 The Amherst design review board is meeting today. I've got a phone call coming in virtually Monday, May 10th, 2021 at five o'clock. My name is Catherine Porter, is chair of the Amherst design review board. I call this meeting to order. Pursuant to Governor Baker's March 12, 2020 order suspending certain provisions of the open meeting law, GLC 30A section 18, and the governor's March 15, 2020 order imposing strict limitations on the number of people that may gather in one place. The public hearing of the town of Amherst design review board is being conducted via remote participation. No in-person attendance of members of the public will be permitted, but the public can attend tonight's virtual meeting by using the Zoom login information provided on the meeting agenda listed on the meeting calendar which is provided on the town of Amherst website. We will begin with a roll call of the members of the design review board who have been impaneled for the consideration of the items on tonight's agenda. Board members please say aye or yes to acknowledge your attendance for the record. Lindsay Schnarr. Yes. Janet Markward. Present. Erica Zekos. Yes. And Tom Long. And I would also ask if there are any disclosures at this time related to the hearings that we will be reviewing. Okay. Also in attendance is Marine Pollock planner and staff liaison to the design review board and Christine Restrup planning director. The design review board and its accompanying zoning regulations were created by town meeting in October of 1983. The charge and purpose of the design review board under section 3.2 of the zoning bylaw is to preserve and enhance the town's cultural, economic, and historical resources by providing for a detailed review of all changes in land use, the appearance of structures, and the appearance of sites which may affect these resources. The design review board exercises this responsibility by providing design review and recommendations to private applicants and permit granting boards within specific overlay zoning districts in the town center, the design review overlay district, and the town common design review overlay district. Design review is also provided for town departments and permit granting boards with respect to town projects anywhere in Amherst, which will result in substantial alteration to the form or appearance of a structure or site. All design review board meetings are open to the public and are recorded by town staff. Each meeting recording will be uploaded to the town of Amherst YouTube channel for public viewing. The procedure is as follows. The petitioner presents the application to the board during the meeting after which the board will ask questions for clarification or additional information. After the board has completed its questions, the board will deliberate. If the board feels it has enough information and time, it will decide upon recommendations for each respective application. Once the board has voted on its recommendations, the staff liaison will type up the recommendations for distribution to the applicant, board, applicable land use board, and building commissioner. Tonight's agenda for September 10th, 2021 is as follows. The first is DRB FY 2021-12, Archipelago Investments, LIC. So, Maureen, do we have our applicants here? You're muted. That makes sense. Thank you, Lindsay. Yeah, so we have Dave Williams and Kyle Wilson, both of Archipelago present, and they'll be giving a presentation to the board. So if they can introduce themselves to the board. Hello, Kyle Wilson from Archipelago Investments. How are you? Dave Williams, it's been a long time since we've seen you and looking forward to that drink at the Lord Jeff. No, I'm comic relief. So Kyle is the man on the plan. So I'm going to mic myself off here. The dog will bark any minute. And Catherine, perhaps before the applicant gives their presentation, you could briefly list out the submissions and talk about the site visit. Sure. Okay. First, I want to mention to anybody, any of the public who might be attending, that a design review board did do a site visit. And Kyle Wilson, I want to thank you, Kyle, kindly took us through the property from front to back from side to side, discussed some of the landscaping potential tree removal in the back where some old trees by the cemetery. We discussed various aspect of the design. And in addition, the planning staff has submitted a project application report zoning map, aerial map, property map photographs of the project site from surrounding views to the north, south, east and west. We received received public comments submitted by Steve Schreiber, a dated May 3rd, 2021. We've also reviewed the engineered site plan prepared by SVE associates, the rendered site plan, landscape plan and building plans prepared by Moda Studio architecture prototyping, among other documents. So I think that gives everybody an idea of what we have been reviewing up until this point when we're now going to hear from Archipelago. So would you like me, Maureen, to take control of the screen or how best to manage this? Oh, yeah, absolutely. Yeah, share your screen and let me know if you need any assistance. I hope not. Let me see. All right, so these are the documents we submitted to the planning board. I think I'll start with the designer view board on with the architectural. I think that'll be able, I think that should allow us to go through and discuss the project. So this is the first sheet from the architectural, the drawings from Modus. Now, this is the rendering from across Kendrick Park. It's a narrow deep site that is in between one East Pleasant and People's Bank. As I said on the planning board last week, it has a long history. The People's Bank used to be a part of the same property. And this parcel is five parcels that are owned by the Sarmalan Trust have been owned for a few decades in that capacity. We are developing four parcels on the south, which are Cousins Market and the Piper Building for 11 East Pleasant. And 15 East Pleasant to the north is the former pub building. So this site is very narrow as it comes with the street. It's only 80 feet wide, roughly, and is very deep, almost 300 feet deep on the north side. So the building here, as shown, is 60 feet wide. Five stories tall. Upper four floors are residential. Bottom four is retail, lobby, parking, amenities, utilities, and so on. As you can see, the building has the same wood cladding as the One East Pleasant project next to it, which is Alaskan Yellow Cedar. And as we'll see in some of the additional renderings, how we've managed the cladding and the glazing and the materiality of the building. So here's the site plan, showing that long, deep site. And the adjacency to One East Pleasant, the approach that we've taken for a 60-foot building, which has landscaping on the south side. The demolition of the Piper Building, which is approximately where the propane tank is, which will allow for views from the south end of Kindred Park all the way through back to the cemetery. This is the roof plan, so it shows the photovoltaics that we've proposed for the roof and the mechanical equipment behind it, including the energy recovery ventilators that we install in every building to give fresh air. And the generator that we put on the roof, the elevator overrun, the roof screen, etc. The next is, from an architectural standpoint, we're showing where the building coverage and lot coverage calculate out. And we've also submitted that same analysis on our civil plans, which we can go over if we need to. This is the ground floor plan, which shows how we've chosen to try to break up that 276-foot long site. And effectively, there's a retail facing the street. There's a lobby that's tucked in. There's a walkway that goes underneath the building that also interacts with the vehicular drive that comes in from an easement on the north into the parking area, into the back where there's parking spaces. You can see the leasing office, fitness, mechanical, electrical, trash, storage. And you can see these teardrop-shaped brick columns that are part of the structural element that we integrated architecturally as we could. You can also see here the retaining walls that are in the southwest corner of the site. And that helps us reconcile the grade difference between these downtown properties so that one east pleasant is approximately 18 inches above where 11 east pleasant is. So as you're coming into the lobby here, you'll be, we have to make the stormwater and the grades accessibility work out to the street. We also have to make those same things work out to the north where there's an easement. We can't obviously change any of the grading along these north property lines. And so you'll see these retaining walls in the south that hold back the grade allow for a secondary means of access dropping down and allows for the circulation to come through and break up the site. You can see the downlights, the exterior lights that we proposed, bowler lights that we proposed. Those downlights are identical to one east pleasant next door. I think as you can see if you've been past our one east pleasant project at night or in the winter that we have worked hard to keep the light levels very well maintaining safety. And we would intend to do the same thing here. The next view is the upper fours of residential. So there's a double loaded corridor. There's a west stair and the main elevator. And then there's a east stair, janitor's closet, trash shoot, electrical closet. And then the corridor is open to the east. So that view goes out to the cemetery. That is the same for the upper four, three fours on the top four on the fifth floor. The only delta is there's a community room for tenants that is in the northwest overlooking Kendrick Park. The roof plan like I've shown with the energy recovery ventilators, the generators, the condensing units, the solar panels and the elevator overrun. These are the, this is the first sheet of elevations. So this top sheet B3 is the rendered elevation of the west, which is facing the street. You can see the cedar siding, the glazing, and you can see the overhang that we've proposed to allow for more space on the ground floor and a little more accessibility to that retail space. And you can also see on the D1, the rendered elevation of the north, the gash as we've called it, which allows the vehicular traffic to drive into the building and get back into the parking in the back. And also the pedestrian traffic to come through east, north, south and be able to enter the lobby and get behind the retail. So let's see. You can also see here on B3, the rendered elevation of the east. This is facing the cemetery, whereas we've seen from the site visit, the grade is much higher in the cemetery because that's the historic grade of Amherst. And as you can see on the south, this is the elevation that's facing one east pleasant. You can see the access through. You can see the site walls here. You can see the storefront that goes to the leasing office. This is the storefront for the lobby. This is the storefront for the retail. And these are the upper four floors of residential, which is a diverse mix of window units