This is the Syracuse Landmark Preservation Board meeting of April 2nd, 2026.

Excuse me, the third?

Roll call present at today's meeting are Our Trish, Robert.

Nicole Fragnito.

Jeff Romano.

Hillary Donna.

Right.

And Kate Awitter.

Thank you, Kate.

May I have a motion to accept the minutes of February 19th, 2026 meeting?

Do I have a second?

A second.

Any modifications to the minutes?

I have a few.

Proposed is spelled wrong.

And then for public hearing for 726 West Sanadaga.

Installation of wood jams.

It was the existing wood jams.

Sorry.

Okay.

Without the board hearing them all.

And it's just a little bit of text.

Yeah, it's just text changes.

Yeah.

A little bit.

From proposed wood to existing and um some misspellings.

Yeah, a couple of times.

So minor typos.

Yes.

All those in favor of these minutes as submitted as revised.

Aye.

Opposed.

Motion carries.

Minutes are adopted.

Public hearings on today's agenda.

There are no public hearings on today's agenda.

All right.

So I can launch right in.

Right.

Yeah.

Um, so under old business, um, we have a minor site plan review for 713 uh-15 East Genesee Street.

Um facade alterations, the that project is still on hold.

Um while the um owners are collecting the information that the board requested.

Um specific to windows as well as um the treatment of uh well, yeah, it's a lot to do with the uh the windows and then also the um IFIS, how they're um gonna be addressing that uh around the corner.

So um but under new business we have a major site plan review.

It's it's um uh uh SPR 26 26-11 for 411 University Avenue, new construction.

Um and there this is before the board because of its proximity to National Register Listed Property, which is Grace's Episcopal Church across the street.

Um it's grace as well as um the gardens, uh the Welsh Garden.

So with that, I will invite you up to the good morning, maybe.

Good morning, good Friday.

My name is Brian Bouchard with CHA 300 uh South State Street Syracuse.

Um as mentioned, we submitted this project to the city zoning office for site plan review and approval by the planning commission.

Um our meetings Monday night, so this is good timing to um present to you the Syracuse Landmark Preservation Board, the project plans.

Um by way of quick overview to introduce the project to you.

Um this includes two existing parcels.

It's 411 University and 413 University Av.

Um for setting, you can see that the intersection of Madison Street is to the south, which is the bottom of the page, Genesee Street is just to the north.

Um the Grace Church that we're referencing is on the corner of um Madison and University across the street.

Um refreshing the board.

Um and what's missing here is my huge tag that I put that said previously approved project at the top.

Just to give you some context.

In July 2024, the current owner went through site plan approvals, and this project that you see here was granted those approvals by the city planning commission for a new residential apartment building.

So this previously approved project was a nine-story mixed-use building meeting all the requirements of the MX4 zoning district.

It's obviously a larger footprint that took up the entire site.

It included some subsurface parking below the building and had a total of 47 dwelling units with some office and amenity and retail space on the ground floor.

What we can look at in the bottom is some of the you know superimposed nine-story building right in the center frame there, but you can see around it.

Um 901.

I wrote 910 Madison, but 910 Madison is the temple that we worked on.

901 Madison is the ambassador apartments, so that's an existing four-story building right there.

Yep.

Um 1100 Genesee Street is to the left, which is at the corner of University in Genesee.

That's the Ronald McDonald House.

That's also an existing four-story building.

And then 406 university is the C-shaped building, um, which is new construction just prior to rezone Syracuse.

I actually worked on that project.

That's U-Point Syracuse.

That's an existing six-story building.

And then off to the right hand side of the page, you can see the Grace Church there.

So obviously, following these approvals, it was circa 2024.

Um, owner started to proceed after approvals through permitting and financing.

A lot of all the things that you've heard come up shortly after 2024.

Um, tariffs, cost of construction, cost of building materials, importing building materials, and then more recently, interest rates and financing.

Um, you know, pricing just wasn't right for this scale of project on the site.

Um, so he chose to reinvent the project with the basically a smaller scale, essentially, and I'll go through that with some of the next slides if you could here, Kate.

Oh, so these are the street perspectives that were shown to the planning commission.

So to give you some idea of those, you have the um Ronald McDonald House in the bottom right, and then you sort of have the Madison Street intersection to the top right, and then the ambassador apartment showing the nine stories.

So just for context, you can skip to the site plan now.

