Historic & Landmarks Preservation Board Meeting - April 23, 2026
Historic & Landmarks Preservation Board Meeting - April 23, 2026
The Historic & Landmarks Preservation Board met on April 23, 2026 at 7:30 PM in the Common Council Chamber. The board approved the minutes from the previous meeting and considered one continued application for a Certificate of Appropriateness. A second agenda item was not taken up.
Consent Calendar
- The board unanimously approved the draft minutes for the meeting of March 26, 2026, as drafted. (Note: The published agenda listed minutes for December 4, 2025, but the transcript indicates the draft was for March 26, 2026. This discrepancy was not addressed during the meeting.)
Discussion Items
- Continued Application – 920 First Street (Assumption Church): The applicant, Church of the Assumption (represented by Father Esteban Sanchez and architect Joseph G. Thompson), returned with revised plans for a parking lot renovation, new signage, and lighting. The architect presented four new sketches addressing prior board requests. Key revisions included:
- Simplified corner signage: Removed the subtext “of Mary” and the word “Vivaldi”, leaving only “Church of the Assumption”. Letters will be pin-mounted on half-inch steel bars to maintain transparency and visibility for traffic safety.
- A dedicated electrical lighting plan with three fixture types: decorative ornamental fixtures (Type A), integral LED direct-burial fixtures (Type B), and landscape spotlights (Type C). A mix of color temperatures raised discussion: most fixtures are 2700K, but one Type C spotlight is 3000K. Board member noted the city standard is 3000K and requested consistency. The architect stated he would check availability and adjust if possible.
- Two directional spotlights (Type C) will uplight a proposed cross on the side wall of the church, replacing earlier plans for backlighting due to conduit visibility concerns. Two additional uplights will illuminate statues (marble, circa 1897) in the front garden.
- Brick paver samples were presented: the board preferred a chamfered-edge paver (similar to city’s sidewalk spec but with a 45° bevel) over the flat-edge version. The brick colors match the existing church.
- The board and staff expressed general comfort with the revised plans. A condition was raised that final plans must be amended to include make/model details for brick pavers and to strike through superseded details from the prior approved drawings.
Key Outcomes
- Motion to Approve Certificate of Appropriateness: The board moved to approve the application with the following conditions:
- Submission of a final, amended set of plans incorporating all changes discussed (including brick paver make/model, lighting specifications, and elimination of outdated references from previous drawings).
- Confirmation that all lighting can be set to a uniform 3000K (if feasible) or 2700K if 3000K is not available for Type B fixtures. The applicant agreed to provide a revised spec sheet.
- The motion passed unanimously (all in favor). The approval is conditioned on receipt of the final amended plans prior to issuance of the Certificate of Appropriateness.
- Note: The second agenda item (982 Main Street – Kathleen’s Tea Room signage) was not called or discussed during the meeting.
Meeting Transcript
The meeting of the historic and landmark and preservation board. First agenda item is to approve the draft minutes for March 26, 2026's meeting. Were there any questions or concerns about last month's meeting? No questions. Motion to approve as drafted. I move. Second. Second. All in favor? I so minutes are approved. We are going to now call for a continued application for the assumption church with Father Astafon. Good afternoon, everyone. Nice to see you again. I'm waiting for the architect. I I don't know if he got delayed because of traffic or something. So we'll give him a minute. Pardon? We'll give him a minute. If you don't mind, thank you. I appreciate that. If not, I will try my best. No, that's fine. Thank you. Of course. Okay. Good evening, everyone. Sorry I was late. I'm stuck at the light over there, but um good evening. Um okay, so since the uh last month when we were here, uh you guys asked for uh additional information, and so uh the four sketches that we would prepared, um which again um just grab my glasses. The uh four sketches that we prepared basically uh spoke to uh some of the additional information that you wanted to see on the signage. Uh specifically, uh we simplified the corner sign and got rid of the uh the previous sign had said Church of the Assumption of Mary. Uh we got rid of the Vivaldi text on the fourth row, so to speak, and just simplified it to Church of the Assumption. Um I added a bunch of dimensions to um this drawing um so that you guys could start to see kind of the fabrication and the layout and get a real sense of how big it all is. Um so that was um uh SK one as we've uh titled it. Could I could I ask a question uh regarding these signs? Is there a backing material behind the letters or are they suspended across um those one half one half inch bars? It's uh basically uh pinned off of those bars, and uh the reason for that is uh because they are corner signage one of the things we wanted to absolutely make sure of is that we weren't creating a monument sign that you couldn't see through it from a safety perspective. Uh not that uh I'm sure it's not a real huge concern, but we just didn't want anybody hiding behind the sign, or probably more importantly, people coming into that intersection. Um we wanted the ability for them to see cars pulling out of our parking lot, cars uh coming up union into the first to have uh first street uh intersection. And so um ultimately uh that was the strategy, I guess, behind um yeah, uh PSK2. Thank you. Thank you for your clarification. Um and um I'm trying to pull up the second sketch that we prepared um so that you can see I actually included a mount or a picture of the pin mount signage. Some can you help us? Um so the second picture in from the uh left hand side upper corner up there basically shows you uh how a uh uh standoff pin mount uh sign works. And uh again, the idea is uh to make it as transparent, the the whole composition uh to make it as transparent as possible um so that um you know, like I said, we can see through it and other aspects of it. Um this sketch question not to interrupt you, but just to so I understand was that a request for it to be see-through, where that was you uh a design strategy to avoid some of these pitfalls that you um there was no request for that. That was just something that we did ourselves. Um, in the 30 years I've been doing this, um it's uh a pretty solid strategy in terms of applying signage to either a building or in this case, like I said, a monument sign um where you minimize the bulk and um kind of um massing of the whole element. Okay.
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