 All right, we are all set Pat is in the attendee. So I'm going to promote her panelists. Wonderful. So Pat, just accept the invitation. You should be all set. Welcome Pat. Welcome everybody. Welcome to the Amherst Design Review Board meeting of September 25th, 2023. My name is Erica Zegis and as the chair of the Amherst Design Review Board, I'm calling this meeting to order at 503 p.m. The meeting is being recorded and will be made available via the town of Amherst's YouTube channel and minutes are being taken. Pursuant to chapter 20 of the Acts of 2021 and extended again by chapter two of the Acts of 2023, this meeting will be conducted via remote means. Members of the public who wish to access the meeting may do so via Zoom or telephone. No in-person attendance of members of the public will be permitted, but every effort will be made to ensure that the public can adequately access the proceedings in real time via technological means. A hyperlink to the hearing is posted on the town's online calendar. Board members, I'll take roll call. When you hear your name, let me know you're here. Catherine Porter. Here. Lindsay Schnarr. Here. Pat Off. Present. Karen Winter has logged in but has stepped away for a moment and I'll let everyone know that Karen is our representative from the planning board. This is days old and Karen has yet to be sworn in so she can participate tonight but cannot vote. And Erica Zegis present. Board members, if technical issues arise, we may need to pause temporarily and fix the problem and then continue the meeting. If the discussion needs to pause, it will be noted in the minutes. Please use the raise hand function to ask a question and make a comment. I'll see your request and call on you to speak. After speaking, remember to ring the bell. The general public comment item is reserved for public comment regarding regarding items that are not on tonight's agenda. Please be aware that the board will not respond to comments during general public comment period. Public comment could also be heard at other times during the meeting when determined appropriate. Please indicate that you wish to make a comment by clicking the raise hand function button when public comment is solicited. If you've joined the Zoom meeting using a telephone, please indicate that you wish to make a comment by pressing star nine on your phone. When called on, please identify yourself by stating your full name and address and put yourself back into mute when finished speaking. Residents can express their views for up to three minutes or at the discretion of the chair. If the speaker does not comply with these guidelines or exceeds their allotted time, the participation will be disconnected from the meeting. Night's agenda includes the following. First, the applications DRB FY 2024-04, Deborah Noyes for Botanica Home, number 2024, number five, Raquel Zillandia from Pacarilla del Pueblo, and 2024-06, Julia Nolan-Jewelry. Item two, approval of meeting minutes. Item three, general public comment period. And I should state that I would like to move general public comment period to before the application. So that actually becomes item one. We'll check in again afterwards in case anybody missed it. Item four, other business. And let's see, we will begin with general public comment period and then move on to number four, Botanica Home. Do we have any members of the public present tonight? So we have four members present. I don't see anybody raising their hand in terms of wanting to speak. I see our applicants. That's pretty much it. Okay, great. So doing that, we'll revisit general public comment period after our agenda items. So is there anybody here for Botanica Home, perhaps Ms. Noyes? Yep. So Deborah did raise her hands. So I'll go ahead and promote her to panelists so she may present. Great. So Deborah, when you get the invitation, please accept it. Hi, Deborah. Welcome. You're on mute. Unmute? Okay. I have a quick question for you. We welcome you sharing your screen to walk us through your proposal or I could do that on your behalf. I wouldn't mind if you did it on my behalf. Easy. I have the documents that you submitted to us. Thanks. So everybody, are we seeing the application document? And these are the two images that I have. Would you like to walk us through those? Sure. Can you hear me now? Yeah, it's on the screen. Okay. Yeah. So what we're hoping to do is work with the existing awning frame. So just take down the fabric and rejig a little bit so it's a bit simplified so that we don't have that round design element and just hopefully expand it a little bit so I can fit the whole logo. And if not, the bird on top of the logo could go to the left and it would be a thinner bar across. And I do have the Sondrenes, you know, the existing dimensions if anybody needs that information. But again, we're not hoping to alter any of the size. Really, it would just be perhaps expanding the height a little bit to allow for the logo. And if not, I would ask my designer to move the bird over to the left. And I see some blue and white paint on the door in window frames. Yeah, we just updated the trim because it was very, very weathered. Here's the existing again. And then one thing I did, do you see the Google Street view now? Everyone did that switch for you? Yeah. I see it. I pulled that up just so that we can see the context as well. All right. So I'd like to open the opportunity for comments to members of the Design Review Board. Comments or questions for Ms. Noise? Let me know if you want to see a different image as well. Pat, oh, you're on mute. I obviously reviewed the documents we received, but I've also drove by today just to make sure I had my own visual. And I just need a comment from Ms. Noise. The renderings that you show show the awning coming out quite a distance from the adjacent building. And