Historic Preservation Commission

MINUTES OF THE HISTORIC PRESERVATION COMMISSION MONDAY, AUGUST 13, 2018, 4:15 PM CITY HALL, ROOM 310 A. ROLL CALL. 1. Members: Ald. Mark Steuer- Chairperson, Dave Boyce, Susan Ley and Dennis Doucette Present: Ald. Mark Steuer, Susan Ley, Dennis Doucette and David Boyce. Excused: None. B. APPROVAL OF THE AGENDA. 1. Approval of the agenda for the August 13, 2018, meeting of the Historic Preservation Commission. Moved by David Boyce, seconded by Dennis Doucette to approve. Motion carried. Yes-Ald. Mark Steuer, Susan Ley, Dennis Doucette and David Boyce. No-None, Abstain-None C. APPROVAL OF MINUTES. 1. Approval of the minutes from the June 11, 2018, Historic Preservation Commission meeting and the June 15, 2018, Special Historic Preservation Commission meeting. Moved by Dennis Doucette, seconded by Susan Ley to approve. Motion carried. Yes-Ald. Mark Steuer, Susan Ley, Dennis Doucette and David Boyce. No-None, Abstain-None D. REGULAR BUSINESS. 1. Consideration with possible action on a future building permit application for renovations at 218- 220 & 222-224 N Adams Street. Moved by Dennis Doucette, seconded by David Boyce to approve. Motion denied. Yes-Dennis Doucette and David Boyce. No-Ald. Mark Steuer and Susan Ley. Abstain-None 2. Consideration with possible action on a sign permit application for 131 N Broadway. Moved by Dennis Doucette, seconded by Susan Ley to approve. Motion carried. Yes-Ald. Mark Steuer, Susan Ley, Dennis Doucette and David Boyce. No-None, Abstain-None E. INFORMATIONAL. 1. Review June and July 2018 Building Activity Report. Moved by Susan Ley, seconded by Dennis Doucette to receive and place on file. Motion carried. Yes-Ald. Mark Steuer, Susan Ley, Dennis Doucette and David Boyce. No-None, Abstain-None 2. Review City Raze/Repair Orders and Demolitions. Moved by Susan Ley, seconded by David Boyce to receive and place on file. Motion carried. Yes-Ald. Mark Steuer, Susan Ley, Dennis Doucette and David Boyce. No-None, Abstain-None 3. Staff Updates. 4. Next Meeting Date: Monday, September 10, 2018, 4:15 p.m. F. ADJOURNMENT. Moved by Susan Ley, seconded by Dennis Doucette to adjourn. Motion carried. Yes-Ald. Mark Steuer, Susan Ley, Dennis Doucette and David Boyce. No-None, Abstain-None VERBATIM MINUTES - Nice, nice. We ready? - Yes. - Okay. All right, thanks for your patience. Welcome to Historic Preservation Commission for Monday, August 13th, 2018. Roll call, members, Alderman Steuer I'm here. We have Dave Boyce. - Here. - Susan Ley? - Here. - And Dennis Doucette. - Here. - All present and accounted for. Going to move ahead. The approval of the agenda. Do we have a motion to that effect? - Move to approve. - By Mr. Boyce, do we have a second? - Second. - Second by Dennis Doucette. All in favor. - Aye. - All opposed, that passes. Approval of the minutes from the June 11th HPC Meeting and the June 15, 2018 Special Historic Preservation meeting. Do we have that in here? - Pretty short one. - Yeah, that was a really short one. - Was that the? - We didn't have a quorum, so we still minutes for it because we recorded it. - Okay, all right, so okay. We have a motion to that effect? - Motion to approve. - Mr. Doucette, do we have a second? - Second. - Susan Ley, all in favor? - Aye. - All opposed, that passes. - Regular business. Consideration with possible action on a future building permit application for renovations at 218-220 and 222-224 North Adams Street. We have folks here for that. - Yes Sir. - For the record please state your name and address and whoever would like to speak on it. Let me just take a quick look here. The item, Consideration with possible action on a future building permit application for renovations at 218-220 and 222-224 North Adams Street. So, before we get into it, I don't know, if you could just give us your name, address and then a little bit of the project. - [Patrick] Sure, Patrick Neph, I'm the owner of Republic and the building that's next to it, the two properties in question. Address is the one stated, at 218 North Adams. Architect. - Ben Schenkelberg. - Okay, hi Ben. - [Ben G] And engineer Ben Garrild. - Hi Ben, good to see the Bens. - [Patrick] Easy to remember. - And? - [Craig] Contractor Craig Cornell from Zeise Construction. - Okay, all right. - [Patrick] The general scope of the project is to redo the building, to repurpose the building, into a usable product for us. It will include the complete renovation of the 222 and 224 property, with us joining the two properties together. There'll be three entrances that are gonna be joining the properties together. - So if you can describe it a little bit, the picture here. - [Patrick] Sure, you have the Republic's existing building to the right, which is untouched. And then the primary focus of the renovation is the old Goose Brewery building, which is 222 and 224. That will be to redo the property as a whole. So, it is a new front, a new roof covering up the rear, expanding out the back. Complete gutting of all of the floors and then a remodeling of the first floor, the main floor, to be used for Republic's purpose. The second and third stories will be abandoned, considered attic. - You know, I think I've heard little bits and pieces from different folks over time on the project itself. You realize too, that you're part of a historic district and then on the east side. So, was there gonna be much in terms of restoration or rehabbing, or what you will of the facade? - [Patrick] Most of the facade has to come down because it's not safe, so the majority of the facade will be removed. - Give me a second here, Mike? I got three more meetings tonight, is there any way you can reset my password for me? I need that, because, for whatever reason, it's not working. Anyway, go ahead, I'm sorry. - [Patrick] The facade itself, the majority, well, 60% of it has to come down, because it's not structurally sound. The other portion which would be to the furthest north of the building, where there is an entrance there today, that is a little bit of a question mark on whether or not it can stay. The only thing that will be kept would be the the mason work that's on the bottom, the stone work that's there. What's the stone term? - Mankato Stone. - Mankato Stone. - Mankato Stone, Which I want to keep. The building, the way it's set up right now, if you ever drive by it, it has two entrances or, technically, three entrances to it. That Mankato stone covers and dives into each of those. So, those will be stripped off and saved and repurposed to go somewhere else on the property on the fascia, to put it back on. - To give us some consistency maybe. - [Patrick] Yeah, between the building that sits next to it, being Republic. So that there's some consistency between the two. But as far as the fascia itself, the fascia will not be kept. - Well, like I said, you know the point by that property many times over the years and it's and there's some inconsistency. You really don't get a sense of unity. It's so, in effect, you own both properties, but it's not. Ben, I don't know if I could ask you, I mean, what's your take on, because you've worked on different projects in the past, these type of things. I don't know if anybody else is can add to that unless they're. - [Ben] I can give you a quick shot. I've been doing architecture for 65 years now and still going. I have an office in Massachusetts for the last 28 years and work from Boston to New York, do a lot of historic buildings out there, of course. Been a member of the National Historic Society. One for the State of Massachusetts Historical and they're very touch and go. So, probably 350 buildings during that career, some here in Green Bay, but mainly, all of those out there in Connecticut and Massachusetts. - Are you still based out east? - [Ben] Yeah, I still have an office there. It