Um so this new project is obviously a smaller footprint.

It's still very much in line with the expectations of rezone Syracuse and the existing zoning of MX4.

Obviously, to still provide new high-quality multifamily housing, um, it will include the required affordability component at 10% and does meet all the bulk regulations for the district as well.

There still will be, you can see facing university AV.

There's um the front facing side of the building has the residential lobby entrance, and it does have a small attached retailer commercial space.

Tenants not known, but that captures the mixed-use um idea of the MX4 district.

Um it doesn't take up the whole site, so we do have some a driveway with some surface parking.

Um, so it's a smaller footprint and smaller height as well.

Um, and that's really the bulk of the site plan there.

If we can go to some of the floor plans, you can just see that it's a very typical stacked building.

The first floor is front loaded with sort of the storefront entries for the commercial and lobby space, and the back of the building is residential units and amenities on the first floor, and then typical floor plan on the bottom for floor two and three.

Elevation.

So you can see um, you know, nine stories down to three, I guess, is what we're trying to capture here with the reduced scale.

Um, we also there's an advantage here too, right?

In terms of smaller building being able to afford some elevated building materials and what you see compared to that original building.

So we did have a material change from what was vinyl siding, which currently isn't allowed in the MX4 district for certain size buildings.

So we've changed to an engineered um wood siding, um LP smart side in uh in a cedar shake pattern.

Um, and then board and batten framing the ground floor um around it.

There is some depth and relief along the side of the building to kind of break up that um facade and then some vertical elements that match those bump outs you can see with the um center stairwell in the middle of the building there as well.

So, really, this is a height comparison um between the nine-story and the the now three-story building, and we were asked to provide.

I think on the next slide here, really a comparison of those existing buildings, right?

So you have the Ronald McDonald house off to the um left-hand side of the page.

There's a little gap for their parking lot.

Our building, which is slightly shorter than the four-story building of the ambassador apartments.

That is a four-story, but I think it's the first floor might be slightly submerged from that as well.

Yeah, like a raised basement idea.

Um, so that's sort of the perspective of the building heights in the area.

And then I think we had one more that mimics what you saw from the perspective view of the nine story to show you contextually how we fit into the ambassador apartments that you see there with the Grace Church and the foreground six-story U-point, four-story Ronald McDonald house um back there.

So again, CPC meeting Monday, hoping for approvals.

He's already got some preliminary budgets in place and feels that this is more appropriate.

I don't want to say more appropriate scale because obviously a nine-story building is allowed, but this is more of financially the scale that fits on the building and what banks are willing to pay for it.

Um and still offers him, you know, obviously the ability to redevelop that parcel with a a new modern housing stock that can service the East Genesee Street neighborhood in Syracuse University as well.

So I'll pause there for comments and questions.

So you were allowed to build to the front property line instead of an average setback line or correct, yep.

It feels forward of the other properties on that stretch.

Yeah, it is a zero um zero setback, zero setback in all of the Madison Street or um university, I have the MX4 district, yeah.

Speaking to scale, uh I think those were our primary concerns last year, and we requested that there was a um a shade study done, which you guys did, and thank you for that.

Um this fits contextually better with the historic um development of the neighborhood.

You know, uh what's coming out are two two-story residences from the 1870s, and we're going in with a three-story uh building that kind of has the lines of the former Charlie Nate style homes that were there.

Um design.

Um the first building had a stone facade, something a little more durable looking.

Was that considered here for at least for uh facade on the first floor here around the storefronts?

No.

Uh I would say that the two the two things that were most costly were obviously the type of construction for a nine-story building that's a lot different with a three-story, and building materials.

Um, so we did spend a lot of time on facade materials.

We did start, I would say, with the vinyl siding, but apparently that isn't a permissible material for this size building.

You can use them on smaller reconstructed houses that this owner has done, sort of with the um you know the white houses that go along um walnut.

Um that's kind of the the second part of my question is does it have to be white?

Is that the the act the drawing is showing what your proposed color of the building?

Yeah, and then um with the central hall.

Um just looking at the facade.

Is there a way we could break that cornice line?

I know it's uh kind of late in the game, like if you're it's almost like you take you to you've taken both houses and kind of pushed together.

Bless you.

Um the black element that separates the two buildings.

As I'm looking at it, I don't know if you could do a skylight down the center for hallway lighting, but something that just broke that uh that line of the third floor corners.

