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HomeMy WebLinkAbout2019-06-20 Architectural Review Board Summary MinutesCity of Palo Alto Page 1 Call to Order/Roll Call Present: Chair Wynne Furth, Board Members Alexander Lew and Osma Thompson. Absent: Vice Chair Baltay, Board Member David Hirsch Chair Furth: Good morning, and welcome to the deferred regular meeting of the Architectural Review Board of the City of Palo Alto, for June 20, 2019. My apologies for the unavoidable delay this morning. Staff, could you call the roll? [Roll Call] Oral Communications Chair Furth: Now is the time for oral communications. This is a time to address any item not on the agenda but is within our subject matter here, our purview. I don’t have any cards. Is there anybody who wishes to speak on any matter? No? All right. Agenda Changes, Additions and Deletions – not addressed City Official Reports 1.Transmittal of 1) the ARB Meeting Schedule and Attendance Record, and 2) Tentative Future Agenda items. Chair Furth: City official reports. Ms. Gerhardt: Yes. We just have the schedule. The July 4th meeting is cancelled. And then, July 18th, Board Member Thompson will be out, but I believe everyone else will be here. Also, July 18th, Chair Furth, it would be your last meeting, right? Chair Furth: That’s right. Ms. Gerhardt: We’d like to schedule a celebration of sorts. We’ll talk more about that offline. Chair Furth: Thank you. I feel like I just have to say, I’ve never been late before. The movers just arrived. Ms. Gerhardt: Yes. And then, for the next meeting on July 18th, it shows six items in the packet. It has gone down to a more reasonable four items. I believe the wireless items are dropping off and will not be heard that day. Chair Furth: We have 565 Hamilton Avenue, which is a return to us. Is that right? ARCHITECTURAL REVIEW BOARD MINUTES: June 20, 2019 City Hall/City Council Chambers 250 Hamilton Avenue 8:30 AM City of Palo Alto Page 2 Ms. Gerhardt: Yes, second hearing. Chair Furth: A preliminary hearing on 486 Hamilton Avenue, and a subcommittee meeting on the brick and lighting at the Public Services Building. Is that right? Ms. Gerhardt: Yes. The new road/bridge. Board Member Thompson: Actually, I just remembered, I actually might be here on the 18th. I had some funny things happen with my planning, so it’s possible I will actually be at that. Ms. Gerhardt: That would be great. Either way. Chair Furth: I’m sorry, a new road/bridge replacement. Okay. Board Member Thompson: I need a packet for that. My flight is coming back on the 17th, but I should be here. Ms. Gerhardt: Okay. Chair Furth: All right. Action Items 2. PUBLIC HEARING / QUASI-JUDICIAL. 3000 El Camino Real (18PLN-00277): Recommendation on Applicant's Request for Approval of Major Architectural Review for a Master Sign Program to allow three monument signs, six directory signs and thirteen directional signs and a Sign Exception to exceed sign height and/or area for free standing signs and directional signs. Environmental Assessment: Exempt From the Provisions of the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) in Accordance With Guideline Section 15311 (Accessory Structures). Zoning District: PC-4637. For More Information Contact the Project Planner Danielle Condit at Danielle.Condit@cityofpaloalto.org. Chair Furth: We’re ready for our first public hearing, which is a quasi-judicial hearing. The address is 3000 El Camino Real, and staff is recommending that we, that they would like approved the applicant’s request for major architectural review for a Master Sign Program to allow three monument signs, six directory signs, and 13 directional signs, and a sign exception to exceed the sign height and area for freestanding and directional signs. This is better known as Palo Alto Square. This is exempt from review under CEQA. These are accessory structures. The zoning is PC, which, of course, is a little obsolete now, but still valid. The applicant is Stanford University, presumably through a master tenant. Could we hear from staff, please? Danielle Condit, Project Planner: Thank you. Good morning, Chair Furth and ARB Board. My name is Danielle Condit, I am the project planner on the application. The application you have before you today is a request for the Master Sign Program sign exception. The applicant wishes to install one new monument ID located at the corner of El Camino and Page Mill, two new theater tenant signs located at the drive aisle entries off El Camino and Page Mill, and six new directory signs located interior of the site, along the perimeter of the existing buildings, as well as 13 new pedestrian and vehicular signs, directional, located throughout the site. We are before you today because the proposed signs deviate from the previously approved Master Sign Program established in 1994, and some of the proposed signs actually exceed what is allowed per today’s development standards. On the slide you can see the sign types that will actually exceed what is allowed for the development standards of today. Sign Type B, which is the theater tenant sign, exceeds the maximum allowed sign area. Sign Type E, which is the building ID signs, they will exceed the allowed sign area and sign height. Sign types G and G.1, which are the vehicular and pedestrian directional signs, will exceed the sign height. To give you a little history on the property, as we City of Palo Alto Page 3 established, there was a Master Sign Program previously in 1994, and this site was refaced in 2008 with a staff-level ARB review. The site is approximately 15 acres in size and is home to six individual buildings, ranging from one to 10 stories in height. The Master Sign Program being applied for is the result of a site-wide change, which deviates from what was previously approved, the sign exceptions, and to standardize the height… The goal of this is to standardize the heights and designs throughout the site. Key considerations, is that the property was developed under a Planned Community 4637. The PC allowed for the development of two 10-stories office buildings that are at a height of 159 feet, which would exceed today’s development standards. Primarily, the property is – excuse me – is surrounded by the service commercial zones and the Research Park. In the service commercial zones, the maximum height allowed is 50 feet, and in the Research Park it is 35 feet. In the service commercial or CS zone, that is more than three times the amount, and in the Research Park, more than four times the amount today. Staff feels that due to the existing structures on the site and their enlarged scale, the signs are appropriately scaled for the subject property. As you can see on your screens, this is the previously approved Master Sign Program. The sign locations for the new Master Sign Program in 2018 have approximately the same location as before. Sign Type A, which is the new monument sign at El Camino and Page Mill, you have your existing and proposed. Sign Type B, which is the theater tenant signage, you have your existing and proposed. The new directory signage, which is Sign Type B. The new directional signage for vehicular wayfinding. These are two new signs that were not existing before. Sign Type G, which is for your building monument ID signs. These are your building ID signs for directional. And interior directional pedestrian, directional signage. That concludes staff’s presentation. Thank you. Chair Furth: Thank you very much. Are there any questions of staff before we hear from the applicant? Seeing none, if we could hear from the applicant. [Applicant setting up presentation] Chair Furth: Good morning. If you could introduce yourself, and we have a transcriber, so if you could spell your name for the record, that would be great. You have 10 minutes. Danny Moran, Luxury Services: Great, thank you. My name is Danny Moran [spells name]. I’m with Luxury Services, which is the design firm that designed the Master Sign Program, and also Corporate Sign Systems, which is the fabricator for the sign program. We’re actually requesting to increase the height of the signage over the previous ARB approvals, based on our design of the signage. I’d like to briefly explain how we derived the design. Basically, the design is based… I don’t know if you guys read through the… Chair Furth: We read the materials. Mr. Moran: Okay. Would you like me to explain about Palo Alto and how…? Chair Furth: Say whatever you like. Mr. Moran: Sure. I will just read off the script here. For this Palo Alto landmark property, Lux proposes a clean, simple and meaningful design that is a fresh break from the somewhat hard concrete architectural forms that are inherent to the property. Consideration came from the origins of Palo Alto’s name. In 1976 [sic], Palo Alto was named after the giant sequoia called El Palo Alto by Spanish sailors who traced the route from the Galleon Manila and Manila. The name was assigned by the size and the high visibility of the tree as seen from the San Francisco Bay area when the sailors arrived, and served as a reference point to know where to stop and rest, prior to returning on the difficult trip back to the Philippines. The voyage was made once or twice a year. The sailors were generally different from the previous year, so it was necessary to use clear geographical references for the changing crews, hence docking near El Palo Alto. Today, El Palo Alto is the official seal of both Stanford University and the city of Palo Alto. Vertical linear design ties together the historical use of the tree as a landmark for reference point and location. Our design is inspired by the sequoia tree’s texture, the movement of its bark, its proportions, and overall City of Palo Alto Page 4 importance to Palo Alto’s history. Basically, you can see all these things, but this is just the rendering, basically referencing what I just mentioned. And here are some of the sign types that were mentioned. This one is undersized. This is the corner monument. The theater sign, which is a lot smaller than the existing theater sign. These are the directories. This is the monument building ID. Basically, this is one of the signs that’s over the previous height restriction, and we feel that it is appropriate because, again, it emphasizes the linear verticalness on Palo Alto. We feel that the signage is really not that tall compared to the overall mass of the buildings. That’s it. Chair Furth: That’s it? Mr. Moran: Yep. Chair Furth: All right. Are there any questions of the