that are operable, that are fixed, and then sliding patio units that have a Julia balcony as we've done on other projects downtown. This is a rendering, aerial rendering from the southwest. And the intent was to express some of our design intent, which was to eliminate the Piper building, which is back here, which prevents a view from the pedestrian level all the way through back to the cemetery. So by opening that up and having some scale to that, there'll be more of a connection back to that landscape behind Main Street, behind, as it is Main Street, behind Pleasant Street. You can also see on the ground floor how we've had two different geometries, the geometry of the property line. And then the geometry, this wall is perpendicular to that north property wall. And in doing so, we create a open, generous covered area that gives us a little more usability all year round. It also is the entry point for the residential tenants that would come down this exterior opened corridor that is covered by the building. And that would take you back to the lobby behind. You can see the site wall, as you can see the Wooner at One East Pleasant, which is pavers. And you can see that that materiality would be the same. We'd use the same paver, same location. You can start to see some of the materiality of the building where you have the cedar, you have the zinc cladding, you have the black windows, and you have the storefront that is all glass at the ground level. You can also see the Peterson Tagle brick that we're proposing. In the columns, it's oriented vertically and elsewhere on the first four walls, it's a standard brick bond. A similar view, but only from five feet above grade, that gives you the sense of that view back to the cemetery, gives you the sense of that south facade and the west facade facing the street shows you this walkway that would take you down back to the leasing office and the lobby that would bring you into the residential portion of the building. It does show you the drop in grade from the toy box down to people's bank. You know, there's a six foot grade change. Most of that is reconciled where glazed used to be, where we had that very steep sidewalk that has since been smoothed out, but you can see that 11 East Pleasant is shorter than one East Pleasant. Upfront or a close-up detail of the cladding system that we've proposed, you can see the vertically installed cedar. You can see there's four inches of insulation outboard the sheathing, so it gives depth to the facade, again, as we've done in all of our downtime projects in the past. That additional insulation encapsulates the whole building and gives depth around the windows, which we've tried to amplify from a design stance so that the headers above the windows install the cedar horizontally. The brake metal is just above the windows and then it's consistent below the windows and creates this horizontal line. You can see the zinc cladding that accentuates some of the openings and you can start to see some of the zinc cladding that would be between windows running vertically. You can also see down below a wood ceiling proposed for the exterior for the retail and for the lobby, so that wood materiality continues under. You can see the bricks that are run vertically on those columns and you can see the black storefront behind. This is a view on the south facing one East Pleasant courtyard. You can see the zinc as it comes up through this this reveal where on the first floor you can just kind of see it, where you can walk through and the vehicular accesses. You can see the Julia balconies and again you can see some of the zinc cladding that is used between windows elsewhere in the facade. On the north side facing people's bank you can see the horizontal installation of the brick on the backside of the lobby. You can see the bollards proposed. You can see the storefront that is a pretty clean line with the bottom of the cedar and again you can see the the zinc cladding between windows and the Julia balconies. Again inside of the retail we've proposed a wood floor. We proposed these brick columns run with the brick running vertically are inside the storefront in some locations outside the storefront just at the entry to the pedestrian entry and just outside the vehicular entry and you can see the materials that we're proposing. So the cedar rain screen, the Rhine zinc, zinc cladding and the Peterson Tegel gray brick that we are proposing as the by far the three dominant materials for the building. Let me look I will pull up the landscape plan to show you the landscape plan is submitted. So this landscape plan shows again that there's this pedestrian walkway that takes you through. This is the vehicular traffic that brings you into the ground floor. This is the the tree line that we're proposing to kind of draw the connection between the south end of Kendrick Park and the cemetery. This is where the piper building gets removed. This is the landscaping that accommodates our infrastructure and the propane tanks because of the gas moratorium and the electrical transformer. Also the site walls and the granite boulder that we've proposed as a site element. And I think I think I'd probably stop there Maureen unless you tell me otherwise. In your son Maureen. Thank you. No I think if that's all that all the materials that you want to show the board now you could show them the construction logistics plan if you haven't. Okay here's the construction logistics plan. So the intent is to utilize 15 east pleasant which is the pub site as a make sure that's smaller. Sorry guys. So to utilize that as a staging ground that allows us to put a construction trailer, build mock-ups, construction lay downs, some limited parking. We would fence almost the entire perimeter including the spur out to Prey Street would try to use Prey Street as the majority of the construction entrance and exit would allow for the easement which is also shared by People's United Bank to remain as free as possible. We'd have to use that some of the time obviously but would try to reduce that as much as possible. That fencing would allow for some state some construction vehicles come off of Prey and wait on the property without sticking out into Prey Street and I think that's I think that's probably about it for that. You can see where the trailer is located the limited worker parking in the lay down area. Great and if you want to show them the the shadow study that would be great and and then I think that's that's all okay. So we got a bunch of these we'll start with summer. So this is June 21st 2021 so hopefully you guys have seen these in some other context but this is every 15 minutes so this is showing at the summer solstice at 9 a.m. and all those changed throughout the day there's noon there's one there is three so that's that's at the the sun at its highest I will now do winter sorry if that was too fast just trying to not waste anybody's time here's winter showing 9 9 15 10 10 o'clock to 3 o'clock that's with sun at its lowest and I'm assuming that you guys have that so I was just going through it to show everybody but that what has a PDF and I can go anywhere any the board would like me to go from there. Yeah Catherine would you like to have open it up to board discussion. Yes why don't we do that and if there excuse me if any public is listening you will have a public will have a chance to make comments but right now it's the board's turn to ask questions get clarification and then we will be going through the design standards eventually but right now this maybe we'll just try to keep these more or less general and if we don't get specific responses we can perhaps wait until we get to the design standards so having said that panel members I have a question about the shading I really appreciate you including the solar study that was very helpful pretty dramatic difference. So I'm a little concerned about just the shading on those trees and you know I just pulled up an image of the Armstrong maple looks like they have kind of more of a narrow profile so I understand them working well in that location in terms of their canopy shape. Two points one is just to verify that they would be able to maintain that kind of low level of light for you know half of the year or whatever it ends up being to make sure that they don't you know that they can be their fullest and not look like they're suffering and the second is to see if it might be worth considering a second tree just to give a little more variation so it doesn't look like you know as uniform of a row of a landscaping as it might with just a single tree type and if you've looked at that thank you. Yep I think that we've currently that that property line where the trees are proposed is currently planted with a flowering shrub that is doing quite well so I think that we don't have concerns that the tree will be we'll have won't have enough light to thrive. I think it all comes down to how well you prep the whole and how well you know how much how much room you have the root ball how much room you give the root ball to grow. I think the intent was to keep the plant pallet pretty limited so that we'd have the red twig dogwoods that we've used elsewhere that that work very well downtown they're very robust they can get beat up they can come back they give some winter color with the red they give the flowers they give the greenery you know for an extended period so keep those as the ground plane that can get pretty robust three four five feet and then allow the the column or Armstrong maples to to kind of march down 15 18 feet on center down down that south side so the intent was to keep it somewhat limited from a plant pallet standpoint so that it reads very clear and ties in with the plant pallet on the other side of Winnie's pleasant in the in the courtyard. Yeah I had the same question that Lindsey did about the row of maples because I on one respect I think it's a really great idea to to have that and I like the fact you've left that opening towards the cemetery but the shade studies that you did I thought it showed that that along that side of the building the south side of the building there was shade all the time but you're you're satisfied that there's going to be enough sun to maintain those maples because they're going to cost a lot to put in and they're beautiful trees but you studied your own yes yeah and like I said there are there are currently shrubs that are in that location that are doing just fine right in there right okay and the shade we're talking about is from Winnie's pleasant not from the new project all right okay okay other questions just as a follow-up to that sorry I can't be done again so the dogwoods that you're proposing are those shown on your site plan the red twig dogwood yeah they're all on the landscape they're small so they're it's a you know the red flowering shrub that's that starts about this big and it's what we've installed at Winnie P okay can you just point to where those might be just in terms of the landscape plan they show them most clearly it's it's labeled a site plan yeah if you give me a second it's on sheet l1.0 okay thank you you're going to pull