But that has not been designated. And then to the left, I want to point this out. This is a walkway that connects Main Street with Venice Island. It actually goes over the canal and then connects with some apartment buildings and the Venice Performing Arts Center back on Venice Island.
And then to the left, I want to point that.
And I have aerial photographs, but I'm just trying to set the stage for you.
So the idea is to add two stories above this, I'm going to call it a billboard.
And that's where we have had issues with getting historical approval.
They wanted us to maintain this billboard, which we have, and that required us to set the building back a little bit.
But that's a separate issue that we will address with the Historical Commission.
Just another view. So this is the bridge. You know, it's a footbridge again leading over to Venice Island. And there's a door here, which you can see a handle that has access that we have to the side of the building for trash storage. And we also have a door in the rear of the building to store trash on the rear on the side of the building.
So this is an aerial view looking north.
Again, the building is here, the two-story building that's existing.
Actually, it's one story, but it falls off.
There's a gray drop from Main Street back to the footpath along the canal of seven feet.
So the back looks like it's two stories, but it's really one story with a lower level.
And then here's the other building that is legitimately one story.
uh just another close review showing you main street and the footbridge to venice island
this is the stairway that leads from the the path the schuylkill river trail path
up and then you walk up these steps and you would go to that
door here that i showed you in the first photograph to exit onto main street
This is just a closer view of that walkway with the access to the side door.
And right here, you can see some trash cans and closer view.
That's where the trash is stored outdoors.
Just another view looking the other way.
This is our zoning notices that have been posted properly.
And on the call with me is Joe Serritor.
Joe is the architect, and I think I'm going to have him explain some of the floor plan because it's kind of unique.
Joe wanted to have access, view access from both the front and the rear of the dwellings.
So what he did was he has switched back stairs where some of the bedrooms are on the canal side, but their living area and kitchens are on the main street side.
So you really get two good views, and Joe will walk through that with you.
We've made a number of changes since the first time that we presented this project with regard to bays, front and rear setbacks, and height.
And we're actually waiting on two refusals.
One has to do with height.
We expect that to come back.
We're about 42 feet average.
If you take the height of the four corners of the building, the height is at 42-2, and
we expect, number eight, a refusal having to do with the waterfront setback.
After we were here in July, the examiner, I guess, took a closer look at the application
and said, well, you don't have a survey explaining whether or not you're within 50 feet from
the top bank of the rear-facing canal.
And we said, well, no one's ever mentioned that.
So we had to hire engineers in the process of doing that.
But frankly, no matter what the results of that survey are, whether within 50 feet or outside 50 feet, the building's already there.
We can't move the building.
The addition is on top of the existing building.
And it'll result in a refusal, but every building along the canal there is the same depth off of Main Street.
So that's a little backdrop to that.
So these are the revised plans.
And, Mr. Chairman, can Joe Serratore come on board?
That will come back in as a panelist shortly.
Thank you very much.
so while joe's waiting to come on i can at least go through the site plan so this is the existing
building the addition will be two story above the front uh and then there's a little drop down
or above the second floor building again joe is trying to maintain the historical nature of the
front elevations, which both Manning Young groups were overjoyed with, were a little
groups were were overjoyed with uh we're a little bit below the height of the building next door by
bit below the height of the building.
about two to three feet and then to the right of the non-designated building there's an existing
one-story building uh so I think I would like to have Joe go through the floor playing after you
swear I'm in Mr Chairman hello hi Joe could you please state your name is Belford yes uh my name
is Joe Sarator, J-O-E-S-E-R-R-A-T-O-R-A. I'm the architect for this application. Sure. Do you
swear or affirm to tell the truth, told the truth, nothing but the truth? I do. Council? All right.