applicant before we discuss these matters? Is that a no? Board Member Thompson: Are there any material samples? Chair Furth: Board Member Thompson. Mr. Moran: Yes. Board Member Thompson: We do? Oh, good. Board Member Lew: I have a question. I was wondering if you could clarify the Page Mill Road driveway, and I think there’s a shared entrance with the neighboring property, and they have a low multitenant sign in the median. I was wondering if there were discussions with the neighboring tenant on how to share that location with regard to signage. Like, why did they get to put it in the median and yours is on one side of the road? Bryan Panian, Corporate Sign Systems: My name is Bryan Panian, project manager for Corporate Sign Systems. I know the entry that you’re talking about and that is outside of the property line, so it does fall on the other property. I know that it is a shared driveway. And no, we haven’t discussed with the other tenant about that. I don’t think that it was ever a concern before. I think that the wayfinding existing works. It directs people in, and then there’s another wayfinding sign at the end of the drives that directs them right or left, depending on the property. Our goal with this sign program overall is to improve the wayfinding and to assist visitors to the Palo Alto Square, to avoid this confusion that you’re talking about. Potentially, they don’t know where they’re going. Our goal with the exemption on the height is that you can see and identify these buildings and properties more easily as you enter the property, so that you’re not confused on which way to go. Hopefully that touched on what your question was. Board Member Lew: Thank you. Chair Furth: Osma, did you have any questions? Board Member Thompson: No, I think I’m okay, now that I have the material board. Chair Furth: All right, thank you. If we have other questions, we’ll ask you to come back. Mr. Moran: Thank you very much. Chair Furth: Anything further from staff? Board Member Thompson? Alex? Board Member Lew: Thank you for your presentation. I can recommend approval of the project today. I would throw out one thing for the Board to consider, and that is that the pedestrian access to the site from the sidewalk and the bus stops is really inadequate, and I think that, you know, this is just a sign program, it’s not a building project, but I think I would argue that we should add some sort of signage, you know, directional signs from the corner to the first building, the first…whatever you call it. Campus City of Palo Alto Page 5 corner. Because there’s actually no pedestrian access from the two driveway entrances, and the pedestrian access is just a little slot through a berm. There’s nothing indicating that that’s really the one and only access point for pedestrians. Also, just for the applicant, I think that that accessible route that is drawn in there is not completely accurate as it connects… Chair Furth: Which one are you looking at? Board Member Lew: This would be Sheet 3 or 4. Four. Yes. As I looked at the site yesterday, I think the accessible route goes to the corner. And as it’s drawn, it sort of shows it’s going midway to Building 4. But otherwise, I think that the signs are very handsome. I personally find it hard to read condensed fonts on vertical signs, but I think the vertical proportions sort of tied into the building. The building has vertical fins that are very distinctive on that style of building, so I think the signs do fit into the design of the project. And on findings. I think we understand that Stanford has their own internal design guidelines that discourages wall signs, and that the Palo Alto is sort of geared actually more towards wall signs than it is to monument signs. Even though these are taller, there really isn’t an overabundance of signs. Also, the buildings are set back, as I estimated, about 200 to 300 feet from the street, and there are large landscape berms, there are large mature trees that really limit the views of the buildings. Chair Furth: This is to be added to the sign exception findings, Alex? Board Member Lew: Yeah. Chair Furth: On page…? I agree with you. If staff could make a note of those, we’ll see they [inaudible]. If there’s a consensus on that. Board Member Thompson. Board Member Thompson: Sorry, I was looking for it. What’s the change? Chair Furth: Alex, you might as well talk. You have a voice. Ms. Gerhardt: Packet Page 24. Chair Furth: These are the findings for the exception to explain why we’re saying yes, it’s necessary for them to have a sign exception. Board Member Thompson: Okay. Board Member Lew: Yeah, I think that would probably be added to 1, right? That there are special circumstances. Board Member Thompson: And can you repeat again what we’re adding? At the end of it? Chair Furth: Yes. We’ll let staff deal with the punctuation. Board Member Lew: Yeah. The buildings are set back 200 to 300 feet from the street, approximately. There are large landscape berms, and there are large mature trees that limit views of the building. And then, I had previously mentioned that Stanford has their own internal design guidelines, but that applies to all properties in the Research Park, so I’m not sure if that’s… I don’t think we need. [crosstalk] Chair Furth: Because Stanford doesn’t get to modify the codes. Board Member Lew: They have a higher…. Yes. I think I would argue they have a higher standard than the City’s sign code. Chair Furth: They do. Board Member Thompson: Yeah, looking at that. City of Palo Alto Page 6 Chair Furth: Thank you for your presentation. I certainly think that the height of these buildings, or as tall as they are, justifies the taller signs. I think the existing ones tend to be a bit inadequate. I’m always surprised when I turn left off Page Mill going west that it’s not… I need to figure out where the driveway is, and when I’m coming the other way, it’s even more confusing, just because there’s a lot of landscaping and other good things. I agree with Alex that we should add a requirement that there be pedestrian wayfinding signage, subject to staff’s design approval. Because when you get to the driveway, there’s no sidewalk. It’s a problem. If you’re going to walk there in a reasonably correct way, you have to not take the driveway, and there is no way you’d know where the berm is. It’s quite a way away. So, adding a condition that adequate wayfinding signage be added for pedestrian access to the buildings? Would that be a sufficient direction? Ms. Gerhardt: I think it would just be helpful if we understood maybe at least a few locations where we think it’s most critical. Chair Furth: I’ll tell you, if you take a look at page 4 – Is that the right one? Or 3? Board Member Thompson: Probably page 4. Board Member Lew: It’s 4, because 3 is existing, so 4 is the proposed. Chair Furth: If you look at the corner… Alex, why don’t take us through. Board Member Lew: Okay, we’re talking about the corner of Page Mill Road and El Camino, and that’s where the bus stop is located, and I think there’s about, maybe four or five bus lines right there at that corner. And then, any pedestrian traffic you have from Caltrain, whatever would be coming through at that point as well, I think that they just somehow need to know that that is the main pedestrian entrance to the site. And then, I think I would argue, once you’re in on that path, I think self-explanatory, but then you’re arriving at the corner of Building 4, and there’s no signage. Chair Furth: Building 4 or building…? Isn’t this Building 4? Board Member Lew: Well, the font is really blurry, I can’t… [crosstalk] Chair Furth: This is Building 3, right? The one that…? Board Member Lew: Three. Chair Furth: … and this is the… Ms. Gerhardt: Correct, Building 3. Board Member Lew: At Building 3, you have to make a choice of whether to go left or right because there’s a grade change, so you can’t go straight into the project site. I would argue that there should be, or try to do something there, or… Chair Furth: I have a question for the applicant. Do you understand what our concern is, and do you have any comments? Mr. Panian: I think I understand… [crosstalk] Chair Furth: … more signs. Mr. Panian: Yeah, and that’s a good thing. You guys want to, it’s directing the pedestrian traffic from the streets, El Camino and Page Mill, into the property from the… I see an entry at the corner, as well as I City of Palo Alto Page 7 think there is another one further down El Camino. But the point is that being able to direct the pedestrian from the street or the sidewalk into the property, and then, once at the sort of crossroad…. [crosstalk] Chair Furth: [inaudible] Mr. Panian: I’m sorry, what? Chair Furth: Yes. Mr. Panian: Yes. And at the crossroad at Building 3, direct them overall, a greater understanding of which way to go for which building. Chair Furth: That’s one of the challenges of large campuses, is that if we dutifully, you know, ride our bikes, take the bus, walk, you get onto the campus, which is really geared for cars, and you don’t know which way to go, and walking an extra 300 feet is more time consuming than the other. We’re looking for pedestrian signage to direct the public, particularly that arriving by bus or from Caltrain, into the pedestrian way, and into the buildings. The audience is walkers and… Is that right? If you could add that condition. We’ll let you and the applicant figure it out. That should not require any sign exception. Mr. Panian: And I think that falls under our Sign Type E, which we denote as both a directional signage for vehicular and pedestrian. If we add more of those at the property locations to help direct… Chair Furth: Thank you. Will you need more exceptions if you do that? Staff? Ms. Gerhardt: Yes, the directional signage do exceed the allowed sign heights. Chair Furth: All right, then why don’t we say that we believe that the basis for that would be the difficulty of pedestrian wayfinding – I hate that word – from public transit, and that the size of the site requires an exception for those pedestrian wayfinding signs. Board Member Thompson: Are Signs E and G.1 basically the same? Mr. Panian: Yes, they are. I’m sorry, G.1 is classified as pedestrian. Sign E is vehicular, but they are identical signs, although they have slightly different classifications. Board Member Thompson: And materials, it’s this top-right material? Mr. Panian: That is correct. Board Member Thompson: And that? Mr. Panian: That’s correct. Chair Furth: Are we ready for a