that proportion doesn't look to me like it should be happening. The blue marble sign came to the edge of the adjacent building. And I'm not sure whether this is an artist rendering or whether you're keeping the proportions consistent with the blue marble sign. It's definitely a primitive rendering that I did myself for these purposes. But I think that it's exaggerated slightly, the height. And that's partly my Photoshop skills. But I think the goal would be to keep the width dimensions absolutely and to maybe extend the height just slightly if possible without changing the framework apart from taking out that oval, that rounded part. Because it seems unnecessary for the logo that I have as opposed to the logo that the blue marble had. So you will not extend beyond the edge? No, it wouldn't come out any further. If anything, it would go up a little bit more and back a little bit more. Does that make sense? Sure. And I needed to ask that question because the visual that I'm looking at somehow doesn't make the sign consistent with the signs that are in the adjacent building. So I think the proportions of the blue marble are what I would think would be more compatible. Yes, absolutely. I agree. We had no intention of going out any further. Thank you. Thanks. Lindsay, go ahead. Hi, sorry. I think the logo is really beautiful. And I hope you can keep the bird where it is. I think that the colors are really nice and simple. And I think that the frame, especially the new paint around the window and door, work well. I think you could go with just a blue or just a white. But I don't mind the combination, especially in the context that Erica showed up the street, given that there is quite a bit of white contrast around the doors. My main question was going to be the same, is what Pat just asked about the extension of that, particularly for safety, because I think it would come fairly low as people come around the corner. But assuming that it doesn't extend past that corner, I have two questions. One is if there will still be the horizontal band that exists on the blue marble sign. If that would just be, because if you kept the same framework, there'd be quite a thick kind of horizontal band that they're using or used for their text, for their signage. And that really does push up the plane of the signage, the logo that you have. And I'm concerned about the visibility of your logo at that angle, if you're using the same framework. If you're using a framework that's more consistent with the rendering, where it does slope down further, then I think you could probably, then the logo will probably be more visible. But I think unless you're really extending it and changing the framework, I don't think that you're going to get this, you're going to be able to see it the same way that you're seeing it in the rendering using the existing framing framework. The other question is similar in that I'm curious if you have any signage that might go on the storefront that would also indicate the identity of your business, especially if the signage might not be so visible up there. I do currently have a sign in the window that's acting as my signage. And then I have in hours decal, a removable one that I've already placed in the door. So the hours are visible there. They have currently on the left hand side of the blue marble, the wrap around, it says gifts and jewelry. So there's a possibility that if it would be helpful, I could include some language like that that indicates that it's a gift store as well as a home store because it is. And that is a little bit more detailed. It wouldn't be visible from the street. And I could also do that in the windows, except that I'm finding that the windows, because I have a bench inside the window that I have to keep my shelf, my shelving, somewhat back. So it's a little bit hard to see already. And I'm a bit concerned about putting anything else in the window that would make it hard to see what's just beyond. So I've been wrestling with that a little bit. But that's a great idea to have more indication of the contents of the store in decal signage or what have. So I could certainly try to put something together for that. And I might encourage considering altering the framework. I know that's an expense. But I think that the rendering is really lovely with the angle and the simplicity of it. I think it's really strong. So I do worry that when we look back at that blue marble sign, if you imagine your logo sitting up on the top of that, I think it's really going to be hard to see. I'm not as worried about people understanding the content of your store as more just being able to even read it at that site line at that plane. Yeah. No, I understand. And I was thinking that removing that circular part would flatten things out and allow for perhaps a little bit more extension of the height. So it's something that I need to talk to Sundrini Enterprises about. I mean, he hasn't seen the rendering yet because I wanted to make sure that you all were okay. But I'm sure he'll have ideas about how to make it work without extending it any further into the street. I think too, just looking at it from here, I don't know how complicated it would be to essentially change the slope so that that vertical face of long, if it just sloped straight down to the edge versus having that bend, you might be able to get more visibility of the area you're looking at in the rendering. Yeah. I am interested. And if we look at all of the awnings on this facade, we see two things that are consistent. One is that there is that vertical band, right? The fascia on each of the awnings. We're reading the text as a vertical, not a sloped surface. And the second is that we see the roof line of the building. And I think your proposal has the awning going past that. So there's like, there is a kind of a, all