Today I have with me David Perlman and Tony Maris
from ownership as well as Russ and Oliver,
the project architect.
The property is an assemblage of a few parcels
on North 2nd Street,
the set between Brown and Poplar.
It's currently a portion is a vacant lot
and some vacant buildings.
I believe there's two existing curb cuts here.
um you'll note this this is a unique portion of second street uh the uh area here it's on north
second is a hundred foot wide so the width is pretty much double uh typical uh street um and
other portions of the streets probably 50 foot wide so as a result you have the unique condition
of perpendicular parking that you see lining the street um and because of that you have sort of
these unique conditions with the existing curb cuts.
Previously, about a year ago, this project was approved for a 78-unit mixed-use multifamily project, 70 feet in height, with a ground floor fresh food market.
Previously, about a year ago,
this project was approved for
We're here today to seek approval for underground parking. I believe 25 underground parking units, and the reason that we are here is because we have no rear street to access the parking,
So the only way to access the parking is through the front of 2nd Street.
And because this does not have a rear street, that generates a refusal.
There had been some confusion in the application about changing the Fresh Food Market designation.
I've spoken to Ms. Saleta. We have withdrawn that request.
So we are just here seeking approval for the underground parking.
And I'll speak to those refusals and variances that we're seeking.
As I said, the property is zoned CMX 2.5, and I'm just going to scroll through.
So here's the condition on the ground, as you can see, ground floor commercial space.
There was existing curb cuts that were basically relocating.
I believe that there was a fire hydrant here that's going to be relocated.
So you can see the condition of North 2nd Street, curb cut here, bus stop, and the breakups in the pavement, additional curb cuts.
There was previously a curb cut here, and I think a little bit further south.
There's an existing perpendicular loading zone here, which will not be disturbing.
So effectively what we have is, I believe there's previously about six on-street parking spaces in this area.
We're going to improve that to, I believe, 10 off-street parking spaces as a result, plus 25 underground spaces.
Just scroll through.
Here is the underground condition, 25 parking through a mechanical elevator.
and here's the condition on the street where we have uh sort of the uh stacked reservoir spaces
that are because we have such a large area here for the perpendicular parking we have the reservoir
spaces plus additional reservoir spaces in the interior this is just the layouts above
we had met with northern liberties about a year ago when we first came through the project
um even though we had no cdr and no refusals but we did um speak to them at that point i think
their desire was really that we seek a variance for the height and not obtain the fresh food and
affordable housing bonuses that we did but um but we came through with with designing the project
consistent with the cmx 2.5 zoning code and we returned basically with this change to show
um a uh parking uh accessed from the front um and i think it's an important um it's an important
distinction here to to note this it's about a hundred foot wide facade and you have um a large
amount of uh the lobby and glazing etc so i think that's um um that's an important um distinction
there um typically the prohibition against front-loaded parking is for much smaller
properties is really what's contemplating where you have those um you know breaking up the uh
the building facades and pedestrian experience you know uh typical um cmx2 2.5 you have lots
of small 16 to 20 foot wide this is 100 foot wide with a very considerable amount of glazing
um uh large retail tenant and lobby so we think the impact is de minimis and i think it's
outweighed by um adding 25 additional uh parking spaces below grade which as everyone know is
always is always a premium just here's our zoning site plan and i just want to um
scroll down a little bit and give everyone a sense of the um the condition on the ground here
um i think if i can switch to google earth
everyone can see this i think you can see the this is the existing condition
um here this is no parking here there's a hydrant we're going to relocate this hydrant
you have uh existing curb cut here where there's no parking and as you come up the street
another this is part of the property another existing curb cut so all of these this area
will be replaced and will be given back for on-street parking and just to give it the context
of the neighborhood directly across the street you have this condition it's actually a worse
you have this condition it's actually a worse condition because you don't have the amount of
condition because you don't have the amount of glazing in retail but you do have
