10/12/2005 P&Z Minutes - Laserfiche WebLink

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Planning & Zoning Board October 12, 2005 Page 5 APPROVED MINUTES there was no strength in the porches at the end of the building. He agreed the building was facing backwards. He stated he was not impressed with this development. Mr. Bengtson responded that the way the staff report was laid out so the board would not have to necessarily look at the design standa rds as they were goi ng through the report. He indicated it was not the in tention of staff to calling ou t deficiencies, but rather verbally explain what was what was shown graphically in the plan. Chair Rafferty stated the report and informa tion by staff was excellent and he realized they were not pointing out a deficiency, but th ere were no strengths in the project and in what was being proposed. Mr. Nelson stated he had a con cern regarding the back of the hotel facing the front of the project and the trash enclosure also. Chair Rafferty invited the developer to make comments. Patrick Sarver, Hartford Development Group, stated th ey felt strongly that the architectural feature that th ey had on the building effectiv ely focused attention on the corner of the building. He noted the evolu tion of the building has come a long way in where it was at and what it has to offer th e site currently. He noted there was a significant difference in the architectural featur e and in order to have it provide a strong architectural feature in the center of the build ing, it needed some articulation in the face of the building which provided some jut out a nd have it move forward. What they have done was to add additional arch itectural features along the to p of the feature. In his opinion there was a good job in articulating th e building and in having the opportunity to move the building closer to the street and a dding the porches added to the articulation of the building. He indicated ther e was a serious traffic circulat ion issue as they came to the round-about. He noted if the front door was at the location of the round-about, traffic would be complicated because they would not be able to do a U-turn, or they would be required to have a sign at the round about to in dicate all hotel guests would need to turn right in order not to complicat e the traffic pattern. Chair Ra fferty suggested they put the drive up canopy on the side instead. Chair Rafferty asked why we couldn’t enter with the driver’s side f acing the hotel instead of the passenger side. Mr. Sarver responded they would need to cross traffic if they did that. He noted the site was also of a narro w configuration and the building would need to be moved back far enough that parking be allo wed in the front of the building. He noted if the building would be turned around, the pa rking area would also need to go with it. He noted people going to the hotel were coming by car and they hoped they could get the people out of their car to walking into th e development to other commercial uses. Mr. Root asked if there were some features that could be added to the back so it would look more like the front of the building to make it look more impressive. Mr. Sarver stated they needed a strong architectural f eature to the center of the building and he believed this was a fa ntastic corner.