that up marine or or or just referring us to because we I think we got that from you okay all right okay Lindsey do you have any other comments now not related to that thank you okay um other members of the board anybody have any I do I don't are we being called upon tonight sorry yes thank you um thanks for the presentation I really appreciate it Kyle and Dave um I'm wondering if you could uh clarify for us some of the decisions about the retail space um there's a single space it's about 1400 square feet um I'm just wondering about the your market study if you will of that I know that there's been um from in our marine are you I just want to remind the the design review board members and and Chris can interject if she wishes is that you know the jurisdiction of the DRB is really external changes you can talk about internal building items if it relates to the to the exterior but um sort of no I appreciate that but I could argue that in this case it it does because I think that if it were too smaller spaces or if it uh if the vertical circulation were to move that that would have an impact on the exterior of the building so it's just wondering about the um appropriateness of a single small smallish retail space and what you could tell us about what went into that decision sure um so the site is very narrow as it faces the street so I think obviously the the place for retail is along the street so what one of the earliest design decisions we've met we made was how do we give that all up to the retail rather than split that with the lobby which is off in the case and so in order to do that we had to pull the lobby off of the street and bring it back you know to the back of that building and then obviously where the lobby is is where the vertical circulation is meaning the elevator and the egress stair and the mailboxes in the package room and about all that other stuff that goes along with it so the desire to split that ground floor um we want to do that in the location that would continue uh pedestrian experience off of the street off of when he's pleasant and and have about that 60 foot depth to it um on the upper floors for the residential you're limited at the end of a dead end corridor so you can only have 50 feet from the end of a corridor to to your uh your stair so uh that that places our stair and our elevator in that front half and in doing so what we try to do is make sure that we gave all of the retail over to the front the the street facing part of the retail all to the retail and kept as little as we needed to for that lobby in the in the in the back half so the other side of that is obviously the ground floor there's a lot of program there there's retail there's lobby there's uh parking there are storage there's mechanical there's trash there's all these things that we all that we have to balance and we had many different sketches as we look to try to put together the best puzzle piece um trying to manage all that erica other questions no okay well i'd like to piggyback on that on the retail space um i'm uh i understand having just limitations for size i i know there's a lot of comment around town about you know we two and three and four retail spaces but Jeff Bezos has taken care of that for you and i think the future of retail is so questionable so so i can understand maybe one's okay but it i'm not sure the the design of it being away from the sidewalk and then with a sort of a cantilever over it is going to be the easiest way for a retailer to to design a interesting front door and a sign um i think it works to the retailers disadvantage the way in which it has been designed and not sure that it's going to track people um was it just it's not it's such a small and some insignificant location for a retail establishment i wondered if you had considered having the retail more in line with the closer to the sidewalk so but standout uh we we did look at that we looked at bringing the retail all the way to the property line um it obviously would put that storefront glass right against the folks walking on the sidewalk which i do think that it's a very unique location in town because east and west side of kinder park all come together there at the at the right across the street from this property the bus stop is right across the street from this property the north end of downtown really begins right at this property so i think that the the traffic the visibility of this site is going to be there regardless of if it's uh if we put that storefront out to the to the property line or if we pulled it back like we did i think the other approach that we took was to make it as glassy as we could um and so therefore the whatever's happening in that space is going to be very apparent it's not going to be tucked away behind brick columns or tucked away behind um you know something else it's whatever's happening there is going to be very apparent to the street it's going to have to be managed but i think what that does is makes best use of a site that's inherently limited by its width and so all we can talk about is how deep do we go on that on that retail you know we can't go 115 feet wide because the site's only 80 the building's only 60 so we've used 52 of that for retail and then it's just how deep can can you make that so i think your point about you know the future of retail is very real obviously we've gone through a very difficult time for retail in the last 15 months um and i think it's um you know i think again we tried to do something that we thought was the best fit also i might add that uh that's the entrance to our our lobby our residential lobby which we intentionally put back so to get as much retail as we possibly could so it's an invitation to walk undercover back to undercover and to our lobby which is on the east side of that first building so is there any uh plan for that area that open area as you go down into your as you approach the retail and then the lobby um is there room there for benches or any kind of amenities that might attract people want to go and sit and the other question is the space between the two the new building and the um joining building looks like it's 10 to 12 feet wide uh your sketches would lead one to think it's a wider area i see people standing around little sketches of people i'm not sure 12 feet holds everything that uh you your architects have sketched in there um could you review the that aspect of the plan sure all the renderings we presented are based on a reddit model the reddit model is the basis of the um building permit so it's all accurate in terms of of that model it is 10 feet to 12 feet from the property line yeah but there is the drive aisle and the wound earth and the plantings and the walkway to one east pleasant so that space is much much wider all right um and and and that's reflected on the backside of the property where the Piper building currently stands and that would be the view through so i think you while you'll be walking under a space that's approximately eight feet wide that's covered as you're going back past the retail to the lobby to your right will be the site walls that could be seating but it's not formal it's informal uh and the plantings and the landscaping and then the curb to the drive aisle and one east pleasant and so there is there is a bit more space there between the buildings okay okay thank you can i just um say kathryn that i appreciate your concern about visibility but i really like the way that the angle changes between the two walls the upper and lower wall and um i think it it's it's sharp and it it creates much more visual interest than the flat facade for instance your other building next door um i also just go out on the limb here i know that there's concern in town about more five-story buildings and filling up spaces but that's not really our purview i just want to say i like this design a lot better than your other two buildings um i think it's quieter um a little more elegant sophisticated it's more bow house than the other two are it just um just i think it's just more pleasant to look at and it fits the narrowness of the site really nicely so i just want to um you know to say i appreciate the um the look of this building and you know whether or not we should have buildings it like this is not really up to us um but just in terms of the design and the way it looks from the street and the way you've used the side between the other building um how it how it reacts to the cemetery in the back is still kind of an issue for me with those trees and all but otherwise i i think it's a a really nice presentation of the space thank you okay any other uh tom do you have any comments at this time yeah i do um kyle nice to see you again how are you nice to see you yeah i have a couple of quick questions one is that um looking on page uh pr 2.01 um you're describing the elevation of the building as and actually the previous 157 feet i just want to verify that i'm sorry for the height yeah uh yes as noted in the elevation okay all right um and then i had another question about um and this is maybe following up on on what you were just discussing with kathryn in terms of visibility but um will there be any signage wayfinding numbers um any way to direct people either a towards the the retail or would there be a punch out for retail anywhere sign band anything that sort as well as any wayfinding to get people to the residential if they've never visited this location before i guess people who live there would probably find it but um would people who um are visiting have an easy way to find this entrance uh good questions i think the signage for the retail is to be determined obviously we don't have a sign band anywhere in the building for that so i think it would be integrated uh within the storefront the glazing or behind the glazing or a blade sign that maybe is hanging underneath the wood somehow some way to draw attention to it um that'll obviously very much depend on what the tenant is at the future right uh we did we've talked about signage to you know to bring people back i think we obviously have to have a number for fire you know an address that needs to be prominent so everybody knows where and and mail so everybody knows where they're going i think from a residential side though that the intent is that that lobby is going to be lit 24 7 right because it's part of the egress um so manage the light levels in that lobby well uh the leasing office across the way is going to be lit and we're going to be able to manage that so manage that well um there may be some vinyl signage or something on the leasing office that might you know have some name associated with it um but we haven't we haven't flushed that out i don't think it would be anything other than some surface treatment somewhere either on the storefront or on the glass okay so nothing wayfinding stand-alone so it'll be out by the street to direct people around i don't i'm just i'm just asking because i want to know if it's something i think i think it's there's there's two right there's retail and residential i think the retail is going to be solved all on the storefront yeah we'll have to see that later right that'll be