The Historic District Commission (HDC) of Rockfield met on Thursday, April 17, 2025, at 12:00 PM UTC. Chair Anita Neil Powell presided, joined by Commissioners Peter Falseman, Mercy Singhe, and Michael Goldfinger, along with preservation planner Sheila Pazeri and staff. The meeting was held in a hybrid format, with in-person and virtual participation. Topics included public comments on the Red Brick Courthouse, approval of a rear addition at 127 Bullard Circle, and extensive planning for the May Preservation Month event, as well as a discussion on future budget requests.
Good evening and welcome to the City of Rockfield Historic District Commission meeting number 03-25. Today is Thursday, April 17th, 2025. I am HCC Chair Anita Neil Powell. I am joined by my fellow commissioners Peter Falseman, Mercy Singhe, and Michael Goldfinger. We're also joined by city staff. Sheila Pazeri, preservation planner. The Historic District Commission are conducting hybrid meetings. Applicants, and the public may join the meeting virtually via WebEx or in person in the chambers. The virtual meetings can be viewed on Rockfield 11 Channel 11 on County Cable and live stream at WW.RockfieldMD.gov slash Rockfield 11. Each meeting is also available for viewing soon after the meeting is held at www.rockfieldmd.gov slash video on demand. The first item on the agenda is committee and organization report starting with Peerless Rockville. Is there anyone here from Peerless to give a report? I can see them on the screen. Okay. Thank you. The next organization report on the agenda is the Lincoln Park Historical Foundation. I am the president of the Lincoln Park Historical Foundation. The foundation will be hosting the annual Lincoln Park 134th anniversary, Saturday, June 21st, starting with the historical parade at 9 30 and ending with the celebration at 6 o'clock p.m. The event will be held at the Mount Calvary Baptist Church, 608 North Hornets Lane in Rockville. Please save the date of June 21st from 9 30 to 6. Next month we will provide you with more information. And this concludes my report. This time is set aside for members of the public who want to comment on any non-agenda item. Is there anyone here who would like to speak on non-agenda item? Okay. Please come forward and state your name and address for the record. Good evening. Good evening. It's great to be here for open mic night. My name is Craig Maloney. I'm an architect with CEM Design Architects here in Rockville. I'm here to talk about the Red Brick Courthouse. As you know, the courthouse is a locally designated historic resource. Also, Maryland Historic Trust holds an easement on the exterior and on the interior in the grand courtroom. The courthouse is almost 130 years old, and it's starting to show some wear. I do. Actually looking for the uh email you sent me today with the photos. Do you know about what time it was? No. I don't know it was this afternoon, but I'm not sure why. Okay. So next week we're going to start putting up scaffolding in three locations around the courthouse. We're going to take the chimneys down to probably the water table course, which you can see in the photos if we ever get those back up again. Or whatever the stablest brick we can find up there is. We're going to salvage whatever brick we can and then we're going to uh have new brick fabricated to match the existing. There's some unusual profiles in the brick that we have to match. We're going to put some temporary covers over the holes, the the chimneys. And we uh expect to uh restore the chimneys sometime in the near future with restored brick and uh matching mortar and uh cap it with a stainless steel cap. Um the the chimney work has been uh approved by the Maryland Historic Trust staff. Um they do want to review and approve the brick that we're proposing to use and the mortar.