Design Review Board
Level 3: Construction of new building/structure
8-C-23-DT
Staff Recommendation
The Board should discuss if the site conditions and the project's goals are significant enough to warrant major deviations from the design guidelines, which emphasize human-oriented design and pedestrian engagement at ground level. Pending Board decision based on the design guidelines, any approval should also be subject to the following conditions: 1) final site plan to meet City Engineering standards; 2) applicant to resubmit a substitute exterior finish material in place of the faux-wood fiber cement product; and 3) applicant to provide details on sign lighting; any internal illumination to be limited to push-through letters and logos.
Location 427 Walnut St.
416 Locust Street & 427 Walnut Street
OwnerVector Hospitality
Applicant Request
SUMMARY: Proposed new 7-story hotel building, proposed for an irregular rectangular site on the 400 blocks of Locust Street and Walnut Street. The site currently features a surface parking lot. The proposed building has frontage on both Locust and Walnut Streets.
SITE LAYOUT AND ACCESS: No on-site parking is provided within the proposed structure. A vehicular entrance is located on the right side of the Walnut Street elevation, providing access to an internal vehicular drive occupying the ground floor. The entrance measures approximately 26' wide and accesses a round drop-off/valet area with three parking spaces and one accessible space. One public pedestrian access point on Walnut Street is located to the left side of the elevation, accessing a space currently marked retail," with a second recessed door entering the enclosed car area. Only a secondary/service entrance is located on the Locust Street elevation; this entrance would not be accessible to the public or hotel guests.
DESIGN ELEMENTS:
The flat roof building is clad in fiber reinforced siding of a faux-wood finish, composite metal panels in light grey, and composite metal panels in black, with a two-story brick cladding section fronting Locust Street (the west elevation).
Walnut Street elevation: The east elevation has a faux-wood fiber cement panel siding which extends from the ground level to the roofline on the right side and a section of metal panels on the left side. Half of the ground floor on this elevation features an automobile entry drive, with the left half as aluminum storefront windows and a full-light pedestrian entrance to the "office/retail" space within. Windows are irregularly sized, single-light, aluminum fixed windows.
Locust Street elevation: The west elevation features two stories of brick veneer on the bottom floors, followed by a swath of grey metal panel siding, and the upper level clad in the faux-wood fiber cement panels. The ground level features a service entrance, an overhead garage door, and a series of aluminum storefront windows. Upper level windows are irregularly sized, single-light, aluminum fixed windows, with an upper level of adjoining single-light windows. The upper two stories are recessed from the primary elevation.
Walnut Street elevation: On the east elevation, pedestrians will have to enter through the vehicular entrance and walk through the rounded drive to access a "guest entrance" at the center of the building, or enter a recessed access door and walk through the car area. The "office/retail" entrance is adjacent to the automobile access and does not connect to the rest of the hotel. Pedestrians will not be able to access the hotel on Locust Street.
South elevation: the bottom two levels are clad in brick veneer, with composite metal panels on the middle stories and faux-wood fiber reinforced siding on the upper levels. Windows are irregularly spaced, fixed aluminum.
North elevation: the bottom levels are clad in brick veneer, with composite metal panels on the middle stories and faux-wood fiber reinforced siding closer to Walnut Street and on the upper levels. Windows are irregularly spaced, fixed aluminum, with the section closest to the Langley parking garage having no fenestrations.
Revisions submitted for the October meeting include: a series of irregularly spaced, single light windows of various sizes along the ground-floor level on the south elevation; a stepback incorporated on the upper two stories of the Walnut Street elevation; an access gate added to the automobile entry on the Walnut Street elevation; one pedestrian door added to the Walnut Street elevation's retail space, and one pedestrian door added to the employee breakroom area on the Locust Street elevation.
Revisions also include signs. Signs include: on the Walnut Street elevation, an 8' by 8' (64 sq. ft.) wall sign along the roofline, and a 1'0" tall by 22'-11" name sign on the entry canopy. On the Locust Street elevation, a 1'-4" tall by 9'-11" wide wall sign is located above the second level. A blade sign is called out but location is not clarified.