that'll be later when we know more about what's going in there the residential piece i don't think there's any wayfinding that says if you're a tenant come back here i think it's going to be a situation where um there's an address people understand you know people know the building and um by lighting and perhaps perhaps by some vinyl that is back on the leasing office there's something that that pulls people back there and i think as as uh as we've discussed i think some of the moves on the on the ground floor in terms of how we pull back the storefront and have this overhang to walk through are inherently going to lead people um back towards the the entrance to the residential portion of the building okay thank you i have a i have a third comment and i've been looking at this building for a little while now it's my second time around but um you know i i really appreciate it i really appreciate everyone's comments about you know how it's different from the other buildings that were there uh or that you you put up and and there's something really um elegant about this compared to your other buildings but one of the things that keeps coming up is that every time i look at it especially through um view pr o one page on the sort of view from kendrick park what we don't see is a view from further down the road and and my concern here is that wonnie's pleasant broke up that north facade by having a courtyard and this building is a is a solid wall and and it's you know because it's not your fault that your site is adjacent to the sea of asphalt and there's many you know one story building but but i have a real concern that for years to come there's this massive wall that's unbroken and and i'm not saying that i it's a it's a deal breaker for me but it feels really it feels really strange that a never see that view i think that view is going to be the the the the deal breaker for me sort of looking north into the town uh looking south into town and on the left you know right side of this tree we have a park on the left side we have this wall and and i guess the the reason i'm bringing it up isn't necessarily because i think you need to deconstruct your building or take it down or i'm not concerned about the height but i do think that there could be um an indent there could be you know you could remove a few feet here and there to break up that facade maybe where your gash is so that it you know looks like two pieces at a distance is there a material change that can happen to break this up into smaller pieces it just feels so monolithic and and and again it's because of the context this isn't an infill you know it's adjacent to the sea of asphalt that everyone's going to see and it's a billboard for you know the the walk downtown so i would love to see that wall addressed in some other way besides the monolithic monolithic use of one material so i have a concern about that and i'd love to hear your thoughts on it and whether or not that's something that might be worth examining um from your perspective uh sure i think as you said you know the site is very deep um we are one property south of prey street to the north is a one-story bank and then on one side and also a laundromat and some other properties that obviously are much smaller than the master plan seeks or than the zoning bylaw says that the town of embers is looking to have in the future so that you know this project is is is the latest project but obviously in 2050 right downtown embers is going to look different than it does in 2020 so i think that in terms of this site like we said it's very narrow trying to work with that site and and and make it work has has led to this this shape that has a head and a tail somewhat from a design standpoint we've tried to highlight that as much as we can with the with the the gash on the on the north side and you know the the rectangular you know recess on the south side and we've we looked at that a bunch of different ways again in in our design process and what we've settled on is this is is something that recognizes the reality of the site now recognizing that in the future there'll be something else and then it and and then uh you know uses the the cedar the zinc and the brick in in a combination that we think allows for you know the the composition to you know to work to work well um so i think that the you know it's a it's a very unique part of town in between you know pleasant street and the cemetery um there is no walkway through um you know there's never going to be a walkway through that gate on the cemetery is solid because there are graves on the other side so the entrance to the cemetery is always going to be the gay lord gate or on on pray street and so it is it is kind of a dead end at the end of this and um you know like i said we've we we feel like we've we've tried to put together a a puzzle that that we feel proud of in terms of that how to best use that that long facade yeah and i guess i i guess i'm not a disagreeing with that i'm not even disagreeing with the proportions of the building i'm not i i think um i could imagine your head and tail being slightly different materials and i can imagine some gesture the you know in that change of materials maybe it's the change in the orientation of the clover i don't i i guess what i'm saying is that um we are you know yes in 2050 it's going to look different but in 2030 and probably 2040 it's going to look the same and we're going to be looking at this wall and and i want i just i want i guess i want archipelago to acknowledge that and and consider um a way to break up that facade if it's possible well i i think we we do acknowledge it i think that if that still looks the same in 2040 then we're not doing our job with the housing production that our community needs to to make um so but acknowledging you know we've tried to break up the the that cladding with this horizontal brake metal um we've looked at a bunch of different cladding options and we felt strongly that the the strong move of the alaskan yellow cedar and the zinc and the brick as we put it was the best foot forward i'm just to play cattle's advocate with you sorry um i think that some of the way that the facades have broken up on the other buildings is actually visually um busy and distracted and i prefer maybe it's a wall but it might also be that it's so un um articulated that it's easy to look past it to not notice it as much so you know you can i'm sorry my cat is trying to tell us um it you know it's it's on the one hand it's a wall but on the other hand it doesn't jump out and say notice this notice this so does this part it's just quietly there it's a beautiful wall i'm not just i'm i'm saying that i think that but that's part of the problem and i getting the fact that we don't have a view looking south from the roundabout is telling and i think i'd like to see that view before i can say this is the right idea for town yeah i wouldn't want it to have all these sections like they do where they do sort of a faux townhouse look or something like or even like the other one with the brick and whatever that would make you stop and notice it rather than continuing to look south you know would become i don't know and it's kind of annoying after a while and are we you're mood at ten sorry from an architectural perspective i very much like the object nature of this building and i'm trying to look at it from an objective perspective suggesting that maybe not everybody wants the monolith in town so like i think i think i'd like to see it from that perspective understanding that that roundabout is going to be a gateway to town and you already pass the corner when you arrive there and that's the first thing you see when you come into amherst you have a park on one side and a monolith on the other and i want to make sure that that's what we want our town to see when we arrive but thank you the people who live there in those buildings you have this lovely courtyard that's created it's almost a european in a sense and we don't have that any place in the downtown and people are allowed to walk in there with this view of the cemetery so i i think you need to think on kind of like the they that this being a combination of buildings gathered around a courtyard with a view to the cemetery from kendrick park anybody driving into town from from uh from the uh from from umass couldn't care less about what they saw in the distance i i i'm telling you you as an architect see that but and we do too but 99.441 percent of anybody else is just driving through downtown well and i i think that tom we can absolutely show additional renderings right we can absolutely show renderings from anywhere it's been modeled it's revet you can we can we can uh you know we can show you this building from any angle we want and and and then have that that conversation dave they may you know whether or not they care architecturally the the view they get influences their perception of the town so i mean it doesn't really matter whether they are sophisticated architectural critics what they they see kendrick place and then they're going to see a couple of small buildings and then they'll see that and whether or not they actually look at them critically it's still how amherst appears to them and i think this is what tom's concerned about and i i think it's i think tom brings up a good point and i think that that is the conversation for all of north downtown right that north downtown is is a very unique stretch of land in new england um uh it is it is a wonderful opportunity and it is less than one percent of the land mass so if we're going to be doing anything there um and we're going to be serious about you know how much housing we need in this town then it's going to be uh there's going to be density and so if you just project density as the town has done in many studies over time in terms of what the north end of downtown would look like assuming the tan brook and different ownership and town ownership of a parking lot and pray street and all these other things and utilities that there's going to be some math mass to it i think using the term monolith is is um is one way to determine it one way to explain it i think using you know i'm saying it's a five-story building is another and i think that's what the north end of downtown um could be over time yeah i guess what i first see is a purple building the only one in western mass as i know it right now when i go down to it for long can i ask a clarifying question to our our chair and or marine um we started this time as um asking clarifying questions have we moved into design review board comments about form and proportion and yeah okay um we could save we could save these comments and go into our points if that's what you're sort of yeah i just i just want to make sure like i'd love to add to this conversation because i agree with tom but if this isn't the right time i just right direction from you yes so i okay i think that's a good point and uh it's easy to get into the weeds because we can bring those up um in our discussion and so marine according to our agenda um it is time if everybody agrees would be time to bring in any public comments