the colors are different, the styles are different, the fonts are different, and all of that. But there is this consistency of seeing the vertical fascia and then also seeing the roof line. I think your proposal is to change the slope of the awning. But I think that that will necessitate changing the frame because something has to hold that fabric up. I think altering it slightly but not bringing it, not extending it, not bringing it out. So I think my hope was that we could take out that circular or that sloping part. Yeah. And then it would be a flat plane and then raise that flat plane slightly so that there's, but the rendering is hard because you can't really see what I'm talking about in the rendering. But I don't see it as a full-on slope like that. Think imagine a bend. There would be a bend, I think, in keeping with what's there now. But that was partly my, as I say, my fairly limited Photoshop skills. Yeah. I think that that's going to be really valuable to you for the sidewalk visibility. I think from across the street, right, that Google street view with kind of the distant view, but for the focus on the sidewalk, having that vertical surface is probably really critical for visibility business. Yeah. I see Lindsay again and Pat as well. That's hand was up first, but I just have. Oh, I'm sorry. I missed the order of operations. My thought was just if you did bring that fascia back or retained it, and you have flexibility with the graphic, I could imagine keeping Botanica on that vertical fascia portion. Moving home over, maybe you have something else that describes the contents of your goods. And then the bird, maybe the bird could fold up the plane of the, you know, basically you're just folding it at the location where the top of the A, it could be, you know, just as a first pass at, you know, a revision that would allow that vertical face to work with the graphic as much as possible. So moving home to the right and or, you know, centering things again and then having home and gift or something on the right and the bird remaining on the top. Is that what you mean? Essentially, yeah. Just thinking of a way that the Botanica could be on that vertical fascia or it can kind of sit on the sloped part of the awning. So you still read the name of your store on that front fascia plane. The bird is still going to be, you know, it's going to be harder to see it than we would ideally want, but at least you're, you know, the name of your business wouldn't be as hard to see. Yeah. Thanks, Lizzie. Thank you. Pat, please. Yes, Eric, I really am echoing what you said and had the same thought before you said it that if you look at the streetscape, all of the business names are in the same location on each awning. And it's very clear to be able to see what business it is. And then if you go back to the boom marble sign and the framing for that, it might be possible to do the name Botanica where the boom marble is and have the bird be where the earth is. Yeah, that was my initial thought was to boom marble. Right. Because I think I agree with everybody. I think if you put the name of your business on a sloping awning, it's not going to be visible. It's not going to be consistent with the placement of your, you know, the other businesses along the way. And if you look at the streetscape, it's very easy to see the names of the businesses. And although they're different fonts and they're different colors, it's very visible from the street. And I would want that for you because you want your business to be known. And I love that the bird is perched on the name. But I think if you were to use the same frame, you could have the bird in the, where the blue marble is. And it would be as effective with your background blue. The other comment I have is I think Erica referenced this is I don't like the interruption of the roof line. I think the signs need to be below the roof line. So there's a consistency in the architecture. So hope, you know, we're trying to be helpful because we want your business to succeed. And I think your logo and your colors are beautiful. But but I think that needs to show itself to your best advantage as a business person. Mm hmm. Thank you. You're welcome. Thank you. And Karin or Catherine. Catherine, I see your hand. Go ahead. Yeah. Well, it's interesting to see how this whole awning has sort of morphed from what you present here to what you might eventually end up with. Originally, I, well, first of all, I love the color, the logo like the trim on the doors. I thought it was stunning, the awning, the way it was coming out. But it was clear that it just wasn't going to be a fit for a number of reasons. So I, you know, I'm certainly hearing what everybody is saying to try to be constructive. And I would agree. Again, I don't think you need anything on your window. You don't have a lot of window space and cluttering it up with lettering or whatever you might think you need to put there. Doesn't to my mind make any sense, but certainly you can put enough on the door. But kudos for a beautiful color and a logo. And I think it will look stunning right along with the other streetscape awnings that we have looked at. It's really nice. Pat, I see your hand again. Oh, I'm sorry. It's a holdover. I'm so sorry. All right, here we go. Now it's rectified. All right, fantastic. Okay, so I think if I could, I'll try to summarize some comments. And then I'd ask for, ask for someone to make a motion to approve with, with suggestions or, or perhaps we would like to ask Ms. Noyes to come back. And we have to talk about that. But I think the suggestions at this point are to, if you're, if you're working with the existing blue marble frame to maintain that vertical surface at the front and then to not extend past the roof line. There's a general admiration for your colors and your logo. And