need to talk a little bit about some of the comments and then just updating the drawings, we'll get that done together and we'll get that back here and get that approved. Okay, sounds good. Okay. Thank you very much. And then we'll see you guys tomorrow. That brings us to item 3.2, the proposed exterior remodel of the Verlo tenant space at 4315 South Taylor Drive. If you could introduce yourself and give us a little summary of your project, please. Is this on? Okay. Yep. My name is Tim Fettig. I am the franchisee of the Verlo Mantris factory store in Manitowoc in Sheboygan, Wisconsin. We've been in Sheboygan since 1998 in two other different locations. And so I'm here today. We're looking at relocating probably for the last time in Sheboygan here. And we have a new sign requirement by our franchisor that we'd like to be able to apply to the new space if possible. Okay. So, can I go ahead? So, Tim and I have been speaking a little bit with regards to his proposal. Verlo will be coming to the plan commission tomorrow for a use. And one of the things that they're taking a look at is the signage and the front of the building. And really the questions that come as a result of that is how it relates to the new portion of the building. Nice materials as a standalone entrance and a standalone building would probably look great. It does probably look very good. But the questions that we had is just how does it relate to the rest of the building, which is gonna be much different in appearance. So, I know Tim might have some comments on that both from himself and from an owner perspective of the building. But that was probably the comments and we haven't gotten that information back yet. I'm confident. So, Tim, can you give you a chance to respond there? Yeah, that's great. So, when we originally were looking at this location, we brought the elevations that you saw in our brand standards manual that show it's actually a very neat panel system because what we found is a lot of times in buildings when we do our individual letters, it was very difficult to, we had to drill a lot of holes through the building in order to put up our individual letter signs that are LED lit. So, what our corporate came up with is if we put a facade of some sort, we can then reduce the number of penetrations we needed to building owners, the people who own the building that we're renting from. And they loved it. They thought it looked great. They thought as long as it was okay with the architectural board and we could get the approval that it would enhance the look of the building. It is an end cap. So, it is, well, not freestanding. It isn't like it's at the far end, south end of that building. And everyone just, while we were standing there looking at it, thought it would enhance the way that the building looks. So, it does make it stand out a little bit differently. And Verlo is just kind of a different little animal, I guess is the best way to explain it. I think the comments are all right on track. And as a design element in and of itself, it's a nice piece. I think the issue is just how does it relate to that overall form? There are some arches to the building. That this piece just doesn't seem to relate to those. And I'm not sure how it would be adjusted to do that. But I think sympathetically, it architecturally could be set up as sort of a standalone piece that feels more in keeping with the rest of the facade. Yeah, I think you're right. It doesn't, there's always a flow and then a compliment. And so when we were kind of looking at it, we were looking at it more of a complimentary type addition for the facade rather than a flow. Because yes, there's like four archways in the building, which denote kind of entry spaces. So it totally, and so our thoughts with the building owners and with the sign company were that this would compliment that space in a way that wouldn't necessarily be offensive from a design perspective. Sorry, just pulling up the, yeah, trying to get that out of the ceiling here for ya. I'm sure I'm remembering it properly. I asked the sign company, I wanted to get bigger rendering of it on. Steve and I had talked about showing a rendering it on the whole, like show the whole building with, there we go. Showing the rendering it with it just over that doorway right there, exactly. There's actually a three dimensional drop back right behind that tree. And we would be going to that, that where that break in the wall is and then just surrounding our entrance. So it basically go across, and it wouldn't even be that high. It's actually gonna be just the height of where the sign is right there. You're like just right there. So it'll go across, and it'll have the combination of the wood surfaces, which is a reserve white. It's actually a citadel envelope is what they call it. So that would go right over where you see the diamond vogal sign. It would come down between the two entrance ways. And then over that first set of windows, yep, right there. So you'd have the white citadel material, and then you'd have cedar siding, which would again kind of you can see in the drawing there. We are not making an application to paint everything blue. We didn't wanna do that. The building owner didn't care. He said if we wanted to, we could, but we just at this point, I just think using the facade for our individual lettering and then enhancing that little end cap would be a great way to approach it. I think one of the challenges that we'll be facing you, if you could bring up that street view again, the arched elements, and I remember this coming up when this building was first approved. I wanna close it. No, this is fine. With the paired entries under the arch to then put any differentiation to either of those, starts to really minimize the other. So I would be hoping for a way that your elements and the materials, which are great, could get incorporated in a way that does what you're looking for for that branding for your piece of the building, but is done in a way that's sympathetic enough to the architecture of the building as a whole, that it doesn't feel like it's fighting against it and make the entry immediately next to it that shares that arched entry