glazing and retail but you do have um a front loaded um you know parking for a multi-family
building um additionally just as we scroll this space here is dedicated for on-street loading
so we we would suspect that that would be utilized as well for our retail go back to
let me speak to the refusals if I may
some more pictures
I look forward to handing everybody paper
burn pointing to a board in person someday. So the refusals are essentially for the
off-street parking. Access from the front is prohibited in the CMX2. The reservoir spaces
too are required, as well as the commercials required for the entire frontage. We do have
that and i believe they wrote a refusal because of the uh entrance that small portion that is
the entrance into the parking access from the front um originally we we had had a tenant prior
to the pandemic uh for the fresh food market that tenant uh lapsed so there was discussion about
seeking a different use but we um since everything is moving in in a we sort of see some visibility
out of this um we've uh withdrawn the request to remove the fresh food market which i think
cause some confusion. So I spoke to Ms. Saleta about that as well. So those are the only two
relevant refusals. And then we met with Northern Liberties and, you know, after the meeting there
was some discussion and the letter was that they were opposed to the addition of parking on this
project, which was kind of a surprise to us because we think that, you know, most projects
that we work on the desire for underground parking um is you know tantamount i think that is
typical what people desire um and you know they say the curb cut for parking removed the loading
zone for the fresh market and broke up the pedestrian experience however i don't know if
they're mistaken but the loading zone remains we're not changing that and we're actually um as
i said increasing um the amount of parking on street i think that the amount of glazing and
retail that we have um creates a fantastic pedestrian experience and improves the condition
that's there of numerous curb cuts um and we believe that this uh adding 25 parking spaces
plus the additional on-street parking is a huge benefit for a 78 unit building on this part of
North 2nd Street. I believe Rustin Ohler is here as well as David Perlman. So I'll ask David Perlman
to be promoted and I can ask him a few questions. Perlman, please spell your first and last name
and I'll swear you in. David Perlman, D-A-V-I-D, P-E-R-L-M-A-N.
do you swear or affirm to tell the truth the whole truth nothing but the truth
i do thank you mr grigos david have you heard my testimony uh and you adopt it as your own i do
um and i guess uh i'll just say that i believe this is the minimum relief necessary
uh this will not alter the essential character of the neighborhood i think
mixed use residential retail um and adding parking is certainly a benefit uh it will not
impair appropriate uses or development or adequate uh light of adjacent properties uh will not
substantially increase congestion and will not be detrimental to the neighborhood uh as an increase
in parking um off street and on street parking we think is certainly beneficial um so i will um
turn over to the board to ask any questions um and i believe russian always available if you
have any questions on the design thank you any questions from the board no mr chairman
Would anyone else like to testify in this case? If so, please raise your hand.
Mr. Chair, Mr. Larry Friedman has his hand raised.
Mr. Friedman, please identify yourself again, spell your name, you're still under oath.
Larry Friedman, L-A-R-R-Y-F-R-E-E-D-M-A-N, Northern Liberty Zoning Chair, 700 North 3rd Street.
Northern Liberty Zoning Chair, 700 North 3rd Street.
Please proceed.
I'm here to explain to everybody why we oppose the application for parking.
At our public meeting, we really wrestled with this one.
If somebody offers you 25 parking spots with underground parking, you know, typically you would jump at it.
But we dig, and we dig, and we dig, and we talk.
And there are other elements here that create a different story.
The main one is walkability and safety.
uh it's the most highly trapped trafficked uh street in the neighborhood especially between
poplar and all the way down to the l stop at spring garden uh at rush hour and throughout
the day hundreds of people walk up and down uh north 2nd street um the idea of cars coming in
and out, create a, hamper that walkability, especially with this elevator system, we just
know their cars are going to be waiting to come out and come in and probably be on the
sidewalk, which creates a safety hazard for people who are going to have to stop and maybe
want to walk out into second street to get around, which is really not a good idea.
You can see by the picture, the cars are coming down there at 50 miles an hour.
And so we had to make a tough call here.
The people who were at the meeting and the committee members, we wound up on the side of honoring the neighbors who were walking down to the L, trying to get to, you know, get to work.
