The Historic Preservation Board approved exterior renovations for the Dorn Brothers Building, home to Deli Lane Caf
- The board approved the exterior renovations for the building at 5900 SW 72nd Street, which houses Deli Lane Café and Sunset Tavern. The project includes a smooth stucco finish, new hurricane impact windows and doors, and exterior painting in cream and green, along with new awnings. The historic plaque on the building is to be preserved. The board also approved the minutes from its April 28, 2025, meeting. The next meeting is scheduled for August 25, 2025.
So just if you can. All right. If I can elaborate on that point, Juliana, what we observed one day was in the person's profile, it was accurate. But if they were not necessarily hailing rides through the app, they were calling. And when they call, the telephonic operator, the phone operator, the phone operator, apparently in the profile online, did not recognize that they had...
Good evening. Good evening, this is Lourdes with city attorney here. Can you all hear us? Yes. Wonderful, thank you. We do have quorum and Angelica Lang, our vice chair, you do the honors and call this meeting to order, please.
afternoon everybody we'd like to call the meeting to order and we'd like to start with the pledge allegiance to the flag if we could well i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america and to the republic for which it stands our nation under god indivisible and liberty for justice for all Next, on the agenda, we'd like to take a roll call and see who is here. So if we can just go ahead and just, Angelica Lang, and if the next person can go ahead and jump in and just start doing the roll call, it'd be great.
Okay. Do we have anybody that needs to be, well, we need to swear in, do we have any new board members? Because I see some new faces. Has everybody here been here before? So then we need to swear in the individuals who are coming to represent the projects about to come forward?
That's correct. If anyone who wishes to testify at today's hearing as the item on our agenda is a question judicial item will have to be sworn in. If you are pretending by Zoom and you intend to speak, we'll need your camera to be on. As best as I can tell, it looks like everyone who is going to be participating has their cameras on. And so I'll ask if you would raise your right hand Do you swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?
Thank you for that, Ms. Rodriguez. With that, Chairwoman, if you'd like to proceed to the item, you can do that. It'd be appropriate to start with staff's report.
Yes, we have one proposal in today. And the proposal is the applicant is Jennifer Rodriguez, property owner, Dr. Steven. I do not want to mispronounce the name. Wazowski? Yes. And then it has to do with the property located at 5900 Southwest 72nd Street on Sunset Drive. We all know this area quite well. And it's going to be for the Deli Lane Cafe and the Sunset Tavern. And they're requesting exterior renovations of the building that I believe is next door to the one where Sunset Tavern is located. and Deli Lane Cafe are currently being held. So we did everybody receive a copy of the documents and have an opportunity to review? It looks like what they're Yeah, what they're requesting is to do the exterior update of the building itself as pertaining to the historical side, it would be smoothing out the stucco and the colors would be changed to it's like a creamy color with green awning and green accents. So does anyone in the board at this moment, we can open the floor to any questions?
Ms. Lange, Chairwoman Mang, I think at this time it would be appropriate to hear from staff as they've prepared the report and would like to present it.
Thank you. Good evening. Sorry for my voice. I do have a cold. I do want to ask Jennifer Rodriguez, the applicant, if you would please perhaps share on the screen the elevations, the rendering, so they don't just hear my voice. I greatly appreciate that.
Terry, would you mind sharing your screen for you to be able to? I'm just going to make a brief introduction, then I'm going to pass the floor to Terry. He is from DT Architectural team, so he will be describing the key points of the project.