oh catherine i believe erica wanted to want to see if if the board can talk about the design standards yes of course uh this is uh please do um so yeah we were going to go to those uh but uh i thought by our agenda we were going to have public comment now or um i just want to have clarification about sure uh we could start a public comment um maybe at um 615 does that work 620 something like that or whenever um um or if the board ends earlier but all right if erica wants to speak about this project as it relates to the design review board standards and principles please go ahead okay let's okay let's go to our standards and everybody can follow along um i i don't think that you need to go you know line item by item but yeah um i think we do need to go item by item to keep ourselves organized for the design review board we're obliged to do our design standards and i'm saying should we do them now or should we bring the public in um i think it's okay to just have a sort of open uh conversation about any topics as it relates to the design review board and i think when the board makes its ultimate recommendations that then that would be the opportunity to go um item by item okay okay sure so uh where are we then and the other uh are we go ahead okay so all right erica right no i just thank you for the clarification i think um i think this is great i do i have a short i have a short list um and just to start off with um where the conversation just was um i agree with tom that the the north facade of the building um actually i mean i think it's well designed the window proportions are are delightful i'm really appreciating the the use of wood i think that it's um jan may have used the word softer um building than some of the others um i think there's a lot to like about it and with just with regard to that north elevation though i think that it is um it is long it is repetitive and there could be some dare i say simple or easy ways to use your pallet of materials in particular um around the fire stair the egress stair that is located to the no i'm just oriented to the east to the yeah to the east that you know maybe you could use zinc cladding there i i'm guessing you wouldn't want to make the move of um indenting it your all of your zinc is used at places where you pushed into the volume um but if that were to happen that would be great and i think you know it's kind of a simple move that doesn't say let's redesign this entire facade but maybe you can articulate and then break it up into kind of head abdomen and tail um and they also think that the the gashes you're referring to it is is a really nice design move it's something that picks up um you know the porosity at the ground floor and carries it up the building but when it reduces on the top two floors to only two feet seven it's pretty ineffectual um i think it's not bringing light to those windows per se um and from that distance from this from the car right from the street or from the pedestrian's point of view on the sidewalk it's not going to have a lot of effect and if you could hold it at the place where that diagonal comes up and meets at the third floor line so that it gets more closer to maybe 10 feet it would cause some changes to the bedrooms on the top two floors but i think that that widening of that cut would be a really effective move to help to give some um breathing space there between the head and the tail um so if that's something that you'd be willing to consider i think it it might help to address um some of the concerns about that continuous or monolithic um north north face well i just just real quickly on that um we we we did look at that we looked at this facade and a number of different iterations um obviously the the egress stair was one place to bring in a different material that works quite well um what we found is it really started to take away from what we thought was the strong you know the strong design move of the the the front portion and and the separation and and the back portion um also tried to tie that into to the cladding the wood cladding rising up as the grade goes back to the higher portion in the cemetery so we didn't look at that we just felt like again that the the bigger move the stronger move was more effectual so um also looked at the gash and a number of different iterations um all different widths how it impacts interior how it doesn't how you have light and and started squeezing it to really kind of um we thought it was the it was the uh the right approach for the proportions and how the interior is going to be lit and how that was going to um take place so we have looked at these things it's just that we've you know when we were trying to you know finish the design this building and bring it forward um this is just where we where we uh settled yeah i would argue that that cut's going to be pretty much irrelevant by the time you're looking at it from from the sidewalk distance um I and if I have you know my my list is is short so um I also um really appreciate the the space you're giving at the front of the building um pushing back the the the retail um edge I think it's an important urban move to receive Halleck Street there at the end and like you mentioned there's the bus stop and I'm actually wondering if you could um expand the the paved surface a little bit and maybe push the grass back just a little so you know it would maybe involve moving the retaining wall back to just give a little bit more breathing room there and then to make sure that the the height of that first retaining wall is at seating height 18 inches yeah um yeah so and I know I think I heard you mention on our sidewalk that some of the walls would be at three feet high and I can see why you wouldn't want to encourage a lot of activity deeper into the site especially you know down at the back but um there at the front I think that would be a nice gesture to lower that one so that people can actually occupy that space and take a break on the sidewalk and you know tie their shoes or or whatever um so um yeah let's see and what else was my oh I'm a little bit concerned about um pedestrian safety at the place where the cars are going to be moving in underneath that cut and if there was any way to distinguish the paving surface or perhaps an additional ballard or something to indicate that there should be some distinction between where people walk because you are encouraging cutting through and where cars are driving in and out uh understood um you know we've tried to take the paver all the way through and have that continuous we haven't looked at altering the paver pattern or if that would be enough to telegraph that um obviously with the angle there's not there's not high speed there because in order to you know to to turn in and get in there requires some negotiation um it works with turning radius and everything but um it's not a high speed corner um I think that you know could there be some signage on the ballards or some signage on that brick column that is exposed in between the pedestrian and the vehicular potentially and that might that might just be another key besides walking past the ballards might be another key that that alerts folks that that's where the the cars and the people have to play nicely together as they do at one east pleasant you have others Erica no I'll I'll see two other members of the design review board okay we'll get back to some of these Lindsay hi so um no I echo what other board members have said I think that you've made a lot of really informed and and well well articulated decisions on this building overall um but I also agree that it would I would really welcome the opportunity to see a little bit more of the zinc um and those reveals and so I understand that design is an arduous process um firsthand and you've already made it this far and you don't want to go back and you've looked at well more than we have so I respect that um and you have a better sense of what what does and doesn't work um that being said it's our you know it's our first time seeing um a rendition of of how it all comes together and I think that um Tom and Erica's points about the north facade um offer some some rationale for perhaps considering other moments where you could continue to do what you've already done and um I I do like Erica's suggestion of considering that zinc at the stair I I was just looking at it myself thought the same thing before she made the comment that that's a location where it feels like it would be really nice to have a break just a visual something again subtle it could be a small break but I think um you have the material palette to do something there that might really help the eye just have a little a moment of rest or a moment of transition um and then the only other location um and I do also agree with her about the width of that slot but maybe maybe that's loss of a concern because I think that the the break that you've created that kind of like tear is really nice gesture and indicates where that opening is and I really appreciate that the only other location where I feel like um I would be curious to see how you how you could um create more visual interest is on the south facade um this is both from a functional interior standpoint as well as from a aesthetic exterior standpoint which is at the end of the the the west end of the corridor where you have um on the east side you have a a view all the way through and on the west side that ends at a unit which is a bedroom for one of the units on the west side um and I I certainly don't want to suggest that you take away um valuable bedroom space because I know that's an important feature but it would be lovely if there was a way to create a continuous view through and some kind of I don't know how wide your corridors are but five to six foot um exterior transition in and have that that location of the corridor be expressed and that kind of like view through the building where you really do have a break um on all the floors above the ground floor be expressed through a material change that would really be interesting to see on the south side so those are the two locations where I think um um I would be curious to see what that does for the building um so that's my suggestion that whether or not there's a reveal would be nice if there could be but just even transitioning materials I think could be lovely secondly um I think my my only other real two two minor exterior question the one is on the um I understand you can't extend the parapet height any further but um just looking at some of the elevations it indicates that there's that mechanical screen and some of those are um more porous to the eye than others and so um it looks like on on the longer facades that screen is is pretty effective at um at eclipsing the mechanical units but on the south side maybe less so and that seems to be you know certainly from the park there will be a lot of views toward that that parapet and above so I just want to encourage that whatever that screen is is um as concealing and um uh sightly as possible especially from the kind of long distance view of Kendrick park um and then lastly uh the ballers that you show I think those