And the safety aspect of this. In addition, when we continue to analyze this, we realized that in the past 10 years, things have changed drastically in terms of we might have come up on a different side of this a while back.
there's a lot of opportunities for people who want to live at this building that don't require
them to have a car or require them to have parking you got uber you got lyft people work from home
you got the l stop so this is basically a tod and you got enterprise uh rent a car on spring
barn street so you can actually exist in this building um and have a a wonderful life and not
have to have parking and not even have to have a car uh there's a second street's full of
restaurants and full of everything else that you need um let me talk about that that loading zone
real quick which is with a fresh market you're going to have daily um deliveries uh we would
like to see if possible the area where they're proposing parking as a loading zone so the
trucks can pull in there and won't help take up any more space on the street and create any more
of a safety hazard um and with for those reasons we we can't support this application uh for parking
um there are any questions uh not i'm going to turn this over to chris kennedy who is the
executive director of the northern liberties bid
mr kennedy yeah let's get him sworn in and then i'll because i have a couple of questions as well
great um hello i'm here please spell your full name uh yes my name is christine kennedy k-r-i-s-t-i-n-e
last name k-e-n-n-e-d-y if you swear or affirm to tell the truth the whole truth nothing but the
truth? I do. Thank you. Before you proceed, Mr. Grigos, you had some questions for Mr.
I just wanted to respond to say, I mean, the idea that that would be an off-street loading zone,
I think would be a much more dangerous condition to pedestrians of trucks backing in there. So I
don't see the logic in creating an off-street loading zone. I think it's inconsistent with
what they're saying. And frankly, I think that what we expect as a tenant and speaking to our
brokers and david can can uh agree to this testify this is what we spoke to but we think this is
going to be you know small vans and box trucks based on i mean this is not going to be a trader
a trader joe's or whole foods this is going to be um smaller van service and box trucks that we
joe's or whole foods this is going to be um smaller van service and box trucks
think can come back in and i think if you look at the come back into the space and if you look at um
if i can um find the uh the overview here um it's it's there's there's really a lot of space here
um from you know you have you have probably 20 foot wide plus additional where the street
line is and there's it's 100 foot wide so we think there's plenty of room for to utilize
the existing loading zones and i think with the queuing um and some some engineering that we can
do here um there's plenty of place for stacking and stacking the interior and the exterior so cars
don't stack um on the um on the side issue mr grigos on that issue with your cursor you have
you're showing the two vehicles entering the garage to the right you have a void between the
right the car on the right and the perpendicular parking the three cars you're showing for
perpendicular parking are they the loading zones for the food market well they're just they're just
on street parking currently i believe i believe this spot here is currently reserved as a loading
zone from the city um we expected that our our tenant would use that but it's possible that they
may seek to use one of these a loading zone as well um but there's there's not going to be a
situation where you would load parallel because of the condition of the street you would load
perpendicular i was getting to that i'm not not that because i think it's i don't want to say
we should suggest we should be moving on street parking but i was wondering if there was a way
in which we did you would eliminate one or two of those cars those meaning the two of the three
and create a lay-by or a queuing area for entrance into the garage.
I think that could be done.
You know, you'd have a better sight line looking north on second
as you're leaving the garage.
Just a thought. I'm looking at it.
I think that makes a lot of sense.
I believe Rustin Oliver is here,
but we could also talk to our civil engineer
and confirm that work with um streets department to do that and i'm not sure how northern liberties
would react to that and i'm just mr freeman brought up larry and and northern liberties and
i i appreciate that it was we appreciate where they're coming from and we recognize that it was
you know it is a tough call for them but but we we think that um you know the opportunity for
below grade parking um you know can be is is worth it and can be mitigated with some of the
things that you're talking about so um just the thought i had and my you know again that was
basically to address mr freeman's concern about you know sight line he may not have used that
terminology but stacking of cars waiting to get in the garage if we had a lay-by along the curb
parallel that could potentially be the lay-by waiting to get into the garage if i can rustin
always here rustin rustin can speak to that um if you want to promote yeah i'm again i'm not looking
to redesign this i'm just no but i think there's a solution to that we have great respect for
northern liberties david has built a lot of stuff in the neighborhood and we have you know it's there
and for a long time let's do this uh hercules if you could let's hear from miss uh kennedy first
and then we'll ask the board thank you miss kennedy thank you yeah uh sure um my name is
Christine Kennedy. I'm the executive director of the Northern Liberties Business Improvement
District in which this property lies. And in consultation with our executive committee
and the NLNA zoning committee, we've agreed to support their opposition to this parking plan.
Much like what Larry was saying, you know, for so many reasons, the addition of parking
to this district would in most cases be a great idea
that we would really support.
This particular location is a little bit problematic
for a lot of the reasons that Larry cited.
One is just that in general,
we've just completed a streetscape vision plan.