always comes down to, do we save it? What do we do with it and how do we make it work? This building, the vacant building that Pat has, is in tough shape. Honestly, I brought a brick here just to show you how tough it is. It's one inch closer to sand than it is brick. It's had two fires, one, according to this stuff we received back in the 30s and then I think probably in the 70s, maybe there was another fire. Like when all the Lyric Lounge and WGR Furniture and all those buildings downtown, every Friday there was a fire, it seemed, about eight weeks in a row, remember that? - What year was that? - [Ben] It's sometime in the 70s. - Okay, I moved here in 81. - [Ben] Anyway, every Friday night there was a building burned down in downtown Green Bay for seven weeks in a row. And this was one of them. So they raised, the whole building is framed inside with wood. When that last fire took place, the roof was destroyed and whoever the owners were then and the contractor they put on steel joist rope that spans the full 44 feet of the building. That was established, setting on walls. The unfortunate thing is, with walls on the Childer side and the north side, that ended up being a cavity wall and cut into it and cavity wall means that they're both sharing the same wall. There was some historic stuff that we were given about these two buildings. Pat's building and on the corner. So when we had our demo guys drill a hole in the wall, the roofs are only sitting on eight inches of brick. What's that? - Four inches of brick. - [Ben] Yeah, four inches of brick excuse me. There's a void, there's a void in the middle. Originally, Pat and we all talked about knocking this whole thing down to one floor and kind of copy Republic and everything else. But you really can't, economically, it would be touch and go for everybody to take the building down. So, we're retaining that north wall and staying away from it. That's why you see that little blurb when you look at the elevations there. There's a canopy up on the side. We're gonna try to keep all that intact, to brace up that north wall. It should do it with what we know, and if not, we'll find a way to do it. - So, Berners-Schober was right here? - [Ben] Right there. - [Ben G] Yeah. - I mean the sticker name, for the record. - [Ben G] Ben Garrild Professional Engineering. The issue there, between those two buildings, that Ben's getting at, is because they share a common wall. It's not, which one's holding up which, you know what I mean. They're not separate structural systems even though it's really, it's two different addresses, it's two different buildings, they're stuck together. - So you found this out while you were probing, so to speak. You had no idea it was like that? - [Patrick] No. - So, when you when you bought this building 10 years ago you had no idea about that? - No. - Okay. - [Patrick] No, we didn't have any clue back then. We didn't do that type of investigation, lesson learned on our side, but. There never even was the thought to be honest with you. - So it seems to be kind of an unusual type of architecture. I don't know, David? - I've got a question on that. I don't know anything about architecture or construction but with my right attitude, from not being associated with anything, is it possible to have like a form on both sides of the existing wall and just pour concrete in there and rebar? - [Ben G] We sort of kicked that idea around but it's a really narrow space and then you're kind of going with, you don't exactly know, how do you make sure that concrete gets all the way down. If you do get it all the way down, how do you engineer that to make sure that it's right. Then you gotta figure out where that property line and then whose is that, you know what I mean. Because it's the two on both it's kind of somewhere in between. You can't take one down and leave the other or vice versa. - I've seen on the internet, you put a wall on both sides of whatever the hell is there and you have a tube that comes all the way down to the bottom, and you just generally, pump it full on concrete. - [Ben G] Sure, sure, you can do that but like I said, I mean, there's only, the gap in between is not a lot, you know, it's real narrow. - You have to put the things on the outside. Like four inches on either side, pouring it there. - [Ben G] Right, right, but then you're working with Berners-Schober building to the north which is not Pat's property, and it's a working building. - That's a finished office. - That's a finished office. - What about Berners-Schober, have you talked to them about this project? - [Patrick] Yeah, the structural people were involved too. They were as surprised as we were. We knew they were the ones to first learn about it because the demo person drilled straight into someone's office. When they popped through the wall on the second floor the drill went straight through that single course and went right through theirs and popped out and collapsed plaster and stuff like that down into someone's office area. Our buildings are not aligned. The floor levels are different between these properties. - So, two different architects, two different time periods, do you know when both buildings were built off hand? - [Patrick] They don't know. They, in fact, were involved with the renovation of this building, at some point in time, but could not find their records on it because of it of its age. We had their structural people come over. They've been working with us to figure out exactly what is the best course of action. There is some legality issues, when you start to have, which I do not want to trouble people with. When you have these buildings that are adjacent to each other, you can argue all day long about whose responsibility is what. I don't want to get into that type of disagreement with my neighbors. BSA is a is a good neighbor to us. I just want the problem fixed because long-term the building needs to stay for another 30 years. Right now, the state that it's in, now that we found out how bad it is, now our hand has been forced, essentially. We have to do something with that building. - Is there any historic tax credits or anything that you're looking at or? - [Patrick] No, we knew that the building would not contribute. - Because of it's alterations? - [Patrick] Because of its alterations and the only way I would have, maybe in theory, considered it is if I could take it back to what it was originally, which is prior to the Art Deco. - I was gonna ask Jason that. Jason, do you know anything about that, I mean those buildings? - Yes I do. - Could you elaborate? - [Jason] It's currently a contributing structure within the district, as a 1935-ish Art Deco facade on the building, that facade having been installed or designed by Berners-Schober. Any effort to change the facade to what they currently propose or to its original state in the 1870s, would result in it becoming non-contributing. It's contributing because of its current Art Deco facade. - So, okay. - Which you're planning to remove? - Yes. - Just rip everything off and you're going to use n Dryvit? - [Patrick] We're going over it with EIFS, yes. - Well, it's kind of an interesting conundrum because we're trying to maintain the integrity of the historic area. I understand that issues with the building itself. Safety issues and whatever have been. You being an architect, looking at both sides of this. One thing that Green Bay is doing, we are working on getting the preservation ordinance on the books and it should be happening very, very shortly. It's not there right now so, we're advisory right now. I mean you guys could walk out and do whatever you want. Well, with that being said, we're working in Green Bay we've had quite a number of alterations in Green Bay over the years and now we're looking at trying to get a consistent