Yes, you'll have a chance to present the project just after I give my brief report. I promise I'll be brief. Okay, no problem. Okay, so they don't get tired of my voice. Applicants, Jennifer Rodriguez, property owner, Dr. Steven Olszewski, Robbins Plaza, location 5900 on Sunset Drive, 4 Deli Lane Cafe and Sunset Tavern. Exterior renovations, we all know this corner buildings, Dorns Brothers Building is a prominent corner along Dixie Highway and on Sunset Drive, Southwest 72nd Street. As you see on the application submitted by the applicant, section three and six notes the complete scope of work. We also have a letter of intent prepared by Jennifer Rodriguez, she's the owner's representative, and the proposed work includes interior renovations only with no structural changes to the historic facades. scope of work is limited to a smooth stucco finish the removal of the damaged blue accent tiles impact windows and doors and exterior painting there will also be awnings emphasizing the entrances and for the future in a separate application for the outdoor dining along the side of the the other side of the facade, not the US one in Sunset. You'll have the exterior outdoor dining. You also have, at that location, you have new It's buffered with a gate, but with a new fence gate accessible from 59th Avenue. There'll be screening for what staff usually calls the back of house, which includes a new electric transformer, a new walk-in cooler, and freezer. They're all labeled on the keynotes as part of the plan on sheet HEP-3 that illustrates and plan the accommodations to make this happen. Basically what's happening is that Deli Lane will be moving in to the main corner building and the one that you see furthest to the right on this rendering, that would be the Sunset Tavern location. Keeping the traditional outdoor dining area on that screen you just saw is where the longer canopy will be emphasizing the building's exterior architecture. It's not covering the columns or anything. It is indeed an area that has existing trees to remain and be protected during this renovation. The repair also will include painting, and the two proposed colors are by Benjamin Moore. We have a body color barely there. I'm sorry. Yes. No. Picnic basket, which is the light green. Picnic basket, for the record, is CSP-730. I have a sample of that. And barely there is the trim, which is the sand color. CSP-725 is the cream. And I know you don't quite see that on that rendering, but these are the two colors that will be a part of the facade, which is very clearly shown on your monitor. The computer, you can see that. So the body is barely there, and then you have the picnic basket accenting the architectural features of the building. That is acceptable as we are... we allow like up to four colors in a facade. We just have two. Staff's recommendation is that the request certificate will be approved for new hurricane impact windows. That's also happening throughout the building. The smooth stucco walls on the exterior, the new awnings accenting the arches and the entrance with the following conditions. That we select the pressure cleaning PSI based on the wall finishes, so we want to be as soft and as easy as can be and the historic flag, I didn't point out but that's right there below the awnings along the side of the building, it should be preserved so if it's going to be removed for painting or anything it needs to be preserved in other words so that we can make sure it is a unique plaque awarded to the building and it's an original so we want to make sure that it It is preserved during this renovation and then just placed at its original location. And any comments and suggestions from the board? Welcome, Jennifer Rodriguez to the board. Welcome, everyone. And now you can introduce your team and. Great.
No, I appreciate it, Lourdes, and you pretty much said everything that I was about to say. So thank you. I appreciate that. I'll just jump to it. So our intention is to preserve and celebrate the building's historic character. The selected colors and materials are intended to enhance and highlight the existing architectural features, as Lourdes mentioned. We believe the project will bring the community closer to the history of South Miami. I know Jan, he is present right now. He is the owner of Deli Linas as a tavern and he's also very much looking forward to the relocation. We have today joining us is Terry Runyon, who is part of the DTR architectural team. He will walk us through the project key points and answer any questions related to that. We also have Katie Gutierrez. She's part of the E-Res design team, and she could also walk us through the design elements and answer any questions that's in reference to that. So thank you, everybody, for your time.