piece feel sort of second class even though you're dressing yours up a lot. How to do that? I don't know. I was just gonna ask that. I think as an architectural design challenge, there's an answer there. I'm not sure what it is, but I would love to see you work with your corporate folks or an architect to come up with a solution for that. If we made, I was out there with a sign company and we're gonna have to do something in front, like where Diamond Vogel sign is and even Parker Kirkland, they actually, their signs are on something else. So if I can't make it as big as this, would I be able to maybe to use a portion of the white and a portion of the wood mostly just at the sign height instead of coming all the way down to the ground? Would that be a reasonable? And I would have, I don't think we're gonna make a decision today really, so I would have better drawings and renderings for you at the next meeting if that's something that you thought was possible. Right, I think that sounds great. If you're talking about taking some of those material elements and using them up more as a sort of sign piece, rather than that architecturally grounded surround, that might help you. Okay, okay. The building was set up that it really was intended, I think to work with just blocks of signage to differentiate where the different tenants went and the introduction of that extra architectural piece while as a piece it's really nice, it's how does it integrate with the rest of it? Hard to say yes or no without a visual to see. I think there are a number of solutions that could work there, but your folks may need to get a little creative to make that come together. Franchisors, I was listening to the Popeye discussion and I thought while franchisors are not super flexible entities, but yes, as franchisees we're always flexible. We wanna serve customers, we love our community and we wanna serve our community, so I'm sure we'll come up with a really good plan. And we certainly appreciate the branding element and the corporate identity that needs to be maintained, but it seems that creative architecture can usually take that and work it into its surroundings so they're all complimentary. That'll be perfect. So based on that it sounds as if we're probably looking to table this one also to come back to a subsequent meeting, but I'm feeling I've monopolized the conversation here as usual, so other board members, other comments or concerns? I'd make a motion to hold this. Second. We have a motion and a second. Any further discussion? Can I ask one question? Steve. When we look at kind of like these drawings, when we look at these drawings, is this something, cause you see the wood and the sign, is that something that works over this section or in that just that little bit or between the windows and I'm not sure. I guess he just needs to bring a couple things back and we can look at them up. Just trying to figure out what, how this works. I think one of the issues that I play designer in my head, what might I do? That arch that you're fighting with above, is there some way to at least reference that? Maybe it's taking your curve and running it the other way. Yeah, that I don't know. Well, like I was looking at Parker, that black piece that's behind the Parker turquoise sign, it's kind of backlit, it glows back into the black. So the way I kind of was, if we're gonna minimize it, what I thought is maybe we have two of the upright or three of the upright white pieces and then some of the cedar just to the right side of that integrated so that it isn't much bigger than the Parker turquoise sign as far as visual looks and we have some of the branding elements so that would still be attractive and then we have a way to do the electrical and we're not interfering with the arches. At least that's, after listening to you today, I think that might be a reasonable solution where instead of having them go full blown and trying to go all the way to the ground and try to incorporate some sort of half arch, I think that would be hard because I don't know what these materials, I've only seen them, I've never really touched them or felt them. My guess is the cedar siding would be very hard to bowl and I think the metal, those citadel panels are also metal so I don't think they would be, I mean, I'm gonna have the architect look at it and come up with some, I'm gonna tell him what we talked about today and show him the building and say here's where the door ends, that we've got half an arch there, how do we compliment that without minimizing our neighbors and see what his thoughts are, but my thoughts are, simpler is easier. I heard Steve say that. I agree, yeah. And we understand you have a budget to work with and to... Yes, my wife said, why don't we just put the sign up like Steve said? Yeah. Sorry. Yeah, and maybe there's some pieces like you said that are the backdrop pieces that get those elements in there. Great, I think that's all. You're certainly hearing what we're saying. It sounds as if moving forward, you'll be looking at design elements then we can review in more detail. Any additional discussion or comments from the board? Otherwise, Steve, if you could run us through the roll on the motion to, it was to table for a future meeting. Joe Clark. Aye. Marcus Savaglio. Aye. Jerry Jones. Aye. Richard Lindy. Aye. Charlie Wig. Charlie Wig. We're made a motion to table the Verlo request, Charlie. No, I heard it all. I said aye. Okay, thank you. Yep, thank you. All right, that passes then. Thank you very much. Thank you guys. Tim, we'll look forward to seeing you on that. And then we'll see you tomorrow too. We'll see you tomorrow. Okay, so that's good. Awesome, thank you guys. Looks as if our next meeting is scheduled for the 12th. And based on tonight's meeting, we'll definitely be having one on that night. Excellent. If there are no other comments or concerns from the board, I'd entertain a motion to adjourn. Motion to adjourn. Second. And voice vote on that, all in favor. Please signify by saying aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Opposed? No one is opposing to adjourning. So we are adjourned. Thank you all very much. Thanks, everybody. Bye-bye.