set up for historic structures. So, I guess I'm having, the hard thing I'm having with this is looking at the historic end as Jason has brought forward and then also the safety issue. I mean, is there any way that any of these alterations could be made and maintain the historical integrity that you feel. Do you feel that that could happen or is that a ship that has sailed for you? - [Patrick] Well that becomes, anything is based off of how much money you want to spend. The problem that we have is the area that is being removed to rebuild that. The difference in scope on our project is six figures. It's $100,000 more to try to attempt to put brick back on to that building to a facade that I wouldn't put back to Art Deco, personally. I don't dislike Art Deco, there's nothing wrong with it, but that's not consistent with what Republic's current building looks like. I would rather that the property be brought on to the tax roll as a contributing product to the city and to simply. - Contributing as a tax payment. Not so much a historic building. - [Patrick] Correct, right. The historic thing, I'm a believer in historic preservation because that's why I kept Republic the way that I did when I first renovated Republic. We didn't touch the exterior at all. But we have our limits too. We can't afford to go and try to rebuild that and make it financially feasible. So it is a dollars and cents from that perspective. - Is there is there a structural report on the condition? - [Ben G] I've looked at and I wrote a letter. I mean, basically, there's a couple of things going on there. I mean, there's some loose bricks and whatnot in there, which is what it is. But when you are down on the building, on the ground rather, and you look up, it kind of bows out in the middle. When you go up on the second floor, looking up at the third floor, there's a beam line that sort of runs down the middle. That beam, the wall is pulling away from the beam line. Whatever connection of the wall to the rest of the floor line, there's something happening there that's compromised it. We haven't ripped apart enough yet to determine exactly what's going on there. The problem with, when you start ripping something like that apart is when do you stop. Because right now, it is what it is, you start pulling things apart and then all of a sudden you can make things worse by going there. - I guess our position as far as the historical integrity would be would be greatly relaxed if there was a structural report to support what your findings are. - [Ben G] I've written this letter here, I can give you guys, which basically says that. That there's a big bulge and that it's pulling off and that we don't know what's going on in there until we don't rip it all apart, basically. - Well, Dennis are you still? Let the David ask the question, then we'll get back to this. - In your professional opinion, how long do you think that building will stand before it's unsafe or has to come down? - [Ben G] That's one of those things where it's, failures and deterioration like that is slow until it isn't. - It can be catastrophic all of a sudden. - [Ben G] Right, right, right. You kind of go past the point. Is it falling down today or tomorrow, no. - That place that sells wine downtown, winery whatever, there was some equipment nearby and it started cracking. - Sure. - Stuff like that you know, it could be vulnerable that way too. So that's one consideration, longevity seems to be a more important factor than a facade. - [Ben G] Yeah, I'll share a story that's different but sort of gets to the point in that a couple years ago there's a hotel in Algoma, the Hotel Stebbins. If you go in their dining room, maybe five years ago, a post appeared. The reason was is because the owner, they had renovated the front part of that hotel a number of years ago and have redone all the rooms. There is this weird back that they didn't know what to do with and they turned it into kind of fishing group rooms, where like, 10 people could stay in one room. All the contractor did, was they went in there, they pulled off the plaster, they hung drywall. I got a question, I got a call from the contractor, he said, Ben, you need to come out here. All we've done is take off drywall and the floor dropped four inches. I went out there and somebody had done something, like 20 or 30 years ago, after we figured out what was going on. They took out that post and they sort of did some things in the roof that didn't actually do anything and the the walls inside were kind of holding it up. Basically, I said, we looked around and figured out that there had been a post there that had been taken out, and I said, we got to get something back in there temporarily, at least, to make it safe. That's kind of one of those cases where it's fast, it doesn't do anything, until it does. - [Ben] One of the things that is making this thing more difficult is on one side there's a building that's almost as tall as Pat's building. That's taking care of the north wall, a party wall, basically. The back is roughly 45 feet high and it's been taking water over the top because the roof pitches from a head of the street to the alley. We're gonna take all of that into account. Strengthen that wall back there by covering it with insulation in the metal panel and changing the direction of the water and the drainage so it doesn't run down that wall. That all has to be tucked pointed otherwise and that would be just another big dollar item. Then, on Pat's side, where Republic is, he has a building that's one story at the street and two stories about half way back, right. So, we've got a lot of things going on. Now, this third floor of this building, have no walls in it. The steel joists are sitting four inches of bearing on that wall and go all the across 44 feet. Sitting on four inches of bearing on their party wall. That's 40, 50 feet in the air, or whatever it is if you look it's pretty tall building. And doesn't have a lot of stability there if you start chipping around. If you leave everything as it is, it's all probably kind of be okay. But there are no internal walls, it's one big room up there. There's nothing to give it some strength laterally and horizontally, in any other direction you wanna go. Then, you drop to the second floor and the second floor is framed with wood. And the 2x12's, full 2x12's, and the old, brittle, dimensional lumber is running north and south. Bearing also on the party walls. When they had the fire, if you'd go up in there, you'll see all kinds of patching, I brought you a brick from there. That black mess is what you find in those cavity walls from the roof, all the way down as far as you can go. When they laid this brick, and this is a pretty soft brick if you hit this, it will probably fall apart. These are meant to be left inside a building, you wouldn't put these on the outside of a building. They're different density. - Interior bricks versus exterior. - [Ben] Brick and the whole building is built like that and wing walls, and the back wall. The front wall, which when they had a fire, varnish over whatever they did to the front of it. They basically, I feel, and I think everybody agrees, they came back and put a curtain wall on. Which would be, they just ripped the front down and put something up there. They have no way to attach that because the floor joists go this way, the wall is going this way, towards the west. We've looked at that wall from different levels and it's bowed. It's bowed out and basically it probably has been fine because if this took place back in the 30s, that's almost 70 years, more than that. Basically, it's worked. But you can't push it back because it's gonna fall apart. You can't anchor it because there's nothing to anchor it to. If you go over there and look on the first floor where the two retail