motion? Board Member Thompson: I didn’t get to talk. I didn’t get to give my evaluation, but I don’t have too much to say. Yeah, similar to my other board members, this is a pretty handsome project, and I very much appreciate the story and the relationship, Pal Alto’s future story. I think that’s really important in designing, and it’s important in having good aesthetics, and it’s important in getting us to understand your design really well. I want to thank the applicant for that. You don’t get to see that much these days. It’s true. Over there, I’ve gotten lost a few times as a pedestrian, and even just to park anywhere and try to figure out where that theater is. Initially, it was a little difficult. I remember my initial concern being that we’re not really adding any new signs, which I felt like we needed to, but I did see that we are adding G.1 and E. As for this pedestrian wayfinding, I don’t know that that warrants much more than one sign. I don’t think it does. We can defer that to staff. Chair Furth: I apologize for forgetting to ask your opinion. City of Palo Alto Page 8 Board Member Thompson: That’s okay. Chair Furth: There’s only three of us; it’s so confusing. Anything more? Board Member Thompson: No. I think that’s it. Chair Furth: I neglected to… Usually we tell you before you start your hearing that we’ve all visited the site. I think it’s clear that we’ve all been lost on the site. Mr. Panian: Me, too. Chair Furth: And we look forward to clearer signage for pedestrians. It’s been a while since you took that picture. Dinner with [inaudible] was showing quite a while ago. Now, staff, any comments? Do you have enough direction from us? Ms. Gerhardt: Just related to the pedestrian signs. It looks like there’s a bus stop on El Camino. It’s a little bit off of the corner, so I’m thinking that it would be good to have a sign there, just showing where the pathway is. Chair Furth: I would support that. Would my colleagues? Board Member Thompson: Is that very close to where Sign A is? Ms. Gerhardt: Yes, it’s just down the way from it, maybe just a few feet. [Looking through plans.] Ms. Gerhardt: Just to clarify, the distance from Sign Type A to the bus stop, it’s about 155 feet. Chair Furth: That’s not going to help us get anywhere, is it? Sign A? Board Member Thompson: That is the corner that I think is closest to Caltrain, as well. Board Member Lew: Right. There are actually several bus stops in the area, but it seems like this is the one that people would use. There’s a bus stop farther up there, two others farther up on Page Mill Road. I’ve looked at bus routes and it seems like this is the one that would actually be useful. Board Member Thompson: I guess it kind of depends where it’s put because Sign A, the way that it’s designed right now, looks really good on its own. Chair Furth: You don’t want it to be diminished? Board Member Thompson: Yeah, like, it kind of has this, like, nice relationship with the landscape, and… It almost sounds like a little flag sign right next to it wouldn’t look very nice. But I guess it would depend. Board Member Lew: I have two relatives who are disabled, and it’s constant frustration when you actually are pushing a wheelchair, or they are pushing themselves, if they go and say… Okay, I get off at the bus stop here at the corner, and as I go… I see this big entrance further down on El Camino, I’m going to go down there. It’s, like 700 feet. That’s like two city blocks downtown. And you realize there’s no way for me to get into the site, and now I have to go back to the corner. To me, that’s not acceptable. And I’m fine if it could be just a little three-foot-high… Board Member Thompson: Like a shorter…? Board Member Lew: … something totally minimal, and it doesn’t have to be the street sign. It doesn’t have to be right there at the monument sign; it could be at the bus stop. I’m sure there’s a way of making it low profile. Board Member Thompson: A shorter sign over there might make more sense. City of Palo Alto Page 9 Chair Furth: Well, I’m going to suggest that we… Do you have any comment? Mr. Panian: I think there are two pedestrian paths, one at the corner and one at the drive, at El Camino. Board Member Lew: I was there yesterday. I didn’t see it. I was looking, I was actually looking for it, and I didn’t find anything that was useful. If you’re not in a car. Board Member Thompson: I think we’re talking specifically an accessible route. Board Member Lew: Isn’t it just a continuous berm? Mr. Panian: Maybe I’m mistaken, yeah. Board Member Lew: Anyway, there could be something there. I didn’t see it. If it was there, it wasn’t obvious enough for me to notice that it was there. And there’s nothing shown on the site plan. Mr. Panian: Okay. Ms. Gerhardt: If we’re asking about El Camino, it’s the corner, and it’s the driveway. Those are the only ways to get in. Otherwise, it is a berm. Chair Furth: Yeah. And the driveway is for cars. Ms. Gerhardt: Correct. Board Member Thompson: I think a shorter sign works there. Chair Furth: Okay. Thank you. For me, clarity about where to go when you’re on foot, when you’re using a wheelchair, when you get off the bus, when you get off the train, is an important issue that needs to be addressed. And I would like to believe that you could do it without interfering with the design elegance of the bigger signs. I think we have to do both. We have to have both those big signs and pedestrian-oriented sign because this is a site that is pretty impenetrable unless you are a car. Board Member Thompson: Could we…? I don’t know how you feel about, since potentially this might be a new sign type, that would be the shorter sign type, should we subcommittee it? Chair Furth: Pleasure of the board. MOTION Board Member Thompson: I move that we approve this project, subject to the conditions in the report, and also add that we move one item to subcommittee that involves a smaller pedestrian wayfinding sign type at the corner of Page Mill and El Camino. Chair Furth: Would that be with the additional findings previously suggested by Board Member Lew? Board Member Thompson: Indeed. Board Member Lew: I will second that motion. Chair Furth: Any further discussion? All those in favor say aye. MOTION PASSES UNANIMOUSLY 3-0. Chair Furth: Thank you. You are approved, with a referral to subcommittee on the issue of adequate pedestrian signage. Thank you very much for your application. Mr. Panian: Thank you for your time. Chair Furth: They are pretty signs. I look forward to seeing them. City of Palo Alto Page 10 Mr. Panian: Thank you. Chair Furth: There’s probably a technical term for that. Elegant? 3. PUBLIC HEARING / QUASI-JUDICIAL. 180 El Camino Real [19PLN-00110]: Consideration of a Major Architectural Review to Allow the Demolition of the Existing 94,300 Square Foot Macy's Men's Building Located in the Stanford Shopping Center for the Construction of a new Three- Story Stand Alone Retail Building, Approximately 43,500 Square Feet, two Retail Buildings, Approximately 3,500 Square Feet each and Construction of a New Stand Alone Retail Building, Approximate 28,000 Square Feet are identified as (Total Square Feet 78,500). Environmental Assessment: Exempt From the Provisions of the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) in Accordance With Guideline Section 15302 (Replacement or Reconstruction). Zoning District: CC (Community Commercial). For More Information Contact the Project Planner Samuel Gutierrez at Samuel.Gutierrez @cityofpaloalto.org. Chair Furth: Our next item is also, Stanford University is the applicant. This concerns the Stanford Shopping Center. This is also a quasi-judicial hearing. It’s the consideration of a major architectural review to allow demolition of the existing almost 95,000 square foot Macy’s Men’s building, and the construction of a new three-story standalone retail building, approximately 43,500 square feet, and two additional retail buildings of approximately 3,500 square feet, and the construction of a new building on what is currently parking lot, of a size of 28,000 square feet. This is exempt from the provisions of CEQA in accordance with the replacement or reconstruction rule. The zoning district is Community Commercial. Does anybody have any conversations to report before we have this…? Board Member Thompson: No. Board Member Lew: No. Chair Furth: Anybody have any additional site visits since we last had this before us as a preliminary? Board Member Thompson: I don’t think I’ve seen this one before. But yes, I’ve been to the site. Chair Furth: Okay. Board Member Lew: I visited the site on Tuesday. Chair Furth: And I visited the site again on Wednesday. Staff, I need to go clear my throat. I’ll be right back. I was going to say we could let the applicant set up, but that won’t work. [The Board took a short break.] Chair Furth: Mr. Gutierrez. Samuel Gutierrez, Project Planner: Good morning to Chair Furth and board members of the ARB. My name is Samuel Gutierrez, I’m the project planner for this project, and the planner assigned to the shopping center. That’s why you see me for every shopping center project. As we enter in here, you can see on the title slide, it’s just the updated renderings in this package of the proposed buildings, and also the proposed site plan, which we’ll dive into. To remind everyone, this is the Stanford Shopping Center. This is located at the corner of Sand Hill and El Camino, that portion of the shopping center between Sand Hill and Pistache Road involving the Macy’s Men’s building. Here you can see the different perspectives from the public view, and of course, this is the Macy’s Men’s building as it sits today. As stated earlier, this project involves the demolition of the Macy’s Men’s to redevelop this area of the Stanford Shopping Center to construct new tenant spaces and buildings, one being a Restoration Hardware building in roughly the location of the Macy’s Men’s building. Another being a new Wilkes Bashford where there currently doesn’t exist a building in the parking lot, along El Camino and Pistache, which is the entryway into the shopping center after Sand Hill. And then, there will be two new tenant City of Palo Alto Page 11 spaces adjacent to Building J, where I believe LaBelle Spa is currently location. That would, again, be in the general location of the existing Macy’s Men’s building. Just to remind everyone, this project did come before the Board for preliminary review on February 7th of this year, and the ARB did comment on the site