My name is Terry Runyon. I'm with DTI Architects. And we actually have two separate packages, which I believe you have. The first is the package that has the nuts and bolts, basically the plans, what we're taking out, what we're installing, the existing look of the buildings. And Then we also have the second package, which is more of the renderings of the facade for what you're going to get on everything. As everyone's, we're trying to enhance the neighborhood with the existing building, bringing out as much character as we can and maintaining that. The colors on the facade. I mean, they pretty much went over everything on the project. So we have the existing building. It is a two-story building. And it is currently set up into three separate tenant spaces, which we are combining all those and moving the deli lane from the other location into this building. and really going to help revitalize this corner and make it a place for everyone to go. In terms of the facade, yes, we're maintaining all of the architectural elements and redoing the stucco to repair some of the facade and bring out everything that makes this a historic architectural feature in this area. So this is the east facade here where Lourdes had mentioned that we are separating the awnings so you can still notate and still see the columns going up, the pilasters and everything on this facade. One of the other projects that my understanding has been approved or is in site plan approval right now is for a 15-story building that's going over in this place. And that's actually some of the renderings from their facade. So this is kind of the inner, the overlay of what our building is going to look like with that beyond. So we have the historic facade here. And then this is, my understanding is not a historic building, but it's definitely part of our project for what we're maintaining and we're trying to keep some of those elements in here as well with this facade renovation. Does anyone have any questions at this point? I'm sorry, do you have a south elevation proposed? No, we do not.
I was just curious how the those there's sort of like stairs now that go up the side of the building. I was just, you know, curious of what that was going to look like in the new configuration.
Okay, so we actually have a, there is a separate tenant space that has a portion of the second floor at this time. You break it, I fix it, I think it's the tenant. And they're in this location here. And what we're doing is we are actually connecting the landing and stairwell. And at one point it was like this. I don't know why it looked like it was ill repair, but we're connecting to the back of the existing structure, reopening up an opening in the wall that was there at one point in time. So we can use this for egress. Now, what's going to happen, one of the things that was discussed during this at the beginning was the back of house area. So this is the property line here, and this is how it currently sits, where this is a drive. There's a couple of parking spaces back here. And what we're proposing to do is to fence off this back area. There will be basically dumpster gates and we will have the dumpster within the back of house area. And then they will have to roll this out to the street for pickup. And, but basically you're just seeing a fence along the backside of the property.
Yes. All of the windows, including the other tenant space. Let me try the other one. Down this end over here, there's a You Break It, I Fix It tenant space. We are renovating their windows as well, so we have a complete...
looking for the sun. Right now, the building has three different color frames for the windows. There are white, there are bronze, and there are aluminum. So I assume that you're unifying this? Yes. And what is it going to be, like a bronze? Bronze. Black bronze. I have a question. The building is now In the columns, you have a little detail, which is almost the only detail in the building. A tile detail in the building. It's like a, there you, so you're removing that, right?
We believe that those were added at a- Why don't, why don't, you know, just not replace it, but, just pull them back, you know, or something like that. It looks like a very quaint detail, you know, very characteristic, unique almost. They're not original.
Some of the tiles are damaged and are missing. Right. That is the reason why we decided to move them out, and then it will also go with the color scheme of the colors chosen, so it would stand out a little bit too much if we maintained them.
It's probably from 1970-something or something like that. But, you know, it's really quaint. yeah they're quaint but they don't go with the overall right that was the idea yeah it's it it's a nice detail for that for what's existing but yeah are you restocking in the the upper floor right yes so you're making you're changing the texture of the stuff
I have a question regarding the smooth stucco. When you say smooth, is it like just plain smooth or is it what they would call the wet stucco, which still sometimes has a little bit of texture, but it's still much more rather smooth?
Does anybody have any opinions or comments? I like the way it looks on US 1. I think that's nice that the little mustard-colored building is tying in more so it doesn't look so segmented.
I think that overall, the team is doing a fantastic job of nailing all the details. One question or addition that I'd like to make is we did receive the fabric samples of the awnings. I'm holding them in my hand right now. when I thought we were going to be in person. So I would like to... bring to the group that I'm holding a sample of the one that is in the rendering currently, which is this green and white striped one. I would like to propose, the owner hasn't seen this, Jan has not yet seen this, but I would like to propose just a slight variation of the green and white striped, which is this one, which is different variations of green with a beiger stripe that looks really beautiful with the paint color. So I don't know if you have to approve the exact sample, but I have to choose from today.
Yes, today we would be approving the one that's on record, the one that was filed for. Staff cannot see over the TV in other color. I understand. Okay.