we recognize that the elements of the logo, the text and the bird, may need to move around a little bit, but we like all of the pieces and parts. How'd I do? Did I capture everybody's? Okay. So if those are the recommendations, do we think they're substantial enough to ask Ms. Noyes to return to the DRB? Or could we approve with those suggestions, Catherine? Oh, you're muted, Catherine, the 21st century problem. Yeah, I was saying to myself that I suggest she return with what she feels is her final decision. And I would move that we accept this with the suggestions that we have made about the size and the, I think, basically about the whole design of the, I'm not making it very clear. What did you say, Erika, that? The suggestions about maintaining the vertical surface on the blue marble frame. Yes, that's right. Yeah, go ahead. So at this point, I need to ask if there are a second for Catherine's motion. Which are a little blurry. For those suggestions and then also adding the suggestion that she returned. Yeah, they have come back. So I see Lindsay's hand and Pat's hand, but I'm looking for a second at this point. I would second with all the suggestions that Erika outlined, but I would like to see Ms. Noyes return with her, what she believes to be her final design. Okay, I think I believe that Catherine added that to the motion. Okay, so then I would second that. So any discussion on the motion? Lindsay? I would say that if possible, just to prevent delay and Ms. Noyes being able to move forward with opening our business that perhaps we consider what we've done in the past where if you're able to provide a revised rendering to us that we could review it that way through email. If other board members thought that that would be sufficient, I would be comfortable with that. I think that the problem with that, Lindsay, is that we don't have the opportunity to dialogue outside of this. Like with the occasionally somebody has to just submit something that we can kind of thumbs up or thumbs down because it's a minor change to the overall, but we can't actually communicate. So we would either we would have to just kind of do it as a yay or nay and communicate as individuals with Rob. That's a little harder if we want to like talk through options and things like that. So I guess the question I want to ask Deborah, so when do you intend on opening the business? Is the business currently open or are you planning for like later in the fall or what's your situation? No, it's open. We had a soft opening and the grand opening is on Sunday and the ribbon cutting is on Friday. I couldn't wait any longer, I'm afraid. It just wouldn't have worked out. So anything we can do to expedite would be much appreciated because it has been a long process and I really honestly didn't want the awning in the first place. So I feel like I'm accommodating the landlord and the block obviously because it's consistent with what's there and I want to be respectful of that and consistent. But it's a big expense and it's taking quite a while. So anything we can do to not because of the current meeting but just in general. So anything we can do to X, but I would be really appreciated. I mean, one thing the board could do Erica is that you guys could always schedule a quick meeting on like an off Monday or something and maybe in like next week or two or something, giving Deborah enough time to redo her designs and just meet really quick and just decide if you like it. I mean I only need like maybe three days advanced notice before doing something like that, but that's pretty much it. It's up to you guys as a board obviously, but I mean that's an idea to consider. So you can at least do it in the public format because we still need public feedback and stuff like that. Right. I think that's a happy middle ground. You know, if you had the opportunity, I recognize that there's still a motion on the floor that we need to run on, but if you had the opportunity to go and speak with your owning manufacturer and then submit a new rendering, then we could have a meeting as long as we can get a quorum. We can have a proper vote. That would be great. Thank you so much. I will do that as soon as possible. All right. Is there any, I see that Gabrielle Gold's hand is up. We have, I can make opportunities for public comment, but not well a vote is, I would prefer to just have the vote and then here, since there is a motion on the floor and Gabrielle is a member of the public, I think that we should follow through on the vote first, which is to a number of suggestions for changes and then to ask Ms. Noyes to return to the DRB and we can try to turn around a meeting really quickly for you. Okay. Okay. So all of those in favor then of the motion, please raise your hand, say aye. Aye. All right. Great. Thank you. And again, just a quick reminder that Karen is here tonight, but can't vote because she's yet to be sworn in. So thank you. Thank you. Thank you. And Rob, could you invite Ms. Gold this week? Hey, all, can you hear me? We can. Thank you. Thank you. It's kind of a moot point now that the votes been cast, but one of the things that I just wanted to ask for consideration of is the really great ideas. And I think that Deborah, I just took a bunch of notes. It's probably going to come back to you with exactly one of your ideas. And I, again, if she's open for business, that awful blue marble sign is so janky. They won't, the landlord won't take it down until it's going to be replaced. We're at a huge lead time right now for a new awning because the companies are so backed up. And I was just kind of going to beg the, you know, committee to consider that she would take all of the recommendations that you like the color scheme. You like the logo. You gave her great options. Could she please move forward knowing, you know, that she would, of