And again, that's just me looking at the corners specifically.

Right.

If we uh you have that vertical element in the center of the building that separates the halves.

Um I was just looking at a can we split that cornice uh with that vertical element and further separates the building and since we are right on the on the property line.

Yeah, I it's to me that's logical, obviously, with a flat roof, there's a certain need for a curb or a parapet, but that shouldn't prohibit breaking up the actual extension of the cornice off the front face to carry that up, yeah.

And if that just carried vertically.

And again, that's just also trying to break it up, and that's just my opinion.

Go ahead.

Uh on this side you have recessed entrance.

Uh that's an entrance uh under the tenant side.

They're both recessed.

I don't know if it's just a perspective that is misleading.

It looks pretty straight.

It has to be because those doors are outward swings, and because we're near the property line, you can't swing out into the right-of-way.

They will both be recessed, like you're seeing more presented in the um lobby side.

Yep.

Well, the floor plan shows it too that they're in swing and they're not recessed on this uh C 101 on the side.

Yeah, that's a just that's a site engineer like myself, just simply representing the door.

I think the floor plan should have been corrected for that, though.

The floor plan shows it in swing as well.

Okay.

That's all right.

It's out of our wheelhouse, but um your rendering there showed um a different parking layout.

Is this uh the aerial one showed uh parallel perpendicular parking right there?

But so that's not that's not the case.

You know, I don't know where this image is generated from.

It may not be anywhere near here.

It's okay.

The parallel parking that's shown in this image and on the site plan is the space that we're allotted.

Yeah, okay.

Yeah, I'm just making sure.

Okay.

I just saw that discrepancy.

Yeah, we did get a the two comments we were addressed were the building material can't be vinyl, so we did change to LP Smart side, and there was some transportation comments related to the connective corridor and making sure that we show uh bike parking that's not required.

So we did add a bike rack to the grass area that I think Kate got a copy of too.

Nicole or Bob, anything else?

I think it's a best improvement over the previous design.

I don't know if we're fitting the neighborhood.

I like the cedar shake look.

Um I'm glad we're not gonna have another nine-story AI looking building that looks like the same ones all over the neighborhood.

So yay.

Will you have any plantings in front of the building?

Trees or shrubs or anything.

So there is um obviously there's a lot going on in the right-of-way with the connective corridor.

Um I believe that we will have street trees.

There's a very narrow grass strip between the sidewalk and the curb that separates the bike lane.

Um that you know, we'll work with um the city arborist to come up with a plan for whether it's one or two trees along there, assuming that there's no underground utility conflicts with some of the electrical duct banks that are under there.

How many units in total?

30 units now.

Yeah, thank you.

So just looking for a comment, correct?

Yeah, we're looking for comments.

So what I've what I have heard is um just recommendations or suggestions about breaking the taking the vertical element up and breaking that uh at the cornice line to more accentuate the the two building look rather than the um just the more monolithic across the top.

Um there's a question about color on whether or not white is necessary.

I don't know if if he uh the developer feels that this is part of his branding um to do the white and black, given the number of white and black buildings he's done.

Um but that can be another comment.

Yes.

Thank you.

Um then I I know um Jeff, you had mentioned uh uh materials on the ground floor.

I don't know if the rest of the board what the rest of the board feels about that one way or the other you said was uh board and batten on the so it is a different, it's a different texture, different texture, different feel.

Okay, same material as the shape.

Same material, yeah.

But it's a different but a different style and orientation.

Yeah, yeah.

Okay.

Is that basically what I've heard?

Over the okay, yeah.

So do we want to recommend a different material or is the material okay for that ground floor?

I'd agree with looking into a different option of material.

I think this stone would definitely be more durable considering the the traffic pedestrian and otherwise on the street.

That especially being a white board and batten, it's going to look dirty really quickly.

So just so I can have some specificity.

Um, because hopefully I'd like to leave with positive comments that we can go to the planning commission with.

The board and batten starts and kind of like uh I don't know what the technical name would be, but it wraps the front or stops at the sides, so it would be a change to some type of more durable material, like a stone that would replace what you're seeing for the board and patent, the rest of it.

Or maybe it's like a pretty small white, and maybe we can address both with sort of I I mean I wonder if a different color would is it actually material is what you're looking for, or is it just a distinction?

Is it actually material is what you're looking for?

Is it just a distinction?