planning, parking, landscaping, pedestrian access and architectural design. I do want to go over a pretty large constraint that exists at this site. There is an original water line that is located across Sand Hill and El Camino that intersects at that corner of the parking lot that is existing, which would limit the location of new buildings and excavation, being that it is such a large utility line and to build and construct over it is not really feasible. This is the proposed Wilkes Bashford building. The rendering is far more refined than what the Board had previously seen during the preliminary review. There is new landscaping added, pedestrian features such as a trellis. Here you can see the site plan and some of the pedestrian walkways that have been revised and put into greater detail along this corner of Pistache and El Camino. Here you can see the pedestrian path could go down along Pistache, along the longer portion of Wilkes Bashford as you enter into the shopping center. Or, you could move across the frontage of Wilkes Bashford along El Camino on this new path behind some of the trees that are shown there, with some seating. And as you loop around, you would face the parking lot that exists. Here you can see that the pedestrian pathways are wide. They do narrow to roughly about 10 feet, but that is meeting some of the Board’s comments about the pedestrian pathways throughout the shopping center at least being eight feet. Here is the other perspective views of this proposal. The upper left corner is a view from El Camino. That’s what you would see as you enter the city from El Camino and you pass Sand Hill and head toward Pistache. On the lower right, this would be that Pistache entry and the El Camino turnoff, and you can see that the building has been revised with some storefront windows and landscaping within a planter area. Again, these are just blowups of the other sides of the Wilkes Bashford proposed design. Again, you can see landscaping, new trees, planter boxes, and along the corners there’s these display windows, which seem consistent with what we see in the shopping center. There are these pedestrian corners, and we have displays as you get towards entries. Moving on to the Restoration Hardware building. You can see here that the site plan has been slightly changed from what was viewed before in the preliminary application. The building slightly shifted, and there are, again, pedestrian pathways off of Sand Hill now, on Sand Hill on this end. Entering off of Sand Hill, this kind of forms a U-shape around the Restoration Hardware building, where, again, the pedestrian pathway varies from approximately 10 feet up to 35 feet. That would be at the entryways of the Restoration Hardware building. It has entries on either side, and when those entries are open, the pathways would be much deeper there. But even when the Restoration Hardware building wouldn’t be open, we still have at least 10 feet of pathway around the perimeter of the building. Here is the renderings of the proposed building. You can see there’s a lot of trees proposed, and greenery on the building. It’s very open, so you can see views into the retail floor of the Restoration Hardware building. This is a zoomed-in portion of, just to the south of the Restoration Hardware building, where these two new tenant spaces would be, and there is a new drive aisle proposed there that’s elevated. Here you can see a detail of these outdoor seating areas along each corner of the new buildings, again, enhancing the pedestrian experience of the shopping center, but still maintaining at least a 10-foot-wide pedestrian path around these edges, where it also varies from 10 feet up to 20. Here is a rendering and elevation of these proposed buildings. Again, you can see the walkways, a bit of a planter area, this elevated drive aisle, and the outdoor seating for these proposed tenant spaces in this location. And then, the lower elevation, you can see, again, there is a clear view of a lot window spaces to show that it is a retail experience that’s being maintained there. There’s not very many solid walls other than the center, kind of common back-house entry, where that has been treated with a bit of a green wall treatment. Key considerations for the ARB are: Access to the site; the site planning; location of the buildings’ pathways; pedestrian furniture; drive aisles; and utility placement; and again, safety of pedestrians, bicycles and automobile traffic; and compatibility with the site, and this would be the compatibility of the proposed buildings’ scale and design relative to the site, which is, of course, the greater Stanford Shopping Center. Staff recommends that the Board review and provide formal comments to the applicant. That concludes staff’s presentation. City of Palo Alto Page 12 Chair Furth: Thank you. I forgot to mention at the beginning of the hearing that this project is not ready for recommendation at this point from us. There is insufficient information. Mr. Gutierrez: Correct. Chair Furth: Anybody have questions of staff before we hear from the applicant? I just had one, I had one question, which is, when I look at Sheet A.1, the context aerial map, as a layperson looking at that, it looks to me that, as I’m driving south-ish on El Camino, the Wilkes Bashford building is heavily screened. But when I look at the slide you show us, I’m driving south, it’s not. Could you explain to me what I would be seeing or what I wouldn’t be seeing? Mr. Gutierrez: You’re referring to these elevations here, correct? Chair Furth: Right. Mr. Gutierrez: That would be likely due to the blending of trees, different heights and the exposure between the tree canopies. Chair Furth: Which corner is that I’m seeing there? Is the lower one coming down Sand Hill? Mr. Gutierrez: No, the lower one is actually El Camino and Pistache. Chair Furth: Pistache. Got it. Sorry. Mr. Gutierrez: If you were looking at… Chair Furth: Thank you for explaining that to me. This is very fine print. Mr. Gutierrez: Yeah, so, if you were looking at Sheet A.1… Chair Furth: This is what you see going north-ish on El Camino. Mr. Gutierrez: Correct. Correct. Chair Furth: Thank you. I was trying to figure out how there could be so many trees in one and not the other. I apologize. All right, any other questions of staff before we hear the applicant? Could we hear from the applicant, please? [Applicant setting up presentation] Matt Klinzing, Simon Property Group: Good morning. Chair Furth: Good morning. Mr. Klinzing: Nice to see you guys again. My name is Matt Klinzing [spells name]. I’m an architect with Simon Property Group. Tim Wong, Restoration Hardware: My name is Tim Wong [spells name], and I’m the vice president of architecture and design at Restoration Hardware. Mr. Klinzing: We remember we have 10 minutes, roughly 30 seconds a slide, so we will be brief. Thank you, members of the Board. Ms. Thompson, you weren’t present at our last one, so if you have any specific questions, I know we can answer them. The goal this morning was to respond to a lot of comments that we had at the previous ARB, the ARB that we had in February, and they focused on a few different topics: Architecture, placement of some of the buildings, and some of the parking issues that we see on the site. We spent a lot of time over the last four months delving into those, and I wanted to go over some of that in detail. One of the comments was specific to the placement of the Restoration Hardware building. And I realize this print is finer than I intended to be, so, sorry for that. There was City of Palo Alto Page 13 concern raised about the proximity of the Restoration Hardware building to Sand Hill, so we did look at moving that south. Chair Furth: Excuse me, could you give us the sheet number? Mr. Klinzing: Sure. Oh, they don’t see the same thing that…? Male??: LS-100. Chair Furth: Thank you. It’s even finer on our… Thank you. Got it. We’ll add the time. Mr. Klinzing: All right. On LS-100, if I scroll over, the building that’s on the left here is Restoration Hardware, and there was some concern about the proximity to Sand Hill. We tried to move it a lot greater south. The issue that we ran into was that per building code, we need to maintain a 60-foot separation between adjacent buildings and this building, so it’s moved approximately a net of about seven feet south from Sand Hill. We moved it as far as we could. We also looked at addressing the other concern about the proximity of the Wilkes Bashford building to El Camino, and we really tried to move that west, away from the street. Unfortunately, with the required parking, with the placement of bio retention areas, as well as landscape, we’re limited in where we’re able to do that. But we have gone back, as Mr. Gutierrez mentioned, and we buffered some additional landscape areas and amenity areas, and some additional landscaping to help improve that, and obviously make sure that the heritage oak that is located to the northwest corner of that building is obviously, we’re outside of the drip line, we have temporary protection, and we have a specific sidewalk design that honors all the root conditions there, so we are sensitive to that. The other issue that was brought up was the placement of EV or electric vehicle charging, which are required by code. There was a concern that in this lot that’s north of the Wilkes Bashford building, due to the amount of EV charges we need here, that that would be even harder to park in. What we’ve done is we’ve actually taken half of the required amount, and although offscreen, we’ve located them to the west of Restoration Hardware, so that what you end up with is an area along the northern aisle of this parking area along Sand Hill that has EV charges, but everything else has been moved to the west. Trying to free up that parking, somewhat. I’m going to go to the next page now, which will not line up with your package. This is HSEE. I have no idea what page it is in your packet. This specifically is the drive aisle that curves south of Restoration Hardware and north of the end cap buildings. As you might remember from our previous presentation, this is a flush curb condition. We have a raised enhanced parking area, the potential for periodic activities to happen. There was some concern about the arrangement of the parking. Previously we had perpendicular parking located in this area and there were concerns about it backing up into the traffic flow. We’ve actually taken out the majority, probably 75 