course, take into account. And even like, as I'm sketching things out here on a piece of paper, I'm like, Oh, this would look really pretty. And this would be really great. And I could help her with this. But the boat, the boat's already been cast. But I think it's just, it is so rare that we get retail and, you know, people are like, what's going on in there? When's it going to open? And I know it's because she doesn't have the proper signage. And somebody then went and stole her sign that she had put out in front as a temporary measure, which is frustrating and heartbreaking because she spent some money on that as well. And so I was just going to beg everybody to say, look, we've given really great input. She's definitely going to take it. And she's going to put up the sign that you're all going to love and let her sort of start to roll forward. But the vote's been made. So I can't ask for that now. I think we'll turn this around as quickly as we can. Thank you. All right. Awesome. Thank you very much. And thank you, Deb. We're excited. I'm excited to pop into your store. Oh, and if you guys haven't been in, it's so amazing. I look forward to seeing everyone. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you very much. All right. Let's see. So our next agenda item is Raquel Zelyandia for a new sign at 31 Voltwood Walk for a new restaurant. So I believe it's a awning sign. An awning sign. But I'll promote the applicant to a panelist so she may speak. That sounds perfect. All right. Hi. Can you hear me? We can and greetings. Thank you for coming tonight. Hi. I'm Raquel. And so we're doing basically the same size as the previous tenant that was at the space. There's, as you can tell, you're going to see, I don't know if you can see at the bottom, there's another, should be another file that shows the window. If you scroll down, Erica, you can, it's a two-pager. Yeah. Yeah. So that's all we have to work with. I asked if we can do a logo and the awning company was like, not going to be possible. We pick black because that's, we have two other locations and our awnings is like that. If you go to our interior, it's all black walls with mirrors inside. We're going to be like a Mexican restaurant on the typical colorful, yellow, red. It's more kind of sleek inside. So that's what we pick black. And we decided that white would be the best to stand out. Unfortunately, we can't do a logo on it, but we're hoping maybe to maybe put like a decal sticker on the window and people can see our logo there. But this is what we could work best with. Also, I like to mention, I did not know I had to do a design board meeting and when I had like ordered it, we had, it's been ordered and printed. And that's something that really does concern me because I was not aware that we had to go through this process. So that's something I would like to like just be honest with. I did have to get like approval before my landlord and she was okay with it. But yeah, fortunately, like that's that's where I'm standing at. But yeah, so thank you for sharing that. I just said at this time, what you're sharing with us is just this window awning. Yes, additional signage for the windows and the doors, anything over the door. I know the business that has recently vacated this space had a number of additional signs, like there was something hanging over the primary door and in the windows and things. So what I saw is that they drew on the window, like little rice bowls, and they had like painted them themselves. I cleaned the windows. My goal is to have very good lighting so people can see inside the windows. I don't really want to put like a big sticker that covers in here because it's going to be really hard enough for people to be like, I mean, it says taqueria, which means taco shop. I would hope the sign would help a little bit. But I'm trying for the interior to be really like being seen from outside. It has a lot of natural lighting, but at night time, I know I want to put like lighting so you'll be able to see interior from the outside inside very clearly. Hopefully in the door, we can put like obviously our logo there. But also I want to keep it clear because we have kind of like a table where people can like eat and look outside. If anything, maybe like when if we're allowed to do like tables outside, we can put like a Mexican flag so people know it's like a Mexican restaurant. But we're going to do our best to like advertise and so people can know it's like a Mexican restaurant because I know the lettering doesn't really say it. And like, fortunately, we can't put a logo on it. But I wish we could have put like a big like where you can put the logo. But yeah, this is the best we could do. Okay, well, I think we can we'll talk about what you're proposing tonight, which is the sign over the awning. Yep. And get you out on your way. But if you want to have additional signage at any point, like in on the the doors, your hours, that logo, things like that, then you would come back for a second round. Okay, I'd love to open the floor. And I see that Lindsay's hand is up for comments or questions. Hi. I like the idea of having the just the really clean black and white. I think the lettering is really fun. And my only question is if the image we're looking at is that the actual sign or is that a Photoshop? Oh, that's the Photoshop. We were not like, luckily, just right before we put it up. I wasn't in talk with somebody from Amherst and they're like, oh, you're not allowed to put it up unless you get a permit. And you have to go through the design board. That's when I found out. So nothing has been up. It's just been taken down the awning. And like, I know the awning company is going to have to ask for a permit. I was only asking because of the slight white border around the text is that and that's probably just a Photoshop