stores are, because it has two entrances. Underneath, at 10 foot, the storefront quarter-inch glass in an aluminum frame. There are no columns, there are no beams, there's nothing. We don't have a clue what's there. We weren't ready to put all in it until we get the okay to do it, because the hole may get bigger real fast. But if you go back 13 feet there's a column and a beam. How they ever attached it is beyond me and it's been there, and I got these photographs. - Did the fire compromise, obviously, it must have compromised the safety. - It got all of them. - They've had a number of fires in Green Bay over the years. The fire department did a story about that not too long back and I'm wondering how many times this building may have been affected by fire. - [Patrick] That building, and then Republic's building, in 218, also burned. - That was in the 70s? - [Patrick] I don't know exactly when that happened. I do know that similar to the Lou's Bootery building the front half of Republic is also steel trusses. Until I get to the second, about halfway into the building where it goes to two stories, that's all wood and all of it when we gutted that building was black. Everything was burned back there. I think what happened in Republic's building was whatever fire they had there took the roof out in the front. So that whole area was all replaced. And then the rear was kept and the wood beam, as big as it was, didn't have to be replaced. - [Craig] BSA's attic is all burnt and charred. - State your name. - [Craig] Craig Cornell from Zeise Construction. We were hired by BSA to go up into their existing attic, which is adjacent to this space, which has four inch bearing under the brick common wall. We had to reinforce with, it's still wood, so it was a bunch of 2x12 Douglas fir reinforcement because they were putting on new HVAC roof top units, brand new ones, up on BSA's side. Their engineers looked at it and they hired us to reinforce all that. The charred wood is still there. It kind of makes sense whatever fire that was it'd be interesting to know more about the history. But it might have been all on fire and it kind of skipped over the wall. - Well sometimes you don't know that until you open it up. I think one of the things that we look at, I mean, we look at the facades quite a bit. Interior-wise, in a lot of structures they'll do other work to bring them forward in the projects. But I guess committee might chime in too. But we look at the facades of the building and I know that Jason, he had a point about that too. You were saying that it was 1935 Art Deco. We're looking more to that. I think the whole thing with the structure and interior wise, I think whatever, as far as I'm concerned, whatever you need to do to make that viable. I think I'm good with that. - [Ben] One of the things is this photograph. I've been looking at it, I was given this about a month ago. It shows the two buildings. I kept looking at this and the picture was probably taken maybe in the 30s or maybe before that. Then, I put it under the glass and blew it up. This whole top facade is a drawing on top of the photograph. - Yes, the photograph is probably from the 1890s. It's been touched. - It's been touched up. - That is very irrelevant because that facade is no longer a contributing element. - [Ben] What I'm getting at, is this was drawn on top of it and I can say that a lot of buildings that I've been involved with that finally ended up going through the state to get money and then going to the federal government to get approvals, the message was simple. It's been hotels, it's been a post offices, it's been all kinds of buildings. Whatever is there, if it can be repaired within reason, fine. If it can't, don't come back and build a building with a fake front because you have some photographs of what was done back whenever. Make it totally different. If it's red brick, do it in another brick. If it's no windows, put in windows. So that people will look at it and say, you know, exactly what I'm saying about this rendering is, are you telling me that whatever was built and I'm gonna use the number 1850 and the front end fell down. That if I put a brand-new front on it with all the masonry and all the changes and all the insulated windows and the insulation and all the stuff that goes into the fire codes today, which they didn't have. But that's what they want, that isn't necessarily what they want and it starts the buildings. But, if it really had some history and a bunch of people got shot there, there was a war, a bank robbery, it's different. But I can tell you and Ben and I can show you pictures of that buildings that got approved all the way through the program, by both organizations, that making it different, some people look at it and say that was built in 1850, that was built in 2017. But we know that because the 2017 one, fell apart, never existed, it was impossible to recreate and nobody cared financially, and on, and on, and on it goes. In Pat's situation, we're looking at and I said it a couple weeks ago here, it's a small area, it's not very wide, if you really look at it's 44 feet, it's not much. It's trying to be two things, profitable for him and sensible architecturally to do it. We went back today, Ben and I, went back today and looked at Berners-Schober's building on the top. That's up to them and they're good guys and they're working with us, about time they get up on a ladder and do a little maintenance too. Because there's things going on in this upper facade that was drawn on this building. It's different than this picture, way different. It's never dealt with the quality of all of the stone work that's down on the first two floors and three floors. It was, kind of, like a copycat, but we're only gonna spend so much money doing it. I know Berners-Schober, I worked there one time. I know Berners-Schober well and all those guys when they're alive, and my old boss, when they were alive, they all grew up in Green Bay, they were all good architects very quality people. Back then, they probably had a fire, they were involved in it, they were called over to put a front on the building and they did something. But it certainly isn't the caliber of historic architecture that I'd go crazy over, it's pretty bland and it's got a few little wrinkles in it. His building, which is the Republic one-story, has got a lot of twinkles in it. It's got ceramic tile on it, it's got cut stone on it, it's got all kinds of stuff on it. Yet, it was remodeled, we did it, what, 10 years ago and we put in new windows and doors and nobody got excited over it. We cleaned it up and it looks pretty good. I'm lobbying for the fact that I work for him is that I want something nice too. But sometimes, you have to do a drastic change to save the whole system. The system being, if we do something, can we afford it? If we do something will we stay in business? If we do something, will it be maintenance free and happy, happy, happy? The average person walking down the street will never know the difference. We'll make it look really nice. But we can't do what's there, rip it down, and put it back up. Because somewhere behind that wall above those windows when we rip that down, we're gonna find two things. Ben and I agree, and I think Craig does, there's either a giant truss that they buried back in there that nobody knows about. Because you can't go 34 feet without a column and have 40 feet of brick on top of it. Or there's a big beam back in there. One or the other. What are you gonna do it with it when you pull all the stuff down, you're stuck. You're gonna have a building without a front on it. - It's definitely, we've had a lot of different projects that come before us, this is just, this is unique. We're not trying to be obstructionist or anything but we're just trying to look