So, Joe, I'm just going to go over the existing plans, and when I get to propose, then you can
chime in. So, again, this is the designated building of the basement. Both buildings have
basements. It's a spa right now. It's been in business, as I said, for six years, and the left
side excuse me the right side is really just for storage so joe let's start with the elevation um
can you just in you know in a short fashion go through a little bit of the changes that
are happening here on the front of the building sure um we originally had of course the proposal
for um you know three stories going straight across and after some uh initial reviews with
historic conditional we had um took recommendations to uh uh have the uh and as same thing with john
hunter recommendations from the rco to emphasize it went to emphasize the uh the existing contributing
building where you see the brazilian wax sign as it was originally an old bank and they wanted to
sort of maintain the verticality look of that so in doing so we kept the two floor additions to
minimal heights of eight feet interior and have a setback 30 inches from the front parapet
board or that the signboard if you will uh and and the uh the other um end the right side there
which is uh non-contributing we've kept that since that is at a lower elevation for the first floor
we maintained that and stepped it down so it would allow the uh the addition above the uh
contributing to to maintain itself there with a separation you see the large that sort of that
dark line in the middle that's a recess there uh that maintains that as a separate building in
appearance and uh we we introduced two bays that are very typical to anyonk street uh the main
street which is a second floor bay only um and then uh with a brick front and then putting back
the storefronts on that are down there now we saw from the earlier photograph there was the bank
building had did an extension there with a rather bland brick front with a two punch square openings
so we're reintroducing the storefronts there on the right side uh and and maintain of course the
existing left side entryway into the salon uh the far right building if you will it has the two
entries uh one would be for the other one that mr clinton pointed out as the storage area which is
also a viable commercial space that they have rented out before.
And then the right side is the entry. The far door is the entry to the apartments
above. And again, that building is approximately
36 to 42
inches lower than the main building.
Joe, now I'm showing the rear elevations. Yes. So this is the rear
elevations that we worked with with the RCO.
They really want to really have an identifiable presence along that rear facades of these buildings fronting that rear walk.
And we're showing three bays at the top that are highly needed because we needed the square footage with this building being entered with a center hallway so that we had some extra square footage we needed.
So there's three bays proposed back there. And then there's also adjoining terraces that are in line with those bays to have some outdoor space for the units, for all the units that can look out over onto the Schuylkill River.
uh this is some uh the wall sections this is uh the the right side is the uh the section that is
um going through um the uh the right side uh there's the smaller part of the building and
then the left side is the uh over top of the bank building the original the salon building
the historical contributing building and yeah this was sort of this was a diagrammatic sketch
we did for the historic commission um all right josh so i think what we should do for the board
is maybe walk through the the floor plans and give them an idea of what you've done
so that you can have views on both if you're attending this building you have views in both
the front and back i thought it was pretty novel okay great thanks uh yeah so we were seeing these
okay great thanks uh yeah so we're seeing these are the floor plans um well let me get back
These are the floor plans.
yeah so you have the three plans here the first one the right the right side one is the um the
first floor uh plan that has the existing wax and spa salon there and it shows the uh
the addition of the uh entryway to the apartments on the far right
that would come through there so they they're maintaining the entryway in the front and there's
a stair that goes down to their basement on the far left there and then you can see that the
the back stair is still going down around the back down to the back area a three-foot section
that's before the Schuylkill River Trail itself the boardwalk back there and there's a entry door
there just proposed that is a second means of egress for the units on the second floor so if
we start at the far right and come in off of main street the far right door we're going to be coming
into the departments uh and then if you see on the first floor we're going to be coming up where
that where the cursor is there uh you'll be coming up and uh let's see this is the yes you see you
enter on in the center uh the center corridor there right there that's where you come up and
you're narrow on the second floor and this is a center corridor that goes back to the the rear
stair that i just mentioned that goes out to the back and from here is all the living and
living and kitchen units of the five units so right where the cursor is there you come in as
unit one um and that is of course living in and kitchen and has a terrace and uh from there uh
they go up to their second floor level and uh they cross over to the front so they basically comes
out right there right where the cursor is a little bit higher there yeah right there that's where you
come out and you're on now you're on the main street side so now you have a little both your
living room is looking out over the uh the river and the canal and the uh your bedrooms are now up