thing. Yeah, no white border. There's not going to be a wide border. It's just going to be the white lettering with the black awning. Yeah, that was my only question. I think it's fine. I think it looks great. Thank you. Karen, Pat or Catherine. Yeah, let me see here. Yeah, I accept the sign. It's sort of interesting that it's not the traditional Mexican look, but this is really more for Rob, is to how in the process can this kind of thing be avoided that a person goes ahead and spends a lot of money on a signed not knowing that they should come to the design review board. So usually when people apply for any sort of building permit, we determine where it's located and that kind of helps us start the process of helping them do the design review process. So basically, because this building is within the DRB district, the downtown area, basically, that's when we find out that this project's happening and that it has to come to us. Unfortunately, it's hard for us to prevent people from, you know, pursuing things beforehand. And it's it's a good design. I mean, so it's on issue that was ordered beforehand. But it's just, you know, it's really hard, Catherine, to kind of catch people before they do that sort of thing. And usually, you know, it always starts with like reaching out to the building department asking for, you know, am I allowed to do this to any of her men and starting from there. So that's that's pretty much what Raquel did as well with us, like she called and we guide her in that direction. Although I know our regulations in the Amherst are a little bit more strict with signs and awnings, especially in downtown. So usually people who live around in the area know that already and just just call the town anyways. But it's it's hard to catch people before and Catherine, that's that's what I'm trying to make. Thanks, Rob. Appreciate that perspective. Are there any other comments? I'll say for my part, I love it. I think it looks great, especially without that white border. Or should I agree with that, Eric? I don't have my hand up, but I think it's a good looking sign. And I don't have an issue with it. I'm just sorry that Raquel has to go around and circles a little bit to get all this organized. But I think it's a good looking sign. There seem to be no suggestions. So if I could ask for any last comments or a motion to approve as presented. I move that we approve this sign as presented. Thank you, Catherine. May I have a second, Lindsay? I second. Is there any conversation discussion? Fantastic. All those in favor, then, of the sign for Tecleria del Pueblo. Please raise your hand say aye. Aye. Aye. That looks like unanimous. Thank you very much. Thank you so much. Before you leave, Raquel, I just want to say that I'm going to reach out to Jennifer tomorrow. Yep. And get that process of you moving forward with your permit so you can put the awnings when they arrive. Perfect. And then I'll just have the awning company apply for the permit because I was like, I want to get this approved before you guys can go apply. But that sounds good. Thank you very much for your time. Thank you for coming tonight. We appreciate you. Have a good one. Bye-bye. Okay. All right. Our next item six or proposal six, application six is from Julie Nolan, jewelry and gifts. It's a representative here for that application. I do see Julie Nolan in attendance. I will promote them to panelists so they can speak on behalf of their application. They just have to accept the invitation. I muted my dog was barking. Greetings. Welcome. Thank you for being here tonight. If you wouldn't mind, I see there are two people on your screen. Perhaps you'd like to introduce yourselves if you're both speaking. And then would you like me to do this screen share on your behalf? Or would you like to do that for yourselves? Well, my name is Julie Nolan. This is my husband Pete Nolan. This sort of helps me out with business type things like this. And then as far as the screen, what they can share it, you can share it. So I'll just very briefly walk you through the things that I have and then you can instruct me to move the screen around on your behalf. The items you submitted. And that's it. These three. Yeah. So I think I'll do most of the talking. So if you want to start with this first image, the hanging sign description, I can talk to you about that. So it will basically have my name Julie Nolan jewelry. And the logo itself will be gold leafed. And the sign maker, she will be doing this all by hand. And she uses 23, 23 karat gold leafing. The panel itself will be black. And then she wanted to do like a little bit of a brass detailing, which sort of mirrors the O in my name Nolan, which is part of my logo. And then she plans on using the existing bracket that's out there right now. I'd like to eventually change that bracket, but you know, everything is like costs a lot of money. So I have to use what's already there. And the square footage, she's suggesting it being two square feet. She said that, you know, it should be visible. Should be visible on both sides. The sign will be good for people who are walking by. And they'll be able to see that I'm a jewelry store, also carrying gifts. And then I can, sorry, I just make jewelry. So I don't do a lot of meeting talking. And then on the largest window, the window that is on the sidewalk, 40 Main Street, that will also be a hand painted sign where she is using the 23 karat gold leafing. And then she's suggesting doing just like a thin black enamel hand painted, sort of just, I guess, to add some dimension, but also to make it so that the sign is noticeable to people walking by and people also in their cars. And then the sign on the smaller window. I did tell her that I didn't want to do all of the like the O's on that window. I thought that it looked too busy, but I liked