at this from the aspect of our community and what we've had and what we. Susan do you have any thoughts on this or anybody, Dennis? - I'm concerned about how the exterior is going to look. I know you said you want, there will be something nice but I just can't help but think with that EIFS exterior that it's just gonna be connected. - Well, you can take, not to interrupt, you can take EIFS and it's all over America, even right here in Green Bay. - I know about the lawsuits. - But there are different, what? - Lawsuits. We don't want to get into that. But coming from the appearance and this neighborhood and the thoughts of what has happened to our downtown Green Bay and how it has been destroyed. All the historic buildings we lost. I just look at this exterior and I understand what you're saying about the brick there, and the problems. I can appreciate that, by I'm concerned with what you want to do on the exterior. What you want the exterior material to be and how well it's going to look. - [Ben] Money is always a big issue. Secondly, you can take EIFS, Dryvit, stone or whatever it is, and you can put all kinds of textures to the face of it. You can add granite to it, chips to it, you can do it smooth, you can do it like cut stone that you can almost have to go up and beat on it to see if it is cut stone. There's a lot of different finishes you can put on it. The product sometimes gets a bad name because of bad installers. - Here it is, that's what's going on and we'll see this picture, I don't have anymore real detail about what you're thinking about. - [Ben] We're trying to make it look like stone, cut stone. - To me it looks like a commercial building I've seen this suburb somewhere. - Flat faced, no dimension. - Exactly. That's why I look at this and I go ugh. - [Patrick] I think the straight line drawings are tough to get dimension off of. When you look at the full drawing package. Because I struggle with the same thing. When Ben first came to me, like I do not want a flat faced front. It has to have dimensions. That's why we're putting windows in. The windows will be lit to make it look like people live there. There has to be dimensions to the sills. The signage up there, I mean, everything has got to have depth to it. I don't want something that's just plain and flat. As far as the texture goes, the texture isn't something that we've finalized on yet, Craig and I haven't gotten that detailed on it. Other than to say that we have the provision to to do whatever texture we see fit. But from a dimensional standpoint. The main drawing shows the dimension, does it not? Your main drawing? Because I agree with you, I don't want a boring store front. - I want to say something again, I think all this is something I've seen in some office building in the suburbs. Why would I want this in downtown in a historic neighborhood? - [Patrick] There's a difference between people. - [Craig] It's gonna appear to have stone banding. Yeah, this is the one. Rental horses above the windows and sills, stone sills. This is gonna be a band that isn't flat and stand out. - How much will those sills come out from the building? - [Ben] The building actually goes back from the sidewalk to the glass windows, the big windows that are there is 13 feet, 14 feet. Because we have a patio up in front. The reason we have a patio is, I do a lot of bars and restaurants for some reason or other is if you don't have a patio now on a day like today, you might as well turn your lights off until it starts raining. That's what people want to do. - I was thinking more up here. - Up there? - Yeah, the one that shows. - [Ben] Just push it way back from the street, 13. - We're not talking about the sills themselves coming off of the building. - Right. - This section shows it here, this is the section. - So it's a couple inches. Two inch, but the depth is about what, eight. - So the sills come out, but the windows are recessed? - [Craig] This section shows it here. We've said that. And then the wall is also set back twice, down at the street, up to the bottom of the first floor, or second floor, there's an overhang of six feet of that building that you can't really see on a drawing like that. I built a little scale model of it. It got changed, but it gives you a better dimension. - [Ben G] This entrance is the existing entrance that remains with canopy. Then the stone is an existing stone. - I know you're trying to get some consistency between this structure and this. I understand that you're trying to do that. Then this will be one business though? - [Patrick] Correct, yep. - Because you own both lots. The fact is, you couldn't do anything beforehand because there were different owners, was that part of it? You've owned it for 10 years. - I've owned it for 10 years. - But in that 10 year period, was there any other thoughts of anything? Or have you been working on this, just trying to figure out? - [Patrick] We've gone through about seven, seven to eight different variations of product there. Whether it be white boxing the bottom apartments, condos. - What is the talk for up here? - [Patrick] Nothing, it will be abandoned. Yeah, just cut it off. - If you build this, what what will be up here? - [Patrick] What's up there today. Everything that's done up there will be used to brace the building as a whole. So, it will not be functional space. Second and third floor would not be functional, it's unoccupied without any access to it other than, if you have a drop-down or anything. Yeah, there's there's a fire in there. But the windows that are all getting repopulated, all those windows will be lit at night. It's really to give the impression that there is someone that is living there, potentially. There's not actually going to be. - I don't know if I've ever heard of a project like that. I mean, I'm not saying it's good or bad, I'm just that's kind of a unique thing to do. Ten O One Club? - The city was wanted to refurbish, but it cost way too much so they sealed it off. That's how people crept up in that space. - Dennis, do you have anything? - I guess I'm gonna be the minority here, because I don't see this facade being unattractive, compared to what it is right now. - I didn't say it was unattractive, I'm just saying. - No, I mean even from an integrity perspective. I'm in the middle, I'm 2/3 of the way through with the Hotel Retlaw in Fond Du Lac. I'm repurposing that and we open in December. Walter Schrader, his buildings were pretty bland anyway. They were big boxes, so I can relate to this somewhat. You guys been doing a great job here. - Thank you. - I'm a big fan of your operation, you're doing a good operation. I think the positives far outweigh the negatives. I do think a structural report would have given us an easier path saying yes. On the whole, I'm fine with this. - [Ben] If you think about it, this room, if you count all the tiles, probably what, 30-some foot wide or longer? This whole building isn't much wider than this one is long. I feel, I get into my projects and I do very well with them. I just see this building, because we're looking at a flat drawing, I made a cardboard model of a couple different versions we had, right, we did two different ones. It kind of shows this in and out. We made some changes after, but if we had it, I think you get a better feel. You want to have some dimension. Right now it's just a flat street, all including Associated Banks, neighbor to him and down Berners-Schober, it's just one big flat street with a bunch of windows in it and some offsets. This has some real offsets in it. It can be landscaped, it can be lit, it can be put together so that people driving by say, now that's where I wanna eat, that is my kind of restaurant. - But those two areas, that area will not be utilized ever? - Upstairs, no. - Just because of the