are those are nice I wonder if there might be a an alignment with the mullions this is like a really picky design question um your mullions appear to be relatively evenly spaced along that north facade it might be nice if they had some kind of rhythm that aligned with the mullions or the paving or both um so I would just suggest looking at that again it's a very minor comment but it could be it could have a nice effect okay thank you miss Brestrup would like to speak am I being recognized yes yes there you are yes I just wanted to point out that I think there is some room to make the parapet wall higher um because since it's not enclosing a habitable space um it actually doesn't count as far as the building height so I would encourage Kyle and his designers to look at how the how the height is measured and um to realize that there are certain items that are not included in the height um and I think it would be section 6.172 of the zoning bylaw that you could look at it says height limitations shall not apply to chimneys, spires, cupolas, td and teni are other parts of buildings or structures non intended for human occupancy so um I remember that when um Cune Riddle and um the building the property owners proposed a building on at the corner of Halleck Street and North Pleasant Street um they did have a parapet wall that was pretty high I think it might have been as high as three feet and the purpose of it was to um enclose some things on the roof but it was also to you know make the building look better in their design and they were allowed to do that because of this way of um judging the building height so I just want to point that out in case that would be helpful. Okay thank you. Any other comments from the design review board that we haven't picked up? I did have a couple of comments um I'm agreeing with Tom and others about the wall that causes me a lot of concern and I'm sorry that the architects didn't make some attempt to create some breaks in the length of the building and as Jan said you don't want to turn it into something tacky and I'm not sure it's sticking up different materials here and there will work but I think some of the suggestions should be taken seriously. I have a question about the yellow cedar and I don't know Kyle if you have talked to people about the history of the wear of that kind of wood because one thought comes by mind after 10 years it's going to start looking really kind of bad maybe breaking down or the colors going to dissipate um what's your what do you know what's your best uh understanding of the cedar for because you've got so much the building cedar. Sure uh so the Alaskan yellow cedar the way we found out about the material was on a site visit to Cambridge where Renzo Piano and just uh was the Fogg Museum addition was under construction and we saw a bundle of this wood and um looked at it and came back and saw all the studies that they had done to find the right wood to do this cladding of this building in Boston and they settled on Alaskan yellow cedar because of its density because of its the clarity of the grain because of its ability to age gracefully um and then the the stain that we've deployed is the same is a similar stain but they view so uh the Kendrick Place project has this on it um when we install that uh we use a oil-based stain uh from Cabot called a bleach bleaching oil we've since shifted that Cabot has discontinued that project we're using a water-based stain that pre-grazed the the Alaskan yellow cedar as we did at one east pleasant um what that does is it it gets it through its ugly duck wing phase and gets it to a natural wood material gracefully uh so I think that in terms of wood cladding which I think is you know something that we're gonna try to do more of in the future I think it's important um as a material I think it does a lot of positive things that we're all very well aware of um that coming up with the right wood that will you know exist well in the New England environment was important to us and I think that Alaskan yellow cedar with the Cabot water-based bleaching oil gives us that that best opportunity okay so you don't anticipate that you would have to treat it every so often just to maintain that rich color that it's going to have when you build the building I think I think that the wood material is inherently natural there's inherently um if you go look at the fog museum today there's inherently going to be some variation it's not going to be uniform we're not painting it it's not a solid body stain that we're trying to cover it up so the intent is that there's richness in that aging process um there's richness even in the cedar here um that there's delta between those you know the the colors of the wood so the intent is not to be resurfacing this or re-staining it every five years at all um the intent is to put it up and and put up a robust material that has the you know the proper stain to help it begin its life and then allow it to you know to age and and and be graceful and I think in the future we're going to see more of that as as cladding on buildings around the country okay okay then one other thing that um does relate to design sort of indirectly you do have some limited parking uh that's been built into your design um but I think the thinking will be that there are many people that are going to have cars and we're going to want to have to park their car this is going to come up again and again so might be good just to have your thoughts about that now because you've designed a building with limited parking meaning that there are going to be cars looking for places to park and what do what will you be telling your residents um about where to park and how to park uh given that you have a limited number in your building uh I think that in our approach to downtown as we think it's really important to get housing units downtown um we think that um you know the uh by having people you have the most robust ground for you have the most robust uh retail environment that you can have that can compete with all the stuff it needs to compete with these days whether it's online or on the strip down the road um and I think that there is always going to be as as our country goes through uh you know a big housing boom here in in certain markets uh you're going to see this trade off between housing units and parking and every municipality has to figure out where they are with that and I think that um you know there's a we've tried to come up with what we think is the best balance to that um and have and you know obviously even though we're within the municipal parking district uh trying to provide parking on the ground for uh to do that uh we don't want to do all parking because then we don't have retail we don't want to do all retail because then we don't have parking um so we've we've tried to you know do the right mix and continue to bring folks to live downtown yeah so in other words uh they'll just have to find themselves a place yeah I mean I hear you I think everybody understands this but um one of the increasing density downtown and more cars and fewer parking spaces um we're going to uh Amherst is going to continue to have a problem it's going to be perceived as a problem even if it isn't but I do think it's a problem so just wanted to bring that up just something for the record and then just one other thing we're talking with Tom about designing for are we designing for now are we designing for the future because now uh we're going to have this very long building um and this is what people are going to see and we it's a it's a challenge to say well wait 10 years there'll be another big building and then you won't see that building um I think we have to keep in mind that this is what people are seeing now and um that's still a challenge so any other sorry Catherine just to answer your question we have to design for both we have to design for now and we have to design for the future um I think that now is um um uh is is working with the reality of a of a site that is here in Amherst that's very important that's in downtown and um I think we've tried to do the best we can to make that site work and and again try to design for both now and the future okay um Erica has a comment and then after that I think we should open it up to the public comment okay we haven't gone through the uh points yet uh I uh yeah so I think it's probably safe to say that um that the board is going to continue their review uh for this project so um okay yeah so okay going through the specific design standards could be do the next meeting or subsequent meetings very good all right all right so my my question is um regarding um Stathine's pleasant and is that a totally separate agenda item um or is it something that we can ask questions about now yeah yeah absolutely um so uh just to be clear um so your your uh both uh applications are listed on the agenda that Catherine um read aloud earlier um your review is being done jointly uh together but the motions themselves will be done separately right and I don't even think that this is um because I think that the 15th pleasant is about the staging area but right that's your property too and I'm thinking about um there's now there's the future and then there's this middle time and I'm wondering if you could tell us about what are the plans for 15th pleasant in the interim uh we the the plans for 15th pleasant are just through construction at this point right to try to be able to deliver another project downtown and accommodate construction staging and a trailer and parking and getting vehicles off the street as best we can while we're still trying to you know redevelop the parking lots in the one story so uh we do not have a plan beyond that okay okay any other questions from the board comments if not then marine you think we can open it up to the public and can you tell us sure just one second um miss brushrup has answer your hand okay i just wanted to make the comment about um 15th pleasant and right now it's going to be used for construction staging and when the construction is done it's going to be paved over but there will be a a fence around it so it's not going to be um actively used as a parking lot if the applicant wanted to actively use it as a parking lot he could go through another process um and I don't remember if it's a special permit or site plan review to create a commercial parking lot there but I think that his plan does not include that so it's just going to end up being paved over with the fence around it so that's probably that's what you would be commenting on or reviewing as a final product thank you okay thank you thank you Chris okay so let's take a look at um for public comments uh Pam Rooney has raised her hand oh could I make a just a short statement to the public to remind people that um we're that does we're only talking about the design of the building uh nothing about uh who's living there or what they're doing inside so please keep your comments relative to the design what you have seen um tonight or what you have heard tonight and just to clarify it's the design of the building and the site and any you know exterior changes yes exactly