percent of the spaces that were in this area, found other areas to place them, and we’ve now located them as parallel parking spaces with curbs along it. Gets a little bit of parking into this area to help with required parking, while at the same time, we think it takes away that concern about the traffic confluence as people went through it. The other issue we wanted to address was the overall parking provision. This is not something that’s in your packet. It’s something that was provided as a supplement to Mr. Gutierrez, and I have printouts if you’d like to look at it. We spend a lot of time actually serving tenants to, to look at the amount of employee parking, we look closely at bike spaces, public transportation, rideshare activities, and we’ve come up with what we think is a comprehensive plan to alleviate some of the parking concerns we have on site. Most notably, one of the biggest issues we had, we found from the tenant survey is, there are daily between 400 and 600 employee cars that are located on site, which, as you can imagine, of our total parking, is a significant amount. Currently, per the tenant guidelines, they are allowed to park along the perimeter of Sand Hill and El Camino. What we’ve done is we’ve revised that to limit their parking to just the upper levels of the decks that are down along… I forget the lower street. Now, it’s great if you have a policy; less effective if it’s not policed or enforced. So, although not implemented yet, we’re also looking at some other programs we’ve done throughout the country that monitor the parking activities, to try to basically enforce that. That’s obviously a careful line we have to go through because we value very much our employees and want City of Palo Alto Page 14 them to not be reprimanded. At the same time, we’re very sensitive to the amount of spaces that are available to patrons that come, and we want, through the finding we have, to obviously make parking convenient for everybody. We are going through that process right now. Like I said, I have these packets if you would like to look at them, and they illustrate exactly what we’ve done, what our findings are, and how we’re moving forward. Chair Furth: If you could give that to our staff, yes, I’m sure we would look at them. Mr. Klinzing: Great. Chair Furth: We won’t read them right now. Mr. Klinzing: Okay. I’m going to go to another page now, which is page A-2. Apparently I’m all over the place with you guys. What this is, is there was concern raised last time as to the relative height of the building - Restoration Hardware and others – how they were in context with the overall elevations. Although, again, fine print, what you will see here is there’s overall contextual elevations along Sand Hill, as well as El Camino. And I’ll show you the relative heights of those adjacent buildings. I think it’s helpful to see where we are in context and how it’s portrayed. I offer that up for your review. With that, I’m going to turn this next piece over to Mr. Wong, who will talk specifically about Restoration Hardware. Chair Furth: Thank you. Mr. Wong: First of all, thank you for allowing me to present this project to you today. I trust you’ve already reviewed the drawings, but let me recap what I think you’re probably already familiar with. At our age, we call this our next generation design gallery. Within the walls and the gardens, we attempt to blur the lines between a retail experience and our hospitality experience, in an inspiring space with natural light that surrounds all four walls. Our general layout includes a garden entry on both sides, flanked by enclosed gardens on either side where we have our display of outdoor furniture. There are two floors of retail, and on the second floor, we have our, sort of our newest concept, which would be the interior design studios. On the third floor, which you can see at the top there, is our restaurant, in a glass conservatory surrounded by our roof garden filled with trees and a lot of landscaping. The massing, as you can see, sort of steps back as it goes up, so to relieve the overall appearance of the scale. All four sides are articulated with metal awnings and trees and metal balconies. The site plan has [inaudible] carefully so we can preserve most of the existing trees along Sand Hill Road, and we have a lot of greenery and landscape on the front and rear façade. Overall, we’re pleased with the design, and we hope that you are inspired, too. Mr. Klinzing: Just for your benefit, I’ll page through the next couple pages here, which you obviously have in your packet, but which show, as Mr. Gutierrez mentioned, some updated elevations that increase the transparency of the building, as well as better illustrated some of the questions that were brought up previously about the hedge row, the openness, and how that engages the sidewalk as we go forward. Anything you want to go over? Mr. Wong: I can review some of the interior spaces. Chair Furth: Your time is up, but yours is a big project, so please, take another two or three minutes. Mr. Wong: Two or three minutes, okay? I can describe this page a little bit. This page is just the main space. The idea of the glass of the restaurant is this glass conservatory that you could see, starting in that slide here. This is just more materials that would help sort of describe the building feel, which would be the plaster façade and metal balconies, as I mentioned, and open trellis. These are examples of our outdoor space and different stores. This happens to be Melrose, here. This is our latest one, down here in the lower right-hand corner, which is the art gallery in New York. This one is, sort of this glass conservatory is in Portland. This is just some landscape plans, and sort of the description of some of the landscape that we propose for this project. City of Palo Alto Page 15 Mr. Klinzing: I realize we’re out of time, but just as we go through… Chair Furth: If you need another minute or two to do your coherent presentation, please take it. Mr. Klinzing: I’ll be brief. Wilkes Bashford building, as we discussed previously, since it is a long building, our goal here was to break down the length of it and animate it with different quality materials. We have brick, we have some wood, we have stone veneer, as well as what we’re now introducing, which is a green wall. One of the concerns that was raised in the previous meeting – and this is the view you were asking about earlier, Ms. Furth, and this is traveling south along El Camino – was the importance of this building in the context of Palo Alto specifically. Because this is the first building you really see when leaving the county to the north and coming to the south. We understand the importance of this specific corner. We spent some time trying to enhance this with what we see now, is a green wall, as well as the Wilkes Bashford name stated here. The other thing we wanted to also show was the context that’s placed within. We obviously have a very significant row of trees that’s out there, and the heritage oak, which we really feel are the stars of the center, and those obviously won’t be touched by any of this. It’s important, I think, to understand the context. You had previously asked about this elevation on the corner, the southeast. We’ve [inaudible] it up with storefront and glazing, and additionally, as we move around the other corners, the touchpoints, and obviously the major places that one experiences the building, we made sure that we had transparency or animation so that we’re consistent with the village architecture feel of all of Stanford Shopping Center. This is some detail you’ll find in the packet on the living wall, which we have at a few of our centers, and it is actually that. There’s irrigation, there’s plants, it requires some maintenance, so, we feel this really captures what Stanford’s best known for, and it’s this great flower program, and great landscape program. This is really a way to present this at the front door of our project and announce that attribute that we think everybody enjoys. Building EE, the endcap building, has not changed significantly since our previous discussion, but still plan on animating that with restaurants and outdoor café seating. I think I’m done. Okay. Sorry. Chair Furth: Thank you. Alex, do we have any speaker cards? We have no speaker cards. Is there anybody in the audience who would like to address this issue, this matter? Apparently not. I’ll bring it back to the Board. Staff, do you have anything you want to add? Ms. Gerhardt: I think we’re just hoping to focus a fair amount of time on the site plans and make sure that we get that right, and then, go into the architecture as time allows. Page C2 has a clear site plan that you can take a look at, and just let us know if there’s any concerns about that. We had noticed that there are some parking spaces fairly close to El Camino Real, so we’d like your advice on that. Also lately, we had some late-breaking comments from Utilities. Actually, maybe Sam can go a little more into that, because utilities… Chair Furth: That’s never happened before. Ms. Gerhardt: … utilities are going to need to move around a little bit. So, we can talk about that. Chair Furth: Why don’t you tell us about that right now, before we talk. Mr. Gutierrez: Sure. On page C2, when you look at the new elevated drive aisle between the Restoration Hardware and the two new tenant spaces, the corner as you enter that drive aisle, that would be to the left side of this site plan. There is, on the Restoration Hardware side, a bio retention detail. Just adjacent to that in the drive aisle, as you would be existing that elevated drive aisle, there’s actually a little square you might see there. It’s very small, but there’s a small square there, and that actually… Chair Furth: Are you talking towards El Camino or away from El Camino? Mr. Gutierrez: Away from El Camino. That would be a vault with some utility equipment that would need to shift. One of the locations that is being postulated at the moment is in that bio retention area, so that would be utilities that would need to be vented in the air. There might be some type of CMU wall that City of Palo Alto Page 16 we’ll treat with some type of green screening, which would actually match some of the green walls that are already part of the Restoration Hardware, but we haven’t worked out those fine details yet. That’s just something to note, that may appear different in the next round when we come before the Board