that she wrote local makers that I am selling fine. And I also do permanent jewelry, and that I have a selection of curated gifts. So there will be a 23 karat gold leafing on that small window with maybe just some very little tiny gold leaf decorative elements, but it'll be very clean. And there will not be, there won't be any of that O's. Okay. That's helpful. Thank you. And then there is one other piece of the submittal that just has some dimensions, seven inches by 37 inches, and that's referring to the text, the gold leaf text on the primary window. Yes, and there is a typo on her on her behalf. It says 37 feet, but it should say 37 inches. It's probably for the best. Yeah. Okay, great. And Jess, she does a lot of signs locally. And her work is really beautiful. And I think the gold leafing will just be a really beautiful sign to have in Amherst. I don't, I haven't seen too many gold leafing signages in Amherst. So I think it'll be really special. Okay. Thank you for walking us through. I think we have some great information, and there could be some additional questions that come up in the process of conversation. So I'd like to open this up to members of the DRB for some comments and questions. I see Lindsay. Okay, so I think this is stunning. And I'm super excited about it coming to Amherst. The graphic, the logo and the gold plating, I think just some, it looks beautiful. I think it's very elegant. Stands out nicely without being overly busy or complicated. I love the idea of playing with the O to create that kind of like pendant. It almost feels like a reference to the moon. All of it's just beautiful. And I love the simplicity of it. It's a little hard for us to, so I would approve everything except that it's a little hard for us to know how to approve it if we don't know what the final design is on that smaller window. So, yeah. Sorry to cut you off. So right now, really what I just have the budget for is the main window and the sign that's hanging off of the brick. But I did want to include the smaller window because eventually I would like to add to that window, but I realized that I might have to come before the board. So that's why it's there. Yeah, that's helpful. Thank you. I mean, I think that if we were to move forward assuming that that smaller window is not something that we're deciding upon in this meeting and that if you were to add something there that you would come back, then I would say given everything that I'm seeing, I'm in favor of approving it as is. Thank you. Thank you. Yeah, I can't. Can I put my hand up and say something? I know. I'm so sorry. I was muted. I didn't mean to. I see Pat's hand first and then Calgary's. All right. I think it's a very sophisticated book and it's simple but elegant as Lindsay said. And I would welcome approving it. I agreed that whatever you do on the small side window, you would have to come back to us. But it sounds like you're going to ponder that for a while and gather some funds before you make a final decision. So what we would be looking at is the hanging sign in the front window. And I think it's beautiful. Thank you. Thanks. Have fun. Right. Well, Lindsay took the word out of my mouth when she said stunning. It's stunning. I can't believe Amherst has something this beautiful. It is so elegant and refreshing and classy and everything we would love to have in Amherst. And I'm just grateful that you're taking this step to add this to the downtown. So one question. Do you have anything on the front door? Did you mention your front door? No, I don't have anything right now. I just put a vinyl, a temporary vinyl logo. It's just black and it just has my name. The front door of Forty Main Street we share with. That's right. You do. And there's nothing on there. Yeah. Okay. And hopefully eventually I can convince Suzanne to do some gold leafing on the top windows that we share. That will be later. Sure. Okay. All the good time. Okay. Karen, did you want to share any thoughts on this one? No. Can you hear me? Yeah, it's so interesting to see this whole process and I really what a beautiful sign and what a beautiful addition to Amherst. I just since it's gold leaf, I just pardon you for asking this but you're not worried at all about vandalism? It'll be on the inside. Okay. Good. All right. Well, there seems to be, oh, Pat, is it a legacy hand? It's a legacy. Forgive me. Sure. There seems to be widespread appreciation for the level of design that you're bringing to this, to your business. Thank you. And so barring no suggestions for changes, could I ask for a motion to approve the design for the hanging sign and the primary window with the understanding that it'll return to the DRB for the smaller side window sometime in the future. I approve. I move that we approve the petition as presented. And the second? I second. All those in favor say aye. Aye. And that's unanimous. Thank you very much and good luck. Thank you. Come in and see the shop. Yeah, we've got some shopping and some eating to do on our three new businesses. And just a heads up, I will notify Jennifer Mullins tomorrow about this approval and you guys can go ahead and move forward with your permitting once I let her know. Okay. Now I can book my date with the sign maker. Yeah. Thank you very much. I'm super excited. Okay, fantastic. So public comment was originally on the agenda for this point. And I just because we moved it up, I want to make sure that folks who may have joined a little bit late have an opportunity to share a thought if they have one. If not, we'll move on to meeting ones. So I believe Gabrielle Gould left the meeting and I did change Julie's role back to attendee, but I don't see anybody else. We only have one person attendance and it's a person who I spoke. So yeah. Fantastic. Thank you. So the next agenda item then is approval of meeting minutes