yeah okay go ahead okay hi Pam Rooney 42 Cottage Street thanks for letting me in um I have not heard anyone ask any questions really about the landscape in the site uh and the fact that we have uh the opportunity to reestablish a very strong streetscape language that extends all the way the up the east side of north pleasant and east pleasant street no excuse me all the way up north pleasant street until it gets to one east pleasant where the the town standards were truncated and um the landscape excuse me the landscape language was completely dropped and um it does feel that it's within the purview of the design review board to reinstate what is uh really written in as town standards and that goes to the pavement material it goes to the the edging it all it goes to the planting of street trees the five street trees that were planted in front of one east pleasant are the worst examples of street trees i've ever seen they're mismatched they're undersized so i think you all have it in your purview to again reestablish that strong street language that is really integral to the town center and the town experience and i'll just stop at that thank you okay thank you marine how many people do you see uh from the public so we can try just two more how many two more okay fine uh dorothy pam hello dorothy pam 229 amity street i'm looking at the design of the commercial space which is all glass and recessed and um perhaps i'm going beyond but i thought what store what commercial space would thrive in that rather kind of shadowed uh but glass place and it would be an ice cream store right across from the park but my question is would then ice cream store be able to pay the rent i don't know you know what the rent would be like or how much money would generate but everyone's talked about the fact we've got a park and now we've got no place to get an ice cream cone so i'm just wondering if you have any thoughts on this okay we want to uh finish let's finish the public comments and then we can ask kyle uh if he'd like to respond okay sure once again so next we have uh mary seyer hello um can you hear me yes yes i'm mary seyer i live in north amherst and i just wanted to encourage um the comments that the design review board has said about this building being a wall blocking the site view and um i want to let dav know that many people in north amherst actually do care about our view lines as we come into the center of amherst um we certainly do give a damn about the feeling of the town as we enter it um i already feel that the view has been blocked considerably by one kinder place i feel already the town is pushing back at my coming in and to have another of that kind of feeling of a big wall um anyway i just want to say that i think tom's comments are are good ones i think landscaping actually would help quite a bit if there was a nice streetscape in front of it to um break up that wall effect but please don't make comments about people not caring about what the not giving a damn about what the town's impence looks like thank you okay hey uh next we have janet mcgallon my name is janet mcgallon i live at 706 south whoops we've lost her in my back my back yes okay now a lot of things telling me to mute or unmute so um once again i'm janet mcgallon my name i live at 706 south east street i'm on the planning board but i'd like to make comments really in my capacity as a resident and an almost lifelong attorney um i would really urge you to to talk about the design standards and go through them one by one and see how they apply to this project because it's not a building that's an isolation it's set in a community um you know and that it has relate it and when you you know when i read the design standards that i'm very encouraged by the specificity of it i've rent i've gone through the um design review board um handbook you know when you're looking at windows and building heights um and in the context of the surrounding in the buildings that are all around the downtown i know that when one east pleasant street was being considered all the tallest buildings in the downtown were compared but they didn't look at the lower buildings and so i just encourage you to look at those standards very carefully um and look at the fact you know the the the master plan the fact that we're living in a new england town how how that building will fit in and work um and how it fits with all the buildings around it tall or small and the different architectural styles like you know i i don't want to tell you what your job is but i do think it's the job of a board to apply legal standards or design standards to the to what's at hand and i i'm hoping that you do that really thoroughly i just um you know a lot of people are looking to the board and the planning board um on this building but also on like the shape of downtown and where it's going and you know keeping the good qualities we like and adding to them that's all thank you thank you janet okay um so next we have uh susanna must prat thank you very much um i just have a practical question it's easy to forget at this time of year but uh where are you going to put the snow okay we can get to that anything else from the okay well that's all for now okay okay um and that's there are no other raised hands um okay so uh that means that we could kyle uh you could respond to some of those particularly the one about the um the use of the retail uh i meant to ask you that myself if if that um space is designed to accommodate any sort of food service or ice cream or coffee so to speak um where's kyle is he i'm i'm here yeah so you heard the few questions about yeah i did i i think the cream i i i love ice cream um i think that the the idea this retail being somewhat tied to the park is is the right idea i think that you know we're very fortunate to have a another town common that's coming to the town on the north end i think it's you know through the bearing of the power lines with the first step the the the playground and the sidewalk improvements are the next step all the art that's gone in there is is headed in the right direction so the the reprogramming of that site from the former single-family homes with the lot lines and the shrubs and the curb cuts that are still remaining to a proper downtown park uh could very much use you know a ground for tenants associated with it we would we accommodate in terms of access to the roof in the event that there is a requirement for a hood or some access to the roof for a mechanical equipment standpoint um uh beyond that we have not uh we don't have the tenant picked um we don't know what it would be but i think obviously that as that as kinder park grows up and becomes a more formal park i think having something associated that with that would be would be great um uh i think relative to the sidewalk uh improvements that were brought up um obviously there's the town has those sidewalk improvements were a big improvement to downtown um as as everyone as most know that they stopped at the one east pleasant when it was the carriage shops and became kind of asphalt there um and so i think that that is a conversation that is less about the applicant uh and more about you know we could rebuild that however the town directs us in terms of do we want to continue those sidewalk improvements or do we want it to you know uh look like the new sidewalks that were put in on the west side of kinder park so we we can uh we are agnostic on that uh relative to the town's sidewalk improvements in in regards to snow that's always that's always an issue but as with every you know downtown's uh you make do you figure out a way to to make it happen that's what amherst has always done and that's what we would do here um and i think that uh i don't know if i'm forgetting anything else that may be it so and kyle it could potentially mean that that one retail space that um an attorney could rent at that when you say retail i think we immediately think of you know a score but um and you're you know i think in the general sense it could be rented by an insurance agent or an attorney or any kind of business is that not yeah uh yeah the intent that the space will support whatever tenant comes in there um obviously we've got mass mutual up the street which not everybody was happy about um we've got a sushi i have sushi next door and when he's pleasant um so there's there are a number of different options and obviously retail has changed more in the past 15 months than it had in the past 10 years so are you prioritizing um what you want i mean if somebody says i'd like to come up open up an insurance agency or pay this rent would you say uh would you put let that person come in or would you try to hold it for a retail which is because a different personality i think it's i think it's a i think it's a different uh you know by the time this building opens it'll be different than it is now okay i think we have to be conscious of the right fit obviously um as we've tried to do elsewhere and i think that um it's a you know that that retail has to work within the building and that's what we've tried to we tried to i'm okay well i just might jump in here and say i don't take an insurance agency or an office but in the live in the downtown the whole idea of the downtown is to connect uh what we found out when i when i had judy's for 43 years and shut it down last year was that the most traveled sidewalk in downtown was in front of judy's and extended up and dissipated out as it got out to the toy box so my goal is how do we in live in our downtown how do we bring it back uh and really that's going to be a tough charge for us for the next five years so we're going to do anything we possibly can to bring back the public to the downtown because right now it's dead as a door name so yeah there you go all right okay that's my two cents worth all right thank you uh miss brushup would like to speak hello i just wanted to note that um the town has been moving away from the design of the sidewalks that were either brick in the middle with concrete on the side or concrete in the middle with brick on the side it really they don't hold up very well they tend to fall apart really easily um we've been moving towards a more um what streamlined um type of sidewalk which doesn't mean that we can't have a gracious and comfortable and lovely streetscape we can add trees we can add benches we can add spaces but as far as the pavement of the sidewalk goes we're moving away from that um brick and concrete uh combination the only place i've seen that where it's actually been done uh really well and has held up very well is um in front of the lord jeff where amherst college paid for that to happen and um later on around the spring street area where the town built those sidewalks but it's really a problem to keep those up over the years so i just wanted to mention that thank you okay are there any um i'm watching the time now marine whether we should uh just sort of collect our thoughts uh comments and then um plan to really dig into the um design review board um standards at another meeting what's the pleasure of the group are there more questions or comments while kyle and david are here