I was looking more at durability of material choice for that front facade and it would only replace where the board and batten is, or maybe it's just uh a wainscoat that's four or five feet high.

I thought in the previous project, the addition of that stone to kind of blend in with the neighborhood felt really like a a really great connection to context.

And I'm not feeling that here.

I'm not seeing that here.

And so that's where my comment derives from and it's durability and then contextually um because I I believe the stone previously was as an homage to Grace Church, the the tonality.

I don't know if it's in here or not.

No, that uh it's a terrible character.

But yeah, you're almost seeing the same thing at the the Ronald McDonald House, if I'm remembering.

I can't really tell, but I believe it's more of like a siding material on the upper three floors and the first floor, I think is something that's more like a stone.

So a stone veneer.

Um that just gives some tonality quality that picks up on the area uh church across the street.

Right, right, right.

Okay.

And I great idea.

Either way, if it's full height or if it's just you know like a four or five foot high, and then you have board and batten above that.

Sure.

Um but I'm just looking at durability, and as Nicole said, you know, the damage and maintenance issue of keeping that white and clean all the time.

I think that's fine.

Yeah.

But I other than that, I I think it's a very positive uh comment overall.

Um a positive comment, so it's it's just uh tweaking a little bit of the design.

Yeah.

For context.

Yes.

Okay.

That's good.

So we have the breaking up of the corners, which I think is feasible, and then definitely the the stone.

I can bring that forward and hopefully maybe at least change the elevations.

I'm not sure that they'll get to the renderings by Monday night, but uh or it'll be a condition of the just and we can share that with you either before or after the meeting, and then you can get back with zoning to make sure that it matches their intent.

And these are just they are recommendations.

That's fine.

I think I agree with all of them.

So I'll carry them forward to the to the owner and tell them that we gotta, you know, let's get it done before Monday night, and if we can't, it'll be something that we can share with you next week that you can move on to the board.

So that sounds great.

Wonderful.

Thank you.

Thank you very much.

Okay.

Um so that ends our new business.

Um and now we're going over into discussion.

First of all, I have to get out of here.

Yes, stone veneer on the ground floor.

And um this is the board.

All right, so I believe uh actually um AJ scorbo from the scroll?

From um is supposed to arrive, and he may fly in and um but this is the opportunity for the board to provide formal to provide formal comment on the um proposed um the this first phase of the uh amphitheater improvements in Thorndon Park.

It is a contributing feature of the of the park, which is both on the national register as well as the local protected site.

Um the board's role um because it is a city-owned property, um the city is not actually uh the the parks department doesn't have to provide a certificate of appropriateness, but is it is a you know through the the ordinance um the department comes and uh provides the opportunity for board to comment on proposed changes.

Um so I'm gonna try to um channel AJ now and say that um I think the majority, I think uh Bob, I think you're the only one who wasn't able to do that.

I was gonna ask if everyone gets a chance.

Yeah, I think everyone got a chance to see except for for for Bob.

Um what about Bob?

Uh yeah, um so it is just so it's there are a couple um uh uh major pieces of this of this first phase, and that is to provide um uh some accessibility, wheelchair accessibility, improve the wheelchair uh accessibility, um as well as provide drainage.

Um uh improve the drainage.

And uh so I'll just get up and as I say I'm going to anti-AJ.

Uh so it starts here with uh the introduction.

So this is the uh filled house.

Um spaces uh quite a few and then the task is the hearing department as well.

So area with the V don't this is part of the right.

As it is currently, this is a whole brick area with the two three, four, rather four, um here's as what they're talking about.

They would be moving the brick here, creating a concrete landing.

And then at the moment it's one.

Um as strong the at the top of the um although the this the stone dust does go all the way all the way to the leaves that are.

And then finally they're just they're talking about the new drainage.

So it doesn't.

It wants to call it.

Because it was a conmarize what I heard from the our site business.

Um that uh there actually would you like to sum up.

I wasn't there, unless other You were not you were not there, you would see you have seen.

I was out there on my own.

You were out there on your own.

Um aside from the two groups that went out that Kate set up, but um maybe board members can speak to what they saw and what their thoughts are instead of Kate having to do all the work.

Yeah, but do you want to pull up maybe the aerial?

Just go to like Google Maps and just pull up the aerial so we see the whole context of the park.

Maybe test.

That's about the rose.

That's the rose garden.

That's that's a separate separate item that uh they're not connected in any way.

