Urban Development Review Board - Regular Meeting

I ask everyone to please rise for a Pledge of Allegiance. All right, I'd like to call this meeting to order. It's 2-0-4. If we could please do roll call.

Do we have any requests for absence waivers?

And we please make a motion for minutes for the March 18th meeting.

Sorry to cut you off, but do we have any public comments?

We'll get started on our left. Ignacio? Yes.

Thank you. I think the right word was elegant. I think the tower is very elegant, and it's great to see that that corner that's going to play such a critical role as an anchor is going to be this building, because actually the way that it, again, connects to the ground, the radiuses and the softness that it introduces in that corner, I think, is very unique in the way it was done. So I'm in support.

Yeah, I want to echo my colleagues. I think it's very elegant and sophisticated. I particularly like the treatment of the entrance at the bay and lowering that wall that is usually 10 feet high. I think it's a very elegant solution. I do want to understand a little bit about the core wall. In the 3Ds, it looks like it has a fluted design, but in plan, it looks fairly flat. How are you intending to build that? So it's precast, right?

It's just you're not showing that in plan, and that's exactly what we were expecting. Perfect. Okay, great.

Okay, so it will be precast, and then you have the horizontal lines on top, the marking, the slabbage. And what's a slabbage? Treatment. It looks like it's a bronze or has a different color.

Is it painted or is a metallic element attached to it? Okay, painted finish. Okay. That's it. I just wanted to clarify. Thank you and congratulations.

I don't agree with a lot of his comments, but maybe just me.

So I think your solution for the entrance and the way you treat that corner on the edge of the water is fantastic. I think it's inviting and it's a great corner, a pivot for that to tie the bay walk. One thing I did notice that I think would be helpful, that area is lacking a lot of shade trees. And while these palm trees that you're outlining in your landscape plan are beautiful. They do little for the pedestrian comfort. And I think if you consider using some shade trees along the way, I think it'll really tie everything together and make that, you know, just that more successful. So other t

I want to make sure that when we say approved as presented, like you keep the curved walls of the balcony, you keep the balconies with no railing, you keep the sludge edge condition. Everything that you're showing right now as conceptual, it's basically what we're approving.

Thank you. Can you touch a little bit on the materials that you're using on the edge of the building as the balconies twist and turn?

That's what I wanted to make sure, that it is tied together.

Great, thank you. We'll start on our right, Mr. Gallardo.

I agree. I think I want to congratulate the team. You guys did a fantastic job. It's a very challenging site, especially because you're working with a historic structure. And I think it's a very, very clever, sophisticated, and very respectful solution. I love the scale. that still from Brickell, the church is still very important, and the volume that you did behind it is restrained, and kind of plays a language that is still beautiful and very modern, and at the end you have a very beautiful, sophisticated, sculptural, you know, glass modern tower at the bay. It's very, very challenging, so c

I especially love the connectivity at the water level with how the podium is broken up. It's not a solid podium that goes down to the ground. It has different tiers with different levels of activity. And I think that really adds to the experience of not only the people walking by, but the people that are going to be living there or visiting the restaurants there. So, and again, I always wondered how you're going to treat this such a beautiful, because that is a beautiful building. One of the most beautiful we have in downtown. And the respect you showed for it and how you picked up on some of

Thank you, and I'm not gonna repeat what everyone has mentioned, but it's a very successful, and I think that the sculptural aspect of the tower along the edge on the water side is very successful. In particular, how difficult it is to transition from a historic building to a modern tower. I think the backdrop that you've proposed behind the church, pays homage to the historic details. One thing that I think I want to clarify is the detailing that you have along the windows and the backdrop of the church, is that precast? Because I think that makes a big difference between having those details

Well, hopefully it is, because it would just be. Okay, fantastic. Other than that, I don't have any other comments.

Since we have a motion. I can make a motion to approve with conditions. I guess the condition would be, in my opinion, the glass, looking at the glass behind the church, just so it could feel a little bit like a church. And the program element in the sculptural piece, if you could just rethink the interior program, like my colleague mentioned, I think it would be nicer if it's not a fitness equipment, perhaps a yoga can move there so you can use it as a more flexible space. Since you're gonna see it, it's nicer if it's flexible rather than gym equipment from the bay. Other than that, I think i

We do. We're just thinking of the game, but the Brits have already asked. No, no, wait.

Is there any way that we could postpone it? To be honest with you, if you really want an engagement for all of us, is there any way that we can move it to our next session? Would that be possible?

Yeah, we're just all going to be interested in watching the quarterfinals.

I had an experience yesterday just walking through Wynwood, getting to a lunch meeting, and there's no shade. But I was able to go through the scaffolding for an adjacent project that's under construction, and I found that everybody was crossing the street because it was more comfortable to go underneath the scaffolding than it was to walk on the sidewalk on the other side, even though there was shade on the other side. So there's some sense of, you know, just having some covered, whether it's, you know, shaded trees or a colonnade. And I know a lot of developers want to maximize the footprint

I'm going to propose something and see if everyone's amenable to this. Will you share the presentation with us? And then if everyone on the board is comfortable, maybe we can set a time aside from today to really discuss and be able to have, you know, give you some feedback and have the back and forth discussion.

I think the domains of impact that you've mentioned are all the things that we focus on which are under our purview and it's on the pedestrian scale and how it impacts the fabric of the neighborhood. Scale, materials, sidewalks, that experience of of the pedestrian being able to see something interesting, not just a flat facade with punch windows. I don't know if you want to finish maybe your presentation so that we hear it and then maybe... We can.

I have a couple comments. I would say that when you're dealing with multiple codes, it's always helpful to understand the comparison, because if you're developing there, you have to still look at Miami 21 and your guideline, right? It's always helpful to understand, are they anything where they differentiate, or is there areas where they have a common interest or incentives? And developers are driven by incentives everywhere, so you have to figure out What do they gain by doing shaded tree or whatever you want them to do? And how can you clearly show that in your document? For example, in Coco

And I think, too, I was going to say this also to touch on what Robert said. Being that it was an industrial manufacturing company, Warehouse area, the sidewalks are just too small.

So unless there's a way to either bonuses to promote wider sidewalks or looking at narrowing streets, making some streets one way as a way of being able to capture more sidewalk to make it more pedestrian friendly. Because that's really the one thing Wynwood isn't. It is not pedestrian friendly. You know, when you walk from brewery to brewery, well, not anymore because every day there's fewer and fewer breweries to walk to, which is one of the things that is a shame there. But it's that even if you wanted to put shade trees, you don't have room to put them. There's just no sidewalk. There's no

I think dedicated bike lanes also to just have that additional layer of, you know, just traffic. And maybe that's, you know, promoted by having, you know, some dedicated one-way streets. You mentioned something else that I thought escaped. It'll come to me.

The artwork that goes in the buildings is something that also, I don't know how it's controlled. When it comes here, it's a beautiful in-design presentation image that we have no idea what's going to end up in the building. There should be some way of a board that reviews it or some set of experts that really, if you really want to build something very thoughtful, there should be some discussion about what ends up happening there because we can't really control it and neither can you, actually.

I also think, you know, in terms of programming, curated art programs where they can rotate, I mean, I think that's something that Design District does very successfully. Yes. You know, and it's a good model because on the street level, every facade is so different. There's a lot of differentiation. There's nothing that's completely straight. You have shades. You have programming. You have art. So I think it's a good example of, you know, something that's been, which is new, and they were able to deliver successfully for the pedestrian, you know, and that landscape. Right.