safety? - [Patrick] Code access egress is a huge hurdle. And the safety. - It's just unusable. - [Patrick] Well, it requires an elevator. I've been down this path before and when I start to look at the numbers, even in a perfect world, where if you had apartments or condos. The building will never cashflow, it just won't. The property, it drives my budget, triples my budget to do it and there's just no way. There's no way that we could do it. It would be foolhardy on our part to try to develop it all the way. We would never make any money on that property. It's just too much. - We're hearing all this we do hear you. - Is there any architectural comments about snow loading, worst case scenario in relation to the projected ultimate capacity simply of the roof to hold a load of snow? - [Ben G] I don't know anything about Pat's current building other than it's there and it has the snow. The existing building has got some bar joists on it. This one's the highest one, so it's not gonna, really. I mean this building, the snow load, it's higher than Berners-Schobers, it's higher than Pat's existing building. This is really getting 30 PSF or whatever the typical snow load is. - No drift. - [Ben] There's no drift. This building is making all the drift, not getting any of the drift. From the snow load standpoint it's not. - The wind pretty much clears it off. - [Ben G] I mean the you're gonna have the code proscribed, 30 PSF give or take, that's out there. - So you're pretty tight on the roof. - [Ben G] Yeah, yeah, I mean, we're not changing anything with that. That part of it hasn't changed. - Okay, it's good to know that makes a big difference, the drift patterns. - Yeah, yeah. Because the roof is all staying the same existing when the drift is the drift that's made on the building is gonna be or made on this supple lock, we're gonna be on the lower buildings, not on the higher buildings. - All right, we're getting closer, I hope. Jason, you brought up some points. Jason was a historic preservation officer in our planning office. - He keeps us straight. - He does, at times, yeah. But anyway, you've heard all the arguments. Can you lend a little credence toward us as far as your thoughts on this? - [Jason] It's not my position to say whether or not this is the right course of action for the title. It might be better than the best. What I do know is that it's a contributing building and the basis of that contributing status is the current facade. Anything that you do to remove the current facade is going to change to to non-contributing. The work proposed here does not meet the Secretary of the Interior standards for rehabilitation nor do they really intend it to. Which, again, is fine. But if I have to wear the hat of Historic Preservation officer, then I would recommend that you withhold endorsing this project, recognizing that it may be the correct thing to do and recognizing that whatever you say doesn't really matter at this point, they're gonna do what they want. From a preservation perspective, and solely a preservation perspective of preservation blinders, this isn't in keeping with the Secretary of Interior standards. It reduces it from contributing to non-contributing and maybe diminishes that portion of the district by being an unsympathetic intrusion. That's a judgment call. - Like I said, there's a lot of folks that may walk around and not, like you said, not know the difference and we understand that. But then we spent 30 years trying to regroup from the things that happened in our downtown area and we're trying to get a paradigm shift now. We're trying to, we're trying to bring that ethic back. Like I said, right, wrong or indifferent, we still have a lot there. We wanna maintain it as well as we can. - I will tell you that, I'm working at Fond Du Lac, they're doing the same thing, they're trying to make their downtown a section of the historic district and there are some buildings that just aren't salvageable. That's just a way of life. - [Ben] If we look at the neighborhood, this neighborhood, when going way back, when Associated Bank, which was the Kellogg's Bank then, built on the corner. Berners-Schober did it, the nice glass one that they look at. That building is getting up there in age. It's ultra-modern, it's probably one of the best looking buildings in the whole Green Bay, Depere, Ashwaubenon area. Look at it from across the street. They did it with marble, they did it with glass, they did it with precast concrete. It looks like it was just built yesterday. They keep it up. So, would you call that a historic building? I'd say, and it is what it is. When you go diagonally across the street, we're next to C Street on a corner there. That building set vacant for years and years and years, if you stand back, I even asked Green Bay to look at that charge. I look at these buildings over and over and nothing ever happens with them, right. That building sat empty forever. Finally, now, Wells Fargo or somebody's in there. But, if you look at an architecturally, it's a terrific building, but it is in 1878, it was probably a 1947 to be exact. Across the street or something. Then across the street, where Citizen Security was, remember that thing or Bosses News Depot. - Okay, I wasn't here at the time. - Anybody was here, all right, that was the Masonic Temple. The Masonic Temple was a wood frame building, pretty much like Pat's building, with some brick on it. They had a massive fire, lucky they didn't burn down the whole neighborhood. It sat there, and it sat there, and it sat there. I've never been a Mason in my life, but they couldn't find an architect and so they came and I designed the one that's out there in my rock gardens, temple. No windows, no nothing. They went out there and built a new building because it wouldn't fit here, they wanted a parking lot and everything. Somebody came along and said, there's been a vacant fire hole in the ground over here on the corner Adams and cherry or whatever it is. We're gonna put a building there. So they did, one story. All I've ever heard over the years was, what an ugly building it's a one-story building. Well, it was an ugly lot for about three years that nobody wanted. That's when you did what they did. But if you drive past it, it's a building of the series of the 70s. You gotta keep upping the ante every 10 years, or whatever it is, as times change. All the buildings you build today, 100 years from now, some of them are gonna be historic buildings and that's where the story goes. The Associated Bank, is a beautiful building and you can call it whatever architecture you want, but it's going to be tagged for how long it's been there. It's never gonna be knocked down, for a long time. - Just for the record, the C.A. Gross building was built in what, 1928? - 28 the Frankenthal building. - Right, but remodeled with new windows and all the other stuff. - There's actually in addition to it that's identical to the historic stone that was put on in 1991, thereabouts. - Yes. - Yes. - Well anyway, I don't know if there's any other comments, otherwise, we'll have to talk. I appreciate you gentlemen coming in. I understand the scope of the project. I think you put a lot of time and effort into it. I know, Pat, you run a great business and I've been there. We want, with the Hotel Northland coming into the fray soon, that's what they call it. They'll bring some development and things coming in, it will benefit your business as well. I'm kind of torn on this, like I said, we are the Historic Preservation Commission, we are advisory. Whatever we say, you can go ahead with your plans. It's not a problem. Whether or not you'll have the blessing of our group remains to be seen in our vote. I guess the part that I'm torn about is the fact that, okay, there are safety issues. You have the fires and things like