Other than they're both authority part.

They're both in thrown apart being done by the Syracuse um parks department.

That's not what we're talking about.

Correct.

Oh no, I think that's been innovative.

Things about this one.

Uh I dressing for one point every day.

We don't have a what we don't have.

We don't have a keyboard yet, so I'm not sure.

Yeah, you're in big up the tab popped up.

You're in bing.

Top right.

Oh, top is Bing even exists.

What do I need to do?

Top right.

Okay.

Like when you two put their album on everybody's iPhone.

No.

I know this is big, right?

Yeah.

How about this with the Google?

Yeah.

Let's just forget this.

Can't you just picture it, Jeff?

I can, but I just wanted as reference, I'm sorry.

Yeah, yeah.

To make this struggle.

And this is all on the other thing.

You just just drag yourself over drag uh drag over and zoom in.

There we are.

Alright.

Where is that?

Still in Big.

Maybe that top right or on the right side over here.

On the right column above the traffic light looking thing?

Yeah, we're still in Big, but it's okay.

It might work.

There you go.

Satellite.

There we go.

Okay, thank you.

We're preservationists, folks.

There it is.

I don't know.

It's not this is not a little bit more.

It's not very clear, but it's good enough.

Yeah, we know what the order part is.

We could speak we could speak to that.

That's fine.

So many trees in the terrible.

Okay, yeah, the amphitheater is actually here.

So they're showing the walk.

Showing the walk, actually.

Yeah.

Okay.

Are you starting or do you want me to start?

Um so when I went on the site visit, I was with Julia.

Um right away we're kind of looking at it, like the idea of tearing out that whole brick walkway and messing with those stone columns.

Um we were kind of like, and so Julia was thinking um if we modified this the walkway down from the parking area, we could potentially bring it in through a section, you know, maybe one or two trees come out and the walkway um comes in through a section of fence instead of entering the brick walk area.

Um just a feeling of if they tear out those bricks, who knows what they're gonna find.

The foundations of the columns probably aren't in great shape.

Um the expense of messing with the grade there, messing with the brick and pouring concrete, which you know probably won't hold up as long as the brick has held up.

Um it's just a historic feature that we really don't want to lose.

So it seemed like a good solution that would save time and money aggravation for the project also.

I feel like I can't in good conscience sanction any removal of any brick in Thornton Park from walkways or from the amphitheater.

So the idea would be too.

Right.

And she was there's enough space here to be able to do uh opportunity basically losing a portion of the um historic fence.

The fence.

That's much yeah, that's a lot more.

Right.

So we're what's more valuable at this point, right?

And there are other openings in the fence line.

So this would just be a a new addition to bring in um ADA compliant without disturbing the main entrance.

Yeah, they're open it up.

I think uh gate to get to the bathroom thing as well, right?

That's right.

That's right, behind so that is in a different uh phase will be a new um well a public uh publicly available uh accessible bathrooms in basically in the basement of the of the field house.

One of the things I heard was about the grading, how it's steep and stuff.

Will they be would they be able to get down to a grade coming in at a different location?

And that's what Hillary is alluding to.

That's and Julia was talking about, I mean it's kind of a wide open field, that triangular portion between the field house and the main entrance.

Um so there's enough area to wind the path a bit.

So it's your opening is further back in the front.

It would be near the main entrance.

So we're coming down, and then she wants to turn here to avoid the historic pattern here.

Right, right.

Come in, cut a hole in the fence, and then pop out into a walk are you still with good with the concrete walkway?

Yeah, yeah.

And it wouldn't be as straight and direct as doing it 90 degree popping that way.

It would be we'd they'd have to modify the path to make sure the grades could meet up.

Right?

So you just you need to have uh under five percent slope.

Right.

So here's designed at 4%, they can increase it to four and a half, and you might be able to hit your your base point without changing the route possibly.

And that's why that's why they wanted to take up their brick leaves.

But given that thought and getting closer, could we get even closer to where the platforms are?

The entrance.

You mean take it even platforms that they're installing?

I think there's two, right?

Yes.

I know there's one halfway.

I can't remember where the other one was.

Right here and right here.

So the two viewing platforms.

Yeah.

And those were those were chosen because of site lines.

Yeah.

So then you've got to get the compliant lock all the way to the closer you can get to that.

Yeah, so that's what it's over, right?

So how you're you're saying if we could get the lock out of this area and down here to close closer.