uh along main street uh likewise this happens with other with each unit all the way down except
for the center unit the center unit has a full floor uh which i can go over um so um yeah so
you come down and as you're coming down the hallway there you'll see there's another set of
stairs uh straight down yeah come into the hallway hang there um back in the way right there yes
those stairs now go up to the next level you know above the bank building the historical commission
you know historical designated building below uh it's a higher section uh those are you have
four foot ceilings in there so this is a little higher this building and then from here you have
the uh the other uh three units of the living and kitchens um each one has their own trash storage
um and they each have access uh in this case the three units in the back the living areas look out
to the uh the canal and river and the two in the front are looking out the living rooms are looking
on the main street and on the third floor we're hangers now these are all bedrooms so whatever
unit you had below you're on the opposite side uh from the switchback stair it crosses over
and this allowed the center hallway to work and also allowed the stairs to not as run as much
and take up a lot of space as if your unit your bedrooms were right above your own living space
which would have taken out a lot of room circulation space and joe each of these apartments
are uh two bedrooms and about what we had two bedrooms yeah the average is about uh you know
650 square feet the largest one is the uh the center one which is at uh 700 and uh i think
it was 767 square feet yeah 767 correct yeah right so you see that that's the only unit then
it's the fifth unit so it's uh it's the one in the middle on the third floor that goes front and back
um whereas the other ones have the and they all whereas on that one level whereas the other ones
just have the uh their bedrooms are either at the back or the front so it affords visibility no
matter where you are they're the two beans of egress and again they're eight foot high ceilings
um two bedroom units all right i think this is more of the same here um so you have streets
approval for the bays joe yes yes all right um the the rest of the documents are what you would see
in a presentation like this tax clearance or actually proof that no tax real estate taxes are
owed uh zoning map you know again showing uh the canal the venice island over here cmx2 zoning
district the deed indicating ownership as i indicated the outset from uh from 2023 and then
Then I have some historical, well, this is the zoning notice.
Then I have some historical documents indicating that this was a bank and a real estate.
Then I have some historical documents indicating that this was a bank and a real estate office, 1985, also maintained as a bank in 86.
And then there was a prior owner in there using the building as personal services.
And these are the backup documents in support of that summary that I just went over.
So that would be the conclusion of the presentation.
I could have my client come on and.
Why don't you have your client come on?
Claudia, can you unmute yourself, please?
Council, what is the client's name?
Claudia Rizzardi, R-Y-S-S-A-R-D-I.
or anelia a n a l i a williams both of them were on the call i think they were here by via phone
telephone right say quality rosardi in the virtual audience
coronary rosardi please raise your virtual hand wait if it's one in
claudia are you there never coming back in sir okay thank you mr hand understood
yes could you please state your name and spell it for the stenographer uh c-l-a-u-d-i-n-e-n-e-i-a
He started. R-I-S-S-A-R-D-I.
Right. Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, nothing but the truth?
Counsel.
Mr. Sardi, good afternoon to you.
Good afternoon.
Were you on the call when I presented your project for your spa on Main Street?
Yes, I do.
And if you had the opportunity to testify, would you adopt my testimony as your own and as true and correct?
For sure.
thank you very much claudia questions for the board yeah i just want to confirm because the
plans were hard to read the labels but all five apartments you enter on the new second floor
and they all have internal stairs to get to the bedrooms on the new third floor correct okay
all the questions
Yes. Yes. I'm sorry, Mr. Chairman. Okay. So are there any concerns here about floodplain
issues?
I mean, along the canal, I think Ms. Gatston is always concerns, but there were, it's
it's been an existing building we're going to the second and third floor and if you if i if i went
back to my photographs and showed you uh all the buildings that are constructed on venice island
um you know we're certainly above above their grade uh i can do that
so you know we're we're here here's venice island i know there was a lot of
discussion about having buildings on the island but you know there's hundreds of people living
living there so while there's always a concern I think it's less concerning with our building than
others that are already there well I think we were around when the initial uh issues about
venice island came absolutely yeah okay and then um you said that um the property the lower level
is um is that locally designated because of it being a bank in the past uh only only the the
main building 40 70 72 were designated the one story next door is not because this where it says
brazilian wax where the clapboard is that that was the front of the bank okay and then um you said
and then um you said that um all the units were two bedroom units did you say how many baths or
that um all the units were two bedroom units
did i miss that i don't think i said but i can go back i believe each has each has two bedrooms yeah
each has two bedrooms each has two bedrooms but i think the question was how many baths right yes