I do. I think it ties in actually a little more subtly with the building. But, you know, I don't want to hold anything up. But, you know, if we can... Somebody drop that sample off to you guys or you can come by for lunch and take a look at it.
Katie, if you were to propose to change that, do you see the full green ones where it says Deli Lane? Does that color green change as well? Or it's just the striped ones that have a color variation?
So the striped one would have the variation, and then the flat, solid green part where it says Deli Lane would still be solid with the logo just like that. It just would be a slightly different green. It would be a green from in here. I bet if we didn't tell you, you wouldn't have noticed that the green was just so different. So for the intents and purposes of the rendering, I think it would stay the same. But in real life, it's technically different. You can see the differences in the green if I do this.
Slightly different. But like, again, if you could see how slight of a change it is in the camera from those physical samples that I'm holding, you would see that we probably wouldn't update the rendering, even if we were to change the fabric in terms of that flat piece. I'm sorry, solid colored piece. So if I were to propose this second version of the green and white stripe, is that something that we could do at this point?
Ms. Gutierrez, this is Edward Martos, the city attorney. Hi. In reviewing your application, you did not submit, at least not on the sheets that I have, you did not specify the color for your... So obviously we have green and white or off-white for the awnings. For the color of the building, however, we do have that specified Benjamin Moore picnic basket and Benjamin Moore barely there. So when staff says that you're bound to colors, they're referring to the exterior finishes. Given that your application doesn't specify a color for the awnings, I think you have some flexibility there. The board is approving green and white or green and off-white.
And to clarify, that's flexibility with respect to the awnings. Your application very plainly states barely there, Benjamin Moore and picnic basket for the building.
The gates for the dumpster area, are they going to be solid gates? Right? So you don't see through? to the back or how are they going to be? They're not detailed.
There is a... I know that I have a prefab in a way that we were attaching to the plans. And I think it comes in white, but we can easily paint it. Normally, we would paint it the same color as the field color of the building. Oh, OK.
I'd like to say that I'm very happy for Deli Lane. As a regular there for over 20-something years, I was a little concerned about their business continuity with all the movement in the area. I'm very pleased that they're going to be there for a long time and will continue to be a frequent visitor. I don't love that the walls are being made smooth. I do not love it, but I move to approve it. I move to approve it as it's being presented. That's all I got. I've got a second.
Chairwoman, would you, oh, Chairwoman, I don't know that there's any, I can state for the record, there's no one sitting in chambers from the public, but we should open up, if only as a procedural matter, the public comment period. Can we see everyone on the, could you show everyone on the, could you stop the presentation, please, sir, and then show everyone who's online? There you go, okay. So we can see all participants, and I see no members of the public online either. So I think you can close public comment, Ms. Lange.
So next on the agenda, we have to approve the minutes. Do we have the minutes were from there were a while back, they were from 428 2025. Does, do you approve the minutes? Do we have a vote or yes?
Yes. So we have two, three. Okay. So the minutes have been approved from back from April 28, 2025. What? And then next on our agenda is when we will have our next upcoming meeting. Is there any other topics or anything else that anyone wanted to bring to the floor at this time?
no okay so chairwoman if i may at the last meeting there was a request for a copy of the rules and procedures that govern the historic preservation board i've emailed those all out in the event that anyone has questions they can contact me uh by email or phone at the contact info attached to my email yes just received them thank you for sending that out did you guys check your emails and see okay perfect
So I think we all did have questions regarding what were the benefits of the historic designation that we could share with other potentials. So then lastly, we know that our next meeting is supposed to be on August 25th at 6pm. That's what we have tentatively scheduled. If anybody has any submissions between now and then. And other than that, do we have anything else from the floor at the city?
This transcript was automatically generated from the official public meeting video and is presented unedited. It reflects remarks made on the public record by elected officials, staff, and public commenters. Transcript accuracy may vary; view the original recording for reference.