again. Chair Furth: Before we start talking, I have a question. What term are you using to refer to the space between Building RH and Building EE? I keep thinking it as a cut-through, but you have a different term, right? Mr. Gutierrez: I refer to it as the elevated drive aisle because it is raised about the other drive aisles. Chair Furth: Okay, and I had one more question before we started. In looking at the El Camino Real Design Guidelines, it says that all parked cars should be screened with walls, landscaping or berms, three to six feet above the parking lot surface. That’s something that we usually try to do at this place, right? The shopping center? Mr. Gutierrez: Yes. Chair Furth: Thank you. That’s all I need to know. Thanks. Board Member Thompson: I had a quick question. That elevated drive aisle, is that going to be the main way to get to the parking lot in the back? From…? Mr. Gutierrez: It’s a part of that loop that forms in that area. If you miss the Sand Hill turn for the shopping center and you continue down Pistache, that would be the fastest way to get to the other side, I guess the back parking lot area that you’re referring to, towards where, like, American Girl is, and The Melt. That area. Otherwise, you’d have to drive around the whole shopping center to close that loop. Board Member Thompson: Okay, so we’re assuming this will be heavily frequented by vehicles back and forth. Okay. Mr. Gutierrez: It does have that potential, yes. Chair Furth: Who would like to begin? Alex, you’ve seen it before, why don’t you start? Board Member Lew: [inaudible]. Chair Furth: Oh, you ready to go? All right, go. Board Member Thompson: As someone who hasn’t seen this before. Chair Furth: It’s a fresh eye. Board Member Thompson: I suppose, yes. Okay, I’ll start with the site stuff. Now that I know that that roadway would be pretty heavily frequented, the existing vehicular pathway to get to the other side is pretty busy right now. A lot of people use it to get around. Initially when I was looking at this, it seemed like it was much more of, like a pedestrian through-fare that was wider, and a bit more comfortable. That kind of gives me some pause because it sounds like there will be a lot of pedestrian flow there. It kind of silos Restoration Hardware from the rest of all the pathways. I mean, in the site plan that we’re looking at, it’s a different color. It’s not gray like the regular vehicular stuff, which I think is why I was thinking that it might be more of a pedestrian-friendly thing, something that you could close off if you wanted to. I guess I’m not sure. I don’t know. It’s one of those things that, as a vehicle, I’m not sure I’d use that, but I don’t know if that’s the point. In terms of that, I guess we’ll still wait because there’s a transformer that could potentially…. Or what was that box? Ms. Gerhardt: We can ask the applicant and have them explain a little bit more, but my understanding is that this elevated drive aisle is both, you know, for pedestrians, but also for cars if they need to look City of Palo Alto Page 17 around the shopping center. It’s sort of for both of those purposes. As far as the transformer, I think the initial direction was to put it under the street, and unfortunately that’s not going to work. It needs to go in a landscaped area, so that landscape needs to… And that landscape is being used for stormwater retention, so that stormwater retention is going to have to move somewhere else. Board Member Thompson: Okay. Well, if that’s the intention, then I think that’s pretty nice. Because it sounds like it’s already being elevated, it’s kind of deterring cars from using that pretty regularly, because when you go up, you have to be a bit more careful. And if people are going to be walking freely through there, then… I think that’s an asset to the site. Even though at the moment that is my preferred way to get around. Anyway, I can get used to something different. I’ll go to architecture because that is really the stuff I focused on when I was reviewing this. I’ll just go building by building. Restoration Hardware, I don’t really have any significant comments on it, other than I think it’s quite nice, and I think it will be a nice addition. I like how much greenery is integrated. There is a nice relationship between the green and the building, and I really hope that’s maintained and executed, and in its execution, it’s very integral to the design. I appreciate that, and the design intent, and I really hope it just follows through in actual construction. Interestingly, I feel like for Building EE and Wilkes Bashford, it has a bit of a foil in terms of the level of detail. I’ll start with Wilkes Bashford. That corner that we were looking at, with the green wall, I love the green wall details, and I really like that you’re incorporating that. I don’t know if that corner is the best location for it because that’s the corner that’s going to face the street. Right next to that corner, I’m not looking at it right now, but right next to that corner, there’s a blank wall. Really, the interest doesn’t start until much further into the site, and as Palo Alto is changing and there’s more people on the street, it seems like the opportunity is really at the street, to have a lot of the glass and a lot of, you know, the way that you’re going to capture someone’s interest is by putting it there. Because at the moment, they kind of have to know where their going, and a lot of people do these days, but in terms of what’s nice to look at on the street. I say keep the green wall, but I think a different location might be better. I’m not sure how the interior is configured but I really think you want to make the El Camino experience really nice. I’m not saying to change any of the landscaping around there. I think the screening is good. Definitely keep the green wall because it looks so cool. I just think its placement isn’t right as it relates to the site. And then, architecturally speaking, you know, the elevations definitely feel a little bit… Initially, when you’re looking at it like this, it feels really kind of up and down. And I know that when you’re on the street level, it really breaks down the scale. But, I wonder if there isn’t something more that could be done to kind of create a bit more relief and detail. The green wall is creating a really nice texture, and it’s kind of foiled with something solid, but I feel like a little bit more of that interplay could, the elevation could benefit from a little bit more of that interplay. Because in the renderings, it kind of looks a bit flat and a little stark. Restoration Hardware has this level of detail and richness, and then, when you look at even the rendering on our front page of Wilkes Bashford, it just looks a little bit too shoeboxy. There’s more that could be done there. At first glance, I would say that current building is the biggest one that could use a little more development. And then, for Building EE, the configuration is really good, and I like the relief, especially in the second to the right. I’m looking at page A-EE3. It’s kind of broken into the five, and the two in the middle are the ones I was a little unsure about. They’re a bit plainer than the others. But the second from the right has that extra level of depth, which is good, so I would encourage that if you decide… To look at Building EE more and kind of… Also, elevate it a little bit more in terms of how much relief and depth you’re adding to there. Love the green wall. Love the green wall. And that is my comments on the architecture. I’ll stop there. Thanks. Ms. Gerhardt: If we could go back to Restoration Hardware for a second – I’m finding the sheet here – A- RH2, there were some previous comments about the shrubbery around the building. I didn’t know how you felt about that. Board Member Thompson: What were the comments on the shrubbery? Ms. Gerhardt: Just that they’re fairly tall shrubs, so it sort of blocks off your view to the entrance, which is unlike other buildings in the center. City of Palo Alto Page 18 Chair Furth: I think the… Board Member Lew: [inaudible]. Chair Furth: Well, it was primarily Peter, which was that the high shrubs create outdoor rooms from the point of view of the store, but they block the view of this very pretty building. The thought was that they were too high, that we’d like them to have that privacy and sense of enclosure, but something you can see through. Because the building that we see, the front elevations we were looking at, we wouldn’t see. Those are the comments. Board Member Thompson: Okay. I might deviate from my board members’ opinion on that. I really like the shrubbery, and I like the outdoor room, and I think the greenery is a big reason why this building works. If other board members also feel like that shrubbery isn’t right, I feel like something else equally green… You know, maybe it’s kind of like one of those plantings that have more see-through branches. But I wouldn’t forego the greenery in any way. Chair Furth: I don’t think anybody wanted to be without greenery. Board Member Thompson: Yeah. Chair Furth: Alex. Board Member Lew: Great. Thank you for your presentation. I think the revisions look good. Most of my comments are about the site plan, and I don’t have that many comments about the building. I think generally the buildings are looking fine. On the site plan, my overall comment is that it seems like the individual pieces aren’t really adding up into a greater whole, and it seems like a set back from what the shopping center has been doing in the past. I think the staff report asks, like, could we still meet the findings? And I think my answer is yes. The comments that I have are, I think what’s shown on the C-2 plan, I’m not crazy about the sidewalk that’s being shown at the moment along El Camino. I’ll go into that in a minute. The street trees on Pistache Place, I think you’re showing trees on the Wilkes Bashford side that are sort of along the curb, but the existing trees on the other side are inboard to the sidewalk. The elevated pedestrian street, I do have concerns about how that all actually looks when it’s all done. You’ve got bollards; I think you’re showing trees. Typically, you would do tree guards so they don’t get damaged by cars backing up. You’re showing some raised planters. I’m just wondering if you’re actually defeating the purpose of having the appeal of an elevated street because you’re adding so much clutter that it’s actually potentially unattractive. Staff