that. There are times where things get altered because of more than what happens out there. So that is my concern. I do listen to what Susan brought up too, about having it look like another building that you would see in the suburbs somewhere. We're trying to maintain the sense of integrity. Jason brings up the fact that it was, it is art deco. You've got a lot of little different things going on. You have two different buildings and now I find out it's two different support systems if you will, on top of the brick. We're more interested in the facade, that's what we do. I mean, what you guys do on the inside as a whole that's up to you folks. - Yeah, you can do whatever you want on the inside, our concern is the exterior. Can we ask this Mark? - Yeah go ahead. - Can we see more specific examples of what you're planning to do with the exterior. I imagine it's marbleized. So we really have a good grasp? - Is this this cast and stone like final-final? I mean, I know you've been working on this for a long time, but this is really the first time we had a chance to digest this. I'm sensitive this is time-sensitive as well. - [Patrick] What might be helpful to your point is to have something that is more dimensional in nature to visually be able to see it. When you look at the materials that we have there that can show a dimension, but this still shows flat. That is something that we could provide to show a different dimension of what the building will look like probably from this angle. But as far as changing the structure as to what it's going to look like, no. We're past that point now. In fact, this building, everything has to be completed as you see it by the end of this year. So the projects really is now. We have to address the front of the building this year. - Like I said, you obviously talked to Inspection and Planning and such. What was their take on all of this? - [Patrick] Last week we had a meeting with the Tech Review Team. Then we need to come and speak with you. Then all of our plans are finished for the most part they're just being submitted. Down to Chad? Correct? But this had to happen before we could do that. Since Chad won't take it any further if we hadn't come in. - I think as long as you all understand that there's nothing personal at all with this. We're looking at this strictly from our purview, what we look at and what we feel is good for the integrity of the community. I know, Ben, you've done hundreds of these throughout your life and I applaud you for that. But, like I said, I feel that we could talk about this for a while, but I think we should vote. - Jason, in regard to the density of the historic buildings in Green Bay, this particular structure is pretty much in the center of the cluster of the main cluster of historic buildings or is it a little bit off to the side? What would be the effect of this pulling out of the system? - [Jason] This by itself won't cause that portion of the district to fall out of its designation. - How many buildings will be effected by that? - [Jason] That's like how many licks does it take to get to the center or what straw was it that broke the camels back. I can't answer that. What I can say is that the nearby Purel building, just on the opposite side of the Chop House is non-contributing. As a whole district, there are very few non- contributing buildings. You'll have two each together so to speak. - It's kind of in the middle of the cluster? - [Jason] No, it's to the north end of the cluster. - So, is this one contiguous project then it's considered one structure so to speak? Would this still be contributing? - [Jason] It's still contributing. - This will be contributing. - [Jason] The other one is a separate building it will be rendered non-contributing. - And right now it is considered contributing? - [Jason] Right, it's eligible for tax credits. - So this will still maintain, even though. Okay, well, that makes me feel a little better in that sense. - [Jason] Provided that there's no future plan to put a new facade on that. - My feeling is you've been in the business for 10 years, my feeling is that you're gonna maintain this and move forward. You put some time and effort into it. All right, I think we've talked about this long enough. I would entertain a motion to either approve or disprove, I can't do that. - I call a motion to approve. - Do we have a second? - Second. - All right, all in favor? - Aye. - Opposed? - Aye. - On the grounds if we would had an actual sample of what you're gonna. We have people come in, we're doing a roof, and they bringing the shingle sample. This is color, or they bring in the pamphlet for the windows or whatever. This was just really kind of brushed off as far as I'm concerned, as to what this outside is going to look like and that's our big concern. That's why you're here. - We didn't really have a lot of information for this. - We understand structural stuff on the inside. Yeah, whatever you're told to do, great, you could do whatever you want on the inside. Our concern is the outside. - And you said it's time-sensitive, so that kind of holds holds us with our backs to the wall too. We don't have really a lot of time to digest this. When you say time-sensitive, I mean, this is something that if you came back to us and somehow appeased us. - Like the next meeting. Or we could have a special meeting. - We could have a special meeting in two weeks, we've done that. Now, if you're if you're up for that and just come back forward with the concerns that we raised, if you can address those we will be more than happy to revote. We can do that, is that something? Would you be amenable to that? - I am. - You're ready to go. I'm a fellow business man and I will be here whenever you need me. - But as Mark has pointed out, we could all vote against it and you can still walk in and give your information to Bob. - If you're amenable to that? - What you're supposed to do is come before us, we voiced our opinion. - [Patrick] Right, well we have to proceed. Coming back to to clarify some of the fronts, I'm fine with doing that. But we still need to proceed. - We might offer, since we've already on this, we can also have them come on as informational on your next meeting or they can supply the material samples to me, come into my office whatever. To view, just to get a better feel for it. - Just for the sake of us feeling better. That way, it failed, for lack of a better. - [Craig] Pat will be going through the submittal process with us. When we submit, then we'll have samples. If that's a good time, we can bring over the approved samples at that time. - [Patrick] Yeah, we'd like for you to see it. We want you to get on board as best you can. Understood that the position is really from a historical perspective, it isn't going to allow us to stay in that designation. But, do we want you to be more comfortable with what we're putting up, that we're not putting up a shopping mall looking product. Yeah, I'm fine with that, I'm okay with bringing it back. - Stephanie is that something that we will just do at our next meeting, or is that something? - We have to hold it here, and then bring it forward at the next meeting as another regular business item or we could just have him come back as informational. - This is informational. - We're not holding him up. - Either way, it's not held. - I would say it's informational. I appreciate you coming in. - [Craig] The stones sills and stuff, there's cast stone, it's made very similar, actually, to what EIFS is. You file it, polish it out, it'll look like limestone. - This looks nice and all, but it would have been nice to have a little bit more. - [Ben] What you're really losing, a couple of things, if you go by Republic right now, look at the front of his existing. I think he's got a pretty nice planter along there, it's