Staff Comments
1. The staff recommendation and Board action in the August 2023 meeting was to postpone Certificate 8-C-23-DT, to encourage the applicant to 1) revise the ground-level elevations fronting both Locust Street and Walnut Street to meet the design guidelines and create pedestrian-oriented environments at street level; 2) meet with City Plans Review and Inspections to identify any access or zoning issues; and 3) address the potential height stepback requirement; along with any additional design comments identified by the Board. The applicant has addressed access issues on Walnut Street and incorporated a stepback. No revisions have been made to align the Locust Street entrance with the design guidelines which encourage pedestrian engagement; the Walnut Street elevation remains primarily oriented towards automobiles and drivers.
2. The building is proposed for a narrow parking lot, adjacent to the historic Daylight Building to the south and the Langley parking garage to the north. Other than the historic Daylight Building and the Pembroke Building across Union Avenue, the Walnut Street block is characterized by new construction residences and parking garages. On Locust Street, the building will adjoin the Langley garage and a surface parking garage, across the street the from historic Kendrick Place rowhouses. The blocks feature less pedestrian activity than the busiest corridors of downtown, but many users park in the various garages to access other downtown locations.
3. The application does not include on-site parking. However, almost all of the ground floor fronting Walnut Street is dedicated to automobiles, via a drive-through drop-off for hotel guests. Of the approximately 56' wide façade, half will be devoted to automobile entry and exit. Users of the hotel will either enter through a full-light pedestrian door on the left side of the façade and walk through the "covered outdoor waiting area," or walk on the auto access drive, to an entry vestibule recessed in the center of the building. Design guidelines encourage maintaining pedestrian-scaled environments from block-to-block, creating building materials and entries at a human scale to create an engaging pedestrian experience, using first-floor uses to draw walk-in traffic, and creating a transparent and consistent rhythm of entrances and windows at ground-level. The ground-level façade design fronting Walnut Street is primarily devoted to automobiles and does not meet the design guidelines.
4. City Engineering has not evaluated the driveway entry on Walnut Street, which will be approximately 125' from the entry to the Langley garage. There may be sight distance issues for cars exiting onto Walnut Street, and pedestrian safety issues crossing the sidewalk.
5. A small space marked " retail" is located on the left half of the façade, previously noted as a "rideshare drop-off" location in the June DRB workshop. Revisions include a note "ownership to engage SVN Wood Properties to identify highest and best use of space." The space is 459 sq. ft. Revisions to the retail space include one pedestrian door that opens to the street.
6. There are no public spaces on the Locust Street elevation. The elevation includes a service entry (a door with no transparency), a roll-up garage door, and a series of storefront windows opening to the employee break room. Hotel users or visitors will not be able to enter the hotel from this door. Revisions to the employee break room now incorporate a full-light storefront door to an outdoor seating area. The employee break room will not have heavy use. The ground floor elevation on Locust Street does not meet the design guidelines, as it does not contribute to the pedestrian experience, draw walk-in users, and lacks the transparency recommended to engage the street.
7. The south elevation will adjoin the residences on the rear elevation of the Walnut Building, including the basement-level residences which are currently separated from the surface parking lot by a fence and landscaping. The application lacks information on how the new hotel will engage the basement level residences. The light grey metal panel siding may have an adverse visual effect on the adjacent residences when in direct sunlight.
8. Per the DK dimensional standards (5.5.B.3.), buildings over 85' are required to incorporate a stepback a minimum of 10' from the street-facing façade plane, which must occur above the third story and below the seventh. The revised application has addressed this element.
9. The buildings' proposed materials are common for new commercial or multi-family construction. The guidelines encourage using "complimentary materials and elements, especially next to historic buildings." The Board should discuss whether metal panels and faux-wood fiber cement are complimentary to the nearby brick masonry structures such as the Daylight Building, the Pembroke, and the Kendrick Place rowhouses. In the opinion of staff, faux-wood fiber cement is an inappropriate material within the guidelines.