hasn’t mentioned, I think the shopping center way is getting narrower at this location to match up with the shopping center farther down to the south. I think that’s probably a good idea. I did consider the… I think Peter suggested moving Building EE, so I did stand over by Muji and Pottery Barn and look down on access to see, to try to understand what he was thinking about. And I can see his argument for that, for shifting the elevated street down to a line. I can see the logic of that. On the sidewalk, the City probably has certain ideas about that, and I think Stanford and Simon may have different ideas about that. I would just throw in my two cents, which is that it should work together in context with the Stanford campus. They have a perimeter trail, and that’s different than our El Camino 12-foot sidewalk, and it seems to me that it should be tied into a regional system. What they have along Sand Hill Road and along El Camino is different. In some places it’s a mixture, so if you’re down near the athletic fields, there is a narrow sidewalk, and then there’s a low chain link fence covered with roses. And inboard to that, there’s a multiuse trail for running and bicycling. There can be some sort of hybrid to keep everybody happy, but I think I want to not just think of it just for this one project, but how it ties together. To my mind, that’s how people use the Stanford perimeter, for long runs, or bicycling, to get farther up the foothill. I’m looking at it more as a big picture and not as some sort of isolated project and trying to have a retail presence and sidewalk along the street. And then, staff, you mentioned the utilities. I think there’s something that I did want to point out that didn’t work on the recent addition. Over by the Anthropologie store, I think there’s some sort of fire standpipe in the sidewalk, and it got covered over with a giant cage, and it looks awful. That just looks like the City of Palo Alto Page 19 biggest screw-up. I think we do need to focus on that on this particular project, where all of those utilities are. Sometimes it’s hard for us to read it in here, but I think the Board does need to weigh in on all of that because that turned out, that’s a disaster. And I don’t really have that many comments on the building. They look good. I would only point out that the laminate shown on the Wilkes Bashford building, my understanding is on the Tenant Design Manual, that you guys are discouraging laminates. And here on the board, I think Board Member Baltay is usually concerned about the outside corners whenever we have these very thin materials. I’ve been looking at a lot of projects that are using this, and I think I’m in agreement with him. I mean, the laminate looks better if it’s on an interior recess and you don’t have any of those exterior corners on it, because it’s like a dead giveaway that this is, like, a fake material when you have these little plastic corners on the building. But I’m not opposed to the laminate as an accent material. That’s all that I have. I’m generally in support of the project, although I am a bit disappointed in the site planning. Chair Furth: And Alex, with respect to the site planning, the disappointment is the failure to align with the other buildings, and the inadequate bike…? Board Member Lew: Generally, we’re trying to encourage thoughtful, long-term planning and make long- term decisions that will stand for a hundred years, and I just don’t see the site plan as doing that. You have lots of little bits of parking lot, a lot of streets that don’t align; you’re adding more intersections, which makes it more confusing to people, to the cars. You’re adding some parking spaces in areas where we would normally try to not have parking, you know, to allow for queuing and stacking of cars at peak times, like at Christmas time. I think that’s all, like, not that great. But, to me, it would still meet the findings. Ms. Gerhardt: If I may just get a little more clarification. You were talking about the sidewalk along El Camino, and it sounds like people are using this more for biking and running. Are you thinking more of a multiuse trail idea versus a standard city sidewalk? Is that what I was hearing? Board Member Lew: I’m going to pull up Sheet C-2. Ms. Gerhardt: Because El Camino does have the, you know, down the rest of El Camino, there’s the 12- foot sidewalk requirement, and here, too. That’s what we were trying to abide by, was the El Camino guidelines. Board Member Lew: South El Camino Design Guidelines are sort of for California Avenue and farther south. Ms. Gerhardt: True. Board Member Lew: And we just had the El Camino park reservoir project, and we didn’t really put in a 12-foot sidewalk right across the street. On our own city project, we didn’t do it, so I’m not sure why we would start. If you look here, it looks like they’re trying to put some of the existing oak trees in tree wells, and there’s the sidewalk, but there’s the existing oak tree, so you have to sort of curve the sidewalk around the oak tree. It seems like it doesn’t look good, and it doesn’t really work very well with the existing oak trees. And the additional seating area next to Wilkes Bashford, like, I’m not sure who wants to sit there with all the traffic on El Camino. It just doesn’t really add up to me. Chair Furth: It’s me, needing to sit down. Board Member Lew: Right. You want to sit there? Of all the places you would sit, like, that’s not where I would want to… Chair Furth: I just want to be able to sit every couple hundred feet. Board Member Lew: Yes. City of Palo Alto Page 20 Chair Furth: Not when my ankle’s working. Ms. Gerhardt: But I can see your point about a bench to sit down versus a whole, sort of amenity space. Chair Furth: Yes. I mean, I do think it’s… Let Alex finish, and then I’ll give my comments. Board Member Lew: Well, I think, like, the trees look good in berms and naturalistic areas. They generally want to have the oak leaf mulch around them. They don’t really want to be in an urban tree well and integrate. And I think we’ve come across sometimes that the County won’t let us put trees within seven feet of the curb. This needs to be really well thought out, and I’m not sure that it’s really there yet. I think my point previously was that I would rather have this tie in to Stanford’s way of doing trees, or to impact multiuse pathways, than to pull Palo Alto 12-foot sidewalk with London planes in tree wells. If we want to go that way, I think we need to do it, and then, cut down the oak trees. Just bite the bullet and make it part of Palo Alto. It’s like half and half now, and I don’t think it’s really working. Ms. Gerhardt: And on the utilities, we would agree with you, that Anthropologie was an afterthought, so we’re trying to get ahead of that. You talked about street trees on Pistache, and I didn’t hear details on that. Board Member Lew: The existing condition is that the trees are inboard of the sidewalk, and there are no trees along the curb, in the planting strip. And they are proposing to change it on one side, but they’re not really showing what they’re doing on the other side of the street. You’d be mismatched at the moment. Ms. Gerhardt: And then, on the elevated aisleway, I agree with you that there would likely need to be bollards and tree guards and things, so, we just need all of that shown on the plans so we can have a better review of that area. Board Member Lew: Because it may be so ugly that we would rather have a regular curb. I’m not saying that it can’t be done, but it’s just that… What is the term that some of the planners are using? Woonerf? Ms. Gerhardt: I learned that all the way back in college, yes. Chair Furth: Me, too. Board Member Lew: I mean, that really, you’re putting faith in people, right? To drive and park correctly. And I don’t necessarily think that always works. But once you start adding all of this stuff, you start to lose the beautify of the [inaudible]. That’s all I have to say about that. I would say one other thing, too, on that. There are, like at Santana Row, they’ve fully monetized…. There’s, like, a little median in one section, and they’ve monetized that. Every inch of it is in a lease to somebody, like Blue Bottle, or whatever. But it is attractive. And I guess on this one, I’m not really seeing the attractive part of it yet. Ms. Gerhardt: And Building EE, you were agreeing with Board Member Baltay about, I guess it was really the alignment of the elevated aisle. Board Member Lew: Correct. But I can see this would be very difficult on Stanford’s part. If you move the building, then the LaBelle Spa, then you’ve got this big, blank wall exposed, so then you have to do something with that. And it is better to have retail on both sides of the street, generally. I can see the argument for the way they’re doing it. And I generally support Simon’s, like putting restaurants and cafes on corners. I know you were saying this could be pop-up retail as well, but I think generally, that’s attractive Having outdoor seating at corners attracts people, and more people attract more people, so I do support that idea. That’s all that I have. Chair Furth: Thank you. Thank you for your presentation, thank you for the additional elevations and street scapes so that we could see better what you’re doing, and what you’re proposing. I agree that Restoration Hardware is a handsome and interesting building. I think that Wilkes Bashford is improved. City of Palo Alto Page 21 Did you all have any comments, other than the comment on the laminate, about materials? It’s okay with you? Meets the standards? Board Member Thompson: I think the palette is fine. I think it’s really more like a, my comment was more about adding a bit more detail. Chair Furth: I was just going through the findings and realized we hadn’t said anything. I realize it’s primarily site plan that you wanted, but if we had comments, I thought we should give them now. I’ll tell you about what concerns me, and generally I share the views of my colleagues. I particularly share Alex’s view about the perimeter and the sidewalk space. I do not think that the South El Camino Guideline 12- foot sidewalk is a particularly appropriate standard here. In 1997-98, when Stanford was re-doing Sand Hill and building on the previously unbuilt-upon creek side, one of the things they were required to do was a lot of bicycle and pedestrian paths, and think really hard about bicycle and pedestrian access so you have them both at the creek side, you