always kept up and it does well if it faces the right direction. We have a nice patio going to compliment that. When you see the patios and we get the right colors and the right furniture and the whole thing, I'm telling you, it's gonna look pretty nice. I have no concerns about juggling up some of the finishes around. But we're using stone that's there, Mankato stone is stone out of Minnesota and very historic, used in a lot of buildings in the Midwest. - I mean, I would even entertain each of the committee members, if we get a chance, that we can come over and see something ahead of time. We would be willing to do that too. - [Patrick] Do we coordinate that through you? - Yes, why don't you do that. I would appreciate it. - [Patrick] Okay, that sounds great. - All right, thank you gentlemen. - [Ben] Do you want that brick as a paperweight? - I got one from my high school in 1988, I got a brick from my high school in Milwaukee. - [Patrick] We're opening probably mid-December. - I apologize, I didn't think it was gonna take this long. Come on up. - I just read about that in the paper. - Is there a chance, I have to be at a 5:30 meeting. Can I just? - I need you to sign on this line. - Slam dunk, okay. All right, let's get to out next point. Thank you gentlemen, we gotta run. Thank you Brian for being patient. Consideration with possible action on a sign permit application for 131 North Broadway. We were working on trying to get a special meeting for some time, back and forth, and the committee, I think we work hard to try to make that happen. - [Brian] They did their job, it turned out that the sign installer had submitted the permit, which we thought they had, so here we are. Essentially, I mean, it's a business in the district that moved locations. They just wanna move their sign to the new building. - We looked at this and like I said, we went back and forth about the sign itself and such, but you being an OBI, you had no problem with that, you felt good with it. - I'm fine with it as well. - Me too. - So, can I get a motion to approve? - I make a motion to approve a sign. - Second. - Second. - Okay Susan Leigh. All if favor? - Aye. - All opposed? - Who says government's not efficient? - We should have done that first. - I would have been sitting here anyway, I'm going to the same meeting as Mark. - Are you going down to P&W? - Yeah, I got a couple of big issues. - Could you just tell them that I'll be down in five minutes? - Very good. - I appreciate that. - Thank you guys. - thank you. All right, I should have amended that, oh well. Informational review June and July 2018, felony activity report. Anything that stands out at? - No. - These are a lot easier than we used to have them. - Oh yeah. - Many, many pages. Looks like Helen Keller is having a big project, addition, that's when a historic in a sense. Helen Keller school, over on Bond Street. Helen Keller was historic. I didn't mean it that way. I don't see anything, does anybody? Otherwise, I'd entertain a motion to receive it and place on file. - So moved. - Okay, do I have a second? - Second. - All in favor? - Aye. - All opposed? Next, review City Raze/Repair Orders and Demolitions. - There's not very many. - Jason do you have anything here of note? - [Jason] No, I think I included photographs. - Perfect, let's see what else is up. Kind of an interesting little house. I've been by there a few times. - Fairfield? - I've been living in an apartment for the past week. - That's for Bob. - So, it's Garfield in the second photo. I know it's a little hard to see but the window casing on the side there, near the front of the house, that's all that's missing the top. - Which address again? - 216 Garfield. - Yes. The raze or repair order cited deteriorating walls, windows, doors, tuck pointing, foundation, electrical, cleaning. - This looks like it has. - Is that all? - What's that? - Other than that. - I'm sure it might bulrush. - New driveway. - But looks like this is an interesting little style. - It's cute, it's a minimal traditional. - Minimal traditional. - Yes, post-war, could be a little bit before the war. - Okay, any other questions, otherwise, I would ask for this to be received and placed in file. - Just one point here of the last one, the 143 Cleveland, that's not a raze or repair but that's a raze or remove. They don't even give you the chance to fix them because the repair cost exceeds 50% of assessed value. - So, there was a fire, obviously. - I think yeah. - All right, well. - Turkey in the deep fryer, I don't know. - All right, so I'll wait there to have someone to receive and place on file. - So moved. - Do we have a second? - Second. - Second by Dave Boyce. All in favor? - Aye. - All opposed, that passes. Staff updates. - Two quick things. They are doing work at the lighthouses that are 100 B Beach Road. The lighthouses themselves are not being altered at all but they are being lifted off at the platform so that way they can redo the concrete slab underneath. We're just letting you know, in case you drive by and are like, what are they doing. They're doing nothing with the lighthouses, but they're fixing a concrete underneath. Second thing is that the ordinance has its final reading at next week's City Council meeting on the 21st. By then we should know if we have new ordinance or not. - They're feeling pretty good, I haven't had much pushback at all. I'm feeling pretty good about that. Kudos, again, to both of you for all the work you've done. - Thank you. - Thank you. - And to the committee as well. And to all the different committee members we've had over the years that have persevered, literally, trying to get things going. - Is it 6:00, the meeting? - Yes, 6:00 a week from tomorrow. All right, next meeting date Monday, September 10th at 4:15 in this room. Motion to adjourn, so we have one? - So moved. - And a second. - Second. - All in favor? - Aye. - All opposed? - When will this committee be disbanded? - Well, let's flip.

AGENDA OF THE HISTORIC PRESERVATION COMMISSION MONDAY, AUGUST 13, 2018, 4:15 PM CITY HALL, ROOM 310 A. Roll Call. 1. Members: Ald. Mark Steuer- Chairperson, Dave Boyce, Susan Ley and Dennis Doucette B. Approval of the Agenda. 1. Approval of the agenda for the August 13, 2018, meeting of the Historic Preservation Commission. C. Approval of Minutes. 1. Approval of the minutes from the June 11, 2018, Historic Preservation Commission meeting and the June 15, 2018, Special Historic Preservation Commission meeting. D. Regular Business. 1. Consideration with possible action on a future building permit application for renovations at 218-220 & 222-224 N Adams Street. 2. Consideration with possible action on a sign permit application for 131 N Broadway. E. Informational. 1. Review June and July 2018 Building Activity Report. 2. Review City Raze/Repair Orders and Demolitions. 3. Staff Updates. 4. Next Meeting Date: Monday, September 10, 2018, 4:15 p.m. F. Adjournment. Agenda of the Historic Preservation Commission August 13, 2018 Page 1  1) THIS MEETING IS RECORDED: THE VIDEO OF THIS MEETING AND MINUTES ARE AVAILABLE ONLINE AT www.greenbaywi.gov 2) ACCESSIBILITY: Any person wishing to attend who requires special accommodation because of a disability, should contact the City Safety Manager at 920-448-3125 at least 48 hours before the scheduled meeting time so that arrangements can be made. 3) QUORUM: Please take notice that a majority or quorum of the Historic Preservation Commission will attend this commission meeting and will constitute a meeting of the Historic Preservation Commission for purposes of discussion and information gathering relative to this agenda. 4) REPRESENTATION: The party requesting the communication, or their representative, should be present at this meeting. Agenda of the Historic Preservation Commission August 13, 2018 Page 2