from August 28. When we talked about the Jones Library. So shall I share my screen and I'm hopeful that everyone had an opportunity to review these minutes. Let me know if you did not and you would like me to do a slow scroll or if we can just go move ahead with the approval. Sorry, this is the wrong thing. It's supposed to be meeting minutes. Anybody need me to be scrolling these? I didn't hear any comments. Did we actually see if any of our recommendations were adopted or is it too early in the planning process? I suppose the historical review was approved. It's too early in the planning process for any of them. To know whether they picked up on this. Okay. And usually the planning board also get a copy of these recommendations too and they usually incorporate them into their conditions and they'll review them once submissions are given to them because usually after this people tend to redo their submissions and then give that to the planning board. So as you've had enough time, when you've had enough time to review these, I've just entertained a motion to approve a amendment and we can move on from there. I know we've to approve the minutes. What's the date? August 28th. August 28th. I second. Thanks all in favor. Bye. Bye. Great. unanimous. Fantastic. Great. I'm really impressed by how succinct you're able to be Rob. I really struggle with that so I appreciate it. Yeah, no worries and I try to keep them brief and short so you guys don't have to take a lot of time every day to read them. But happy to help. Appreciate that. Okay, moving on to other business. I was, I'd like Rob to report out. We had suggested as you may remember to DP Doe to basically keep the same sign but to change the background color to black to better fit in with the rest of the building in the black iron work and other black background signs. Rob sent us the suggested design change as individually by email and we all I think got back to him. So eager to hear an update from Rob. Sure. So basically I emailed you all one at a time and the applicant gave us a list of four. It was either three or four different types of sign renderings that he changed up. It was the same logo and lettering but he played around with the colors. So I think the first one was like an all white like this is how it normally looks type of sign. Then he had like a second one that was like a light tan and then he had one that was gray scratch that there was no tan it was white gray and then he had two black signs and the one rendering was like an all black logo is the same color the lettering was white and then the bottom one was all black but they have little boxes around each the logos and so yeah sure if you want to show it just so I'm I'm not really good describing it by word appreciate it and you should be able to share your screen Lindsay I think everybody has that capability perfect. So it seems the group was pretty unanimous with that third option down because of the way the logo looks when it's all black. I mean I could see why he kind of did the box on that first one around the logo just I guess kind of keep with with the white background look but the group definitely felt that the all black was just the better way to go and it really mimics the white line brewing sign pretty well with that same sort of style all black with the blue and the white that comes out. So we we instructed and pending that feedback from the board and because of their time crunch I instructed the applicant that was the preferred sign from individual members of the board and they have decided to move forward with that so Deepito did like that style as well when Mr. Salvini presented to them and they have since moved forward with their building permit to put the sign in. So it's going to match that black framing behind it pretty well. I believe the slot that they're going to put the sign is already black so it's it's not going to be any different from the surrounding color scheme. So that's pretty much all I had to report Erica. I mean it was it wasn't a whole lot this this happened maybe the day after the last meeting and it was pretty quick. Yeah yeah that's great well knowing the timeline crunch and how important it is to be open you know we're trying to make this make this work for our folks in town so thank you for reporting back on that of course they made a good choice. Yeah thanks. This is just a little aside but Deepito has been here before it's not but I the more I thought about it I said this is not a new venture where were they behind CVS? Where were they? Anybody remember? All right you're right I heard some people talking about it and that does that is the location that popped in my mind. Yeah that's what popped in my mind. I have no idea. Yeah well I just was so familiar when he when he first came like this was like a new thing to be an Amherst and I think no they've been here before not a bad thing it's just that they uh it's a big background. Yeah now in a new high-vis location so. Right that's right yeah well I um I used to be a student at the University of Delaware back in like 2017 2016 and they used to have a Deepito on the Main Street and people were there until 3am because the bar is closed then you would go to Deepito afterward because they're open till 3am but I went back there recently and it was gone so I feel like your place is come and go. Yeah I don't know. Rotating through. Well thanks all for your participation tonight barring any other business we could have a motion to adjourn. I move that we adjourn. Lindsay seconds. Good night everybody and welcome Karen we're really happy to have you and of course Pat just joined in the last meeting she joined for the big one. Glad to have a full contingent now. Yeah it's good. Thank you. Thank you Erica and Rob thank you all. Good night everybody. Good night. All right take care all.