know, the really good bicycle and pedestrian Class 1 paths going west on Sand Hill. Across the street you have the City’s linear El Palo Alto Park. In between, you have Stanford land, which is both a park and a huge reservoir, for which we’re grateful. I think that’s what we should be emphasizing, is the presence of the last free creek on the peninsula that runs to the Bay. The plants that grow around that, I hope we could stay with the well-done oaks rather than moving to containerized trees. And, reflecting on the fact that lots and lots of people come up from the east to bicycle up towards the hills or up towards friends in Menlo Park, and vice-versa, and that’s something we want to encourage. That’s what I would be going for, rather than the South El Camino guideline. I do think the El Camino guideline that talks about not having a view of parked cars from the street is something we should be mindful of and be sure that the parking is designed so that that’s attainable. Looking at your plant palette, I see lots of plants that would help us meet Finding #5, about regional indigenous drought-resistant plant material capable of providing desirable habitat. It can be maintained, but I also see a lot of other plants, so I wouldn’t be prepared to say yes at this point. It’s sort of a dead giveaway when the plant name includes, “European.” I don’t think that’s at the point where I would approve that yet. I’m glad you have some, but I think Restoration Hardware particularly still isn’t quite with the program. I don’t know how I’m supposed to tell I’m in Palo Alto as opposed to Los Angeles or Portland. Both of which are lovely cities that I’ve lived in. I’m thinking about what you said about parking. I suspect that better parking management would be helpful, and of course, we’re supposed to find that you’re doing it adequately for employees and customers. That means they’re looking for a plan where it’s not enforcement that makes your employees go there, but it’s the rapid little golf cart shuttles, or whatever. It’s an attractive option, so if it’s late at night, you feel safe going there. And I realize it’s still an imposition on people who probably have burdens of commutes because they’re going to have to walk further. But we would be interested in seeing how it appeals to people. It isn’t just another burden on people who work there. On the elevated drive aisle, I’m having trouble with that. And indeed, the whole circulation. I mean, maybe you’re going to have signage at Pistache that’s going to direct people to the south towards San Jose, but I also go the other way. It’s more attractive, it’s easier to get there. It’s better looking, it’s easier to move. And we’ve now created this dead end with the Wilkes Bashford parking lot. Do we need, you know, reader numbers, locate reader numbers that say, “No parking this direction. Go that way if you want to park.” Which is a possibility. That’s one thought, because I really do think we want to avoid… You want to run your shopping center, and I realize it’s your business to, for maximum efficiency, we can just give you local experience, which is that if we knew – I’m not saying you have to be as elegant as the Portland airport parking lot, but if we knew where we might find parking, it might help with some of that dead-end problem. I still don’t understand how the raised drive aisle works. I do remember the word “woonerf” from my early sitting of planning commission meetings. But right now, it seems to me there’s too much going on. The fact that you have a raised drive aisle means that there’s no grade separation between the sidewalk and the drive aisle, and cars and pedestrian are at the same level. Is that right? And sometimes I think you’re just trying to do too much in this space, and sometimes I think it’s just not well designed yet. But I want to know that when I’m absent-mindedly talking to friends, I have pretty clear signals where I’ve got to step off the curb, and where I’m going to City of Palo Alto Page 22 step into the flow of traffic. And people, you get a lot of repeat customers, but people driving through here know they’re going to have to do it at five miles an hour, and that they do that, so it’s not a lethal speed. Anything else anybody wants to say before we say “thank you” and let them get on with their lives? Board Member Lew: Minor detail. Tree number 93 is an oak tree, and it’s called out as a privet. Mr. Gutierrez: Tree 93? Board Member Lew: Tree 93, and it’s in the shopping center way, at the Macy’s Men’s store entrance, at the porte-cochere. Chair Furth: Just in case you thought we didn’t read your plans. Anything else before we…? Would you like to respond? You have another 10 minutes if you’d like to talk. Feel free. Mr. Klinzing: You’re not sick of us? Chair Furth: It’s a big project. We care. Mr. Klinzing: A couple of things. As I was sitting there and hearing, talking about the displacement of the building, I was encouraged to hear Mr. Lew say, even though he’s disappointed about the arrangement of the streets, he would go with the findings. Our experience has been a little different with vehicular traffic flow. When people tend to have a straight run, they tend to go faster, which is not really a safe thing to happen between patrons and vehicles. I actually think this is much better, a little bit, because it encourages more turns and encourages more cautious driving. Completely hear you guys on the raised street. If the consensus is it’s too much and too little, then more than happy to get rid of it. We were trying to create an environment that was hospitable to both cars and pedestrians. I’ve done it personally at a number of centers across the country and it works very well. We use a mix of concrete planters, some bollards, sometimes they’re lit, though in case it wasn’t. Street trees. And it creates an environment where both co-exist. But, understand if there are concerns about it, you know, we’re not wed to it. We want to make sure the Board is pleased, and we can move on. That’s really it, what I heard. Hear you completely on everything else, and we’ll make sure that we respond accordingly. Thank you. Ms. Gerhardt: Would the Board be interested in looking at, maybe two different options next time? About a regular drive aisle versus the elevated? Chair Furth: Speaking for our colleagues who aren’t here, probably yes. As well as those who were here. Board Member Thompson: Yeah. MOTION Board Member Lew: Okay. I will make a motion that we continue the project to a date uncertain. Board Member Thompson: I’ll second. Chair Furth: I don’t care if there’s further comment. All those in favor say aye. It passes 3-0-2. With board members being absent. MOTION TO CONTINUE PASSES 3-0-2 Subcommittee Items Ms. Gerhardt: We do have minutes and things, but we are going to have a subcommittee at the end. The subcommittee item did not make it on the agenda, but I have confirmed with attorneys that subcommittees are not subject to the Brown Act. However, we did post it out front to give people as much notice as possible, and it’s 744 San Antonio, which is the proposed Marriott building, is what we would be discussing. City of Palo Alto Page 23 Chair Furth: And it’s about window treatments? Ms. Gerhardt: Yes, it’s down to the window trim. Chair Furth: Thank you. Approval of Minutes Chair Furth: We have two sets of minutes to approve, May 2nd and May 16th. Board Member Thompson: [off-microphone] [inaudible] Chair Furth: They’re printing [inaudible]. Do you want to boot that set or…? Board Member Thompson: No, no, [off-microphone] [inaudible]. Chair Furth: Alex. Board Member Lew: I took a look; I have no comments on the minutes. Chair Furth: Okay, I don’t either. 4. Draft Architectural Review Board Meeting Minutes for May 2, 2019. Chair Furth: Could I have a motion to approve the minutes of May 2nd? Were we all here then? Okay. Then we have a quorum. Motion? Board Member Lew: Okay, I will move that we approve the minutes for May 2, 2019. Board Member Thompson: I’ll second. Chair Furth: Motion by Lew, second by Thompson. All those in favor say aye. It passes 3-0-2. MOTION PASSES 3-0-2. 5. Draft Architectural Review Board Meeting Minutes for May 16, 2019. Chair Furth: Next, the minutes of May 16, 2019. Board Member Lew: I will move that we approve the minutes for May 16, 2019. Board Member Thompson: I’ll second. Chair Furth: Motion by Lew, second by Thompson. All those in favor say aye. Passes 3-0-2. MOTION PASSES 3-0-2. Chair Furth: We will now adjourn as a Board and the subcommittee will convene. Thank you. Board Member Questions, Comments or Announcements Chair Lew: I would mention that the… Two things, right? The Mercedes-Benz project is going to Council on Monday, and the North Ventura CAP [Coordinated Area Plan] project was supposed to go to the Council on Monday, but it’s being pushed back to August. They’re trying to change the schedule and they’re working out additional service agreements with the consultant. They really do want the Council direction on where to go next, for the next step on the project. I will attend the Mercedes-Benz hearing. Chair Furth: Thank you, Alex. I got several phone calls from people who were puzzled by the procedure since we did not recommend approval at our last meeting. I basically referred them to City staff and the attorney. And Alex will be there to explain how far we got, and what our major concerns were. City of Palo Alto Page 24 Ms. Gerhardt: Yes, staff did put out a staff report related to Mercedes-Benz. I believe we also have another memo coming out, and we’re responding to questions from councilmembers. The main idea on that was we respect the ARB’s opinion, but we felt like there were some larger rezoning and massing questions that only the Council could answer. That’s why the Director felt the need to bring it forward, but we are recommending that Council approve the project, but then send it back to the ARB for the items that you had discussed and wanted to further review. Chair Furth: Since last time we recommended approval and the Council then said no, then I think this is probably a useful exercise. We will defer to staff and Council on procedure they wish to follow. Anything else before we adjourn? I will not see you on July 4th, but we will see each other on the third… Ms. Gerhardt: Eighteenth. Chair Furth: … third Thursday in July. Ms. Gerhardt: Yes. Chair Furth: And I apologize for my voice, but these things happen. Take care. Board Member Thompson: Thank you. Adjournment