from any of the design review board will our i have a question will our follow-up meeting not include kyle and david i don't know marine the i think i think kyle and dav would like to attend the next meeting that's what i assumed okay all right we would also like you better to consider kyle you've been spending all your time with us don't you have a life yeah between us and the planning board and everybody else it's been a while it's been a while we haven't been before you guys in a while so yeah so something that i was um think uh that i'm planning to do is to uh type up the the meeting uh minutes um and um particularly uh you know the comments from the the drb members and from the public of suggestions and questions and to provide it to the applicant in preparation of the of the subsequent meeting um so if if the applicant chooses to um update their plan set or or materials um they would know what to work off of okay yeah could i could i ask when would we what is when will we meet again yeah great excellent question um it looks like um i sent out a doodle poll to all the drb members and it looks like they're they are all available on monday june 7th from five to seven okay good okay and i would add that if you are providing um new information updated materials etc um the board would need it at least one week in advance of the meeting so there's enough time to circulate and to review and does the does the drb meet once a month they meet as needed as needed is there a time before june 7th which is almost a month away it looks like marine we did a doodle poll and that looks like that was the first available meeting yeah so i have one on my calendar fourth uh june 4th i have a drb meeting is that not happening well there were lots of options wait i'm sorry i'm back in may that was me okay yeah there were lots of options jam but that's good yeah yeah yeah okay my calendar is open i'm asking because we're before uh the planning board on june 2nd yeah and i was trying to do that before we're before the planning board again is that the final planning board discussion of your project uh i don't i don't know that yeah probably marion do you know it's up to the the planning board um you know there could be one meeting there could be two more meetings i don't know tom uh did you want to weigh in or chris uh breast strip would you like to weigh in on that i think it's gonna it's going to take at least one more meeting on june 2nd but i wouldn't be surprised if it went beyond that we still have to um look at 15 east pleasant there's a special permit that's being introduced for uh to deal with a setback issue and we'll be holding opening that public hearing on june 2nd so i'm imagining that there will be another planning board meeting beyond june 2nd it just seems quite less for us to send our recommendation to the planning board if it turns out that we're a week later than their main discussion as a project that's all right yeah that makes sense but what unless another poll another marion could send out another request for a an agreeable meeting date well there were only june dates in that last poll uh well we could do it live right here are folks available on monday may 31st now is that a holiday is that oh is that memorial day how about tuesday june 1st yes yes we do wednesday what about the week prior to that so if we are gonna say we need at least one week in advance um you know he would need to submit things by the end of this week i think what how the week of the 24th is what i'm asking about posting a public meeting how about uh if uh how about wednesday may 26 that works that works for me planning board that day so that's plan okay how about tuesday i can do i don't um i but we don't think we have we have not scheduled a planning board meeting for may 26th we have one on may 19th and we have one on june 2nd i think i just have one every one i know you should assume you always have a meeting on wednesday now you do if that if that works for folks um may 26th which is wednesday sure okay so that's instead of june seven correct yes i guess so so wednesday uh so that means that the deadline for submitting new information to this board would be may 19th okay any other points that that anybody on the board would like to bring to the attention of kyle um for his homework or i guess i just like a more detailed rendering of exactly i know you described it to us but an actual rendering of what's going to happen to the wall between the cemetery and the building the trees the egress behind the building the fence you had talked about moving the fence it just i'd like to know that a little better we are looking at that side of the cemetery for a number of different things i'm sorry as rep for the historical commission we is now the historical um and uh we were concerned about the trees and the proximity of the graves and the grade and everything so i guess i just like to have a little better rendering there that i can take back to the commission and i think we have a fairly complete landscaping plan uh do we not uh it was that's not really a landscaping issue that's not i wasn't no i know i mean no i'm talking about uh the effort okay something else uh i thought we had a fairly complete landscaping plan at uh one of the callers was concerned that maybe we didn't but i we can we're going to discuss it let's put it that way we will discuss it can i understand what jan's saying yeah okay and oh sorry good no go ahead tom i was just going to say i'd like to see a rendering from the roundabout and one from praise street okay yeah at eye level uh lindsay did were you going to uh make yeah just um we didn't really talk about lighting at all but it would be nice to see if there i don't know if it's possible to do a photometric study but just something that generally generates some indication of the light levels um at the entrance and in the courtyard area you know that's something that has been raised as a general concern so if if next meeting is the right time to review that um or if there's another time but i think it should be noted as one of the questions and then if there's any uh pedestrian um furniture furniture furnishings along the south uh and west side of the property and now you have the the granite blocks which i think are a nice integrated opportunity for seating but um you know if there's any additional proposed outdoor furnishings that would be helpful to see um and i think lastly is just building signage um which i think you talked about getting back to um as part of your for the retail component but in terms of the actual building itself you've done a really nice job of providing signage integrated to the building um in your other locations and i don't see that here but i imagine it's part of your design process and then the leasing office going to be there permanently or is it just there for the first few years permanent oh okay so you'll continue to need it didn't you say kyle you were thinking about combining all three or or all of your leasing offices yes so it's permanent it would stay there oh so it would take it would um serve for the other two buildings as well yeah through amherst innovative living the management company i see okay and one other thought that i had early on was uh the walkway between um east pleasant and the tree line i'm going back to the cemetery is is there lighting along the way uh that seemed like do you have some sort of low lights or yeah there's there's lights on on the bollards down lights and okay within that fence yeah okay within the granite wall so you're walking through a dark alley to get from east pleasant to the cemetery right it hits the that hits the that hits the walk surface on the ground and then there's um lighting from the lobby that's 24 seven that always and then the light on the top of the column okay okay all right i believe one of the board members asked if the parapet could be or screening in general it could be provided to on the roof to screen the the roof equipment so if if the applicant is agreeable to that i think that that would be nice to see that in the rendered plan and just real quick on that i think that the what you see on the renderings from hallock street are the elevator penthouse and the roof screen so the reason that it looks higher is not because it's equipment that's the overrun for the elevator and the penthouse to give the door you know to have the door access and so that's got the pitch roof on it and then you know the the the roof screen is is underneath that so i think that's that i i know that that's accurately represented in the rendering but that's that's not the roof screen that's the elevator overrun that's that's popping up and being shown from the from the pleasant street side yeah yep sorry moringe i was just going to say to clarify i guess if in light of christine chris's comments about the potential extension of the parapet then our recommendations for um maximal screening if there are going to be changes because i see that rendering and i think it's pretty clear um as shown but if you're going to make changes it would be nice to see that updated understood i'd just be careful about making that too much higher because proportionally to the rest of those stories of the building you wouldn't want it to be too tall or it's going to throw off how the whole side looks i mean not not to throw like the whole every request at you but i think it that might also warrant like a view from kendrick park um if it's possible um that could even be like a photoshop thing but a sense of how much visibility to jan's point like it um you know how high is too high and how how low is too low and i don't know that we can answer that well and i i think that the we don't have an intent to raise the parapet um i can just say that right now i think that the intent is to use the roof screen because that's further back from the end end wall so it's not as high right at the face of the elevation try to push that equipment towards the center of the roof as much as we can centralize the tallest equipment which is the erv and the generator allow the smaller uh condensers that just sit on the little feet to be towards next to that screen and then just try to keep that in so i don't think we have an intent to raise that that parapet beyond where it is now okay any other questions or comments before we adjourn anything for kyle any questions for us as i don't think so your turn okay okay all right then uh we'll meet again in a couple of weeks uh and chris or marine have any um last minute uh comments or thoughts for us because next time what we will be doing and everybody i know you have a copy of the design standards what we will do is be going through them one by one and um putting our best thoughts into each of the nine points so strategic nine point all right marine can can we go ahead and uh adjourn this meeting sure all right i move i move we adjourn oh jen thank you you got your chance you want a second bat you don't want to be almost second okay the move in second it is there any discussion that if not all in favor signify by saying i hi hi okay very good um we'll see you in a few weeks thank you everybody thanks go