If if we're not gonna use the entrance, because they were going there for the entrance, right?

I think it's too I think it'll be too much.

I think those are I think that part's fine, but I don't know.

Since you thought about not using the entrance.

And I don't I can't visualize the slope.

Yeah, well, the trees lines here represent one foot each going down.

Oh okay.

From the existing walk is 592, this is 599.

That's a seven foot drop, eight foot drop from here.

So if you're trying to hit a 4% slope, right.

I'm not quick with math on my head, but that's a leg we can go on.

Maybe zigzag and come down or come down from the back.

But I mean, this way like brings it past the main entrance, which is beautiful, you know.

So getting to experience that's valid too.

That's available.

Yeah, yeah.

ADA should actually get as close to the front as possible.

Yeah.

Everything closer to wherever platforms were whatever the grade is.

That you're opening a new spot.

You know, does it matter it has to be next to it or it would be close.

Just throwing that out there.

Bob, what what are your uh you haven't you didn't get out there?

What are your still decide uh um like I said, I don't I I have no strong feelings about this whatsoever, other than I do not and cannot abide the destruction of any historic brick structures in Thornton Park.

I don't I mean, unless they're absolutely falling apart, which I don't believe they are.

I attend Shakespeare in the park regularly, I go to Thornton Park pretty daily daily.

Well then can they reface them or I mean uh so your comment I'm not an architect.

Your comment is just based on the loss of historic material.

Yeah, absolutely.

Right, okay.

Um I would um I just also mentioned I know that we all uh I mean that uh both groups discussed the that the path ends right there.

Yes, uh which is uh really not a good idea.

That that the path if they're gonna replace it that should go all the way around.

Um and then the other issue, of course, is is coming up uh well there will be some tree loss as well as um there are some I mean the the trees uh a number of those trees are aging out um and coming up with uh working with the Department of Forestry to come up with with a good replanting plan that won't uh just completely alter the visual impact because that it's a wonderful enclosure at the moment with the trees.

And um that even with the new path, if if they don't actually have to take out so many trees, I think a lot of them will probably be their roots will be impacted and they'll start to decline even faster.

So coming up with uh a new tree planting program and substantial trees too to be able to replace Nicole?

Um one of the things that Kyle Howard and I talked about at the site visit was possibly looking into some different stain color options for the concrete so that it's not bright white um something a little bit earthier to blend in better.

Yeah, yeah.

And he said he could do that, right?

Um my perspective, I I went out there for um impact on trees was was was my charge.

Um so any time where we are removing historic material, loss of historic material, uh, and adjacent to a large amount of trees, um, we start to see excessive root damage.

And so currently with the P gravel, there's um stone or excuse me, concrete curbing that holds the P gravel in.

And in this project, all that is shown to be removed.

And we all know how tree roots grow, they kind of follow curb lines, that's something that's hard, there's a lot of water there for them.

And so with that removal and all that damage and that turnover, we're gonna see a lot of excessive root damage.

So part of putting my preservation hat on, I said, Well, could we look at an asphalt material instead of concrete?

Um asphalt being black, um black is used in fences and landscapes and green because for the pavement instead in lieu of concrete.

Well, that was for the guys that were with me, they're the uh architect or landscaper or whoever was doing it was against that, unless you want to do it every five or six years because of the roots going through and you get lumpy and and so forth.

That's why they wanted to do concrete, right?

Well, but if there's a but you're saying that use the curbing to relocate the well, uh again, I'm looking at how do we preserve historic material?

How do we protect the vegetation that's there?

And so you know, if we leave that material in place, because if you need to do concrete, you're gonna rip everything out, and then the concrete is X feet wide.

I think it's six and a half feet wide here.

Six and a half feet.

So then you've got to over-excavate on each side so your form work can go in.

Right, and then you've got to build your forms, and then you gotta dig out everything because you need an eight-inch base, and then you got a four-inch pour of concrete.

So you've got a 12-inch excavation.

A lot of damage.

And right, yeah.

Right.

So with asphalt, if it's a light duty, um, you've got maybe a six-inch base and a three-inch profile.

So you're limiting your your vertical depth.

Um, and then the being asphalt, it is flexible.

I'd rather walk over a little bit of bumpy asphalt than heaved concrete, which will heave all as a unit, and then that becomes a big tripping hazard, and then you gotta rip it out anyway.

Like my city sidewalks, like any side.

I have one on my property and I had to so um that's where that's where my hat went.

Um looking at maybe, you know, and Nicole brought up staining the concrete.

Well, that's why you know using asphalt, you can make it you know, it's black and it blends in better with the with the surroundings, it wouldn't be so it's a stark contrast.

Um one of my larger issues was the the loss of all the brick up to Thornham Park Drive.

Um just thinking about loading in, loading out if there's a concert, how do how do people load in here?

So if we're gonna take out your primary access road, then you've just created a muddy mess, and um again, historically speaking, it was always connected.

Um keeping that connection to this to the park drive, uh, I think is is pertinent.

Um and maybe a reduction in size of it, but we need to have a we need to have that ped connection, right?

Um I ask you quickly about the asphalt um is is there so at the moment it's pea gravel, which has a particular texture.

Does asphalt come with a I mean you see the very slick asphalt, but there's some that have more sort of granular feel to them.

Um yeah, it's all about your stone size, and so uh a finished asphalt is like a type 7, it's a very fine stone.

You could do a type 4 or type 5, which would be a larger stone size, and so it would have more appearance, it'd be less smooth of appearance.

Um it's more like a binder course, excuse me, where you you put down asphalt, you put down in three layers, base binder top, and the base is very heavy, angular stone that's mixed in with asphalt, it's like uh one inch, one and a quarter inch stone, and then your binder is more three-eighths to three quarters, so the stone size is getting smaller, and then the smaller stones, you know, is one through eight at least, and so eight is smaller than one, and so if you did like a two or a three, it's still a larger size, which uh kind of emulates.

Yeah, that's that's what I was wondering if it's possible to do.

Right, and visually it has a different read than a type 7, right?

Is that the you know, like the roads that have pebbles on, I mean, you know, you drive sometime, they have to come back and put oil and stuff when they put down more is that what you're kind of talking about?

Right, right.

And it's but it's it's it's hard, so it's getting to roll.

It's not it's uh has the stone stone and stone base, and you can do that with concrete, right?

You can pour concrete, and then just as it's almost done curing, you can wash off the top half inch or quarter inch of of cement and to expose the aggregate, right?

Um, and that gives you the that look as well, and shoveling it can be a little bit of a headache, but we don't really shovel this in the winter time.

So that could be an option too that we look at to have exposed pebbles or uh within the concrete.

It's just it's just another step and washing off the but the concrete, if we if it was going to be concrete, it would still need to be that 12 inch.

Yeah, yeah, it's just if the parks department decides to go with the concrete that we have that the board has a recommendation about the finish.

Yeah, yeah.

Okay.

All right, thank you.

But with the con with as proposed, all that historic material along the edges would be removed.

Um and then I had major concern where we're installing the new staircase.

There are uh field stone retaining walls.

And I'd like to see a detail of how the new stair interacts with that.

And again, when you're forming stairs out of concrete, you need space to put in your form work.

So those walls would be either removed or they would dig in front of it, and then what's that and put your form work in, and then what's that detail look like.

He told us at the site visit that they would remove everything and then reinstall those stones.

Right.

So I mean those.

Yeah, right.

Those are retaining walls, and then right behind them you have you know 10, 12 inch mature trees.

And so that's a heavy root disturbance.

Um it sounds as though if if they were able to if they're if the path was redesigned around that we would be avoid that it would avoid all of that disturbance, though.

But it doesn't eliminate the new stairs that they need.

It what does eliminate the new stairs?

No, then we keep the stairs.

Yeah, but the stairs are not.

The stairs are required because of the new landing.

Yep, yes, yeah.

Good clarification.

Yeah, they would save money.

Yeah, right.

And the con the path could be.

They can make the path all the way up.

Exactly.

Okay.

You know, so if you know, I I guess both proposals if we want to do concrete or asphalt, it's on the table.

Um we're looking at a stained stained concrete, and possibly uh with exposed aggregate.

Yeah.

Finish.

We were trying to also see how much that the borders going around was actually still there digging down.

The curbing.

Yeah, the curbing, but we think some of it's missing throughout the thing going around.

So it's not consistent.

Because we're trying to dig down the sea because it looked great, right?

And yeah, yeah.

And we could I couldn't dig down far enough on some of the parts to see that it consists because it was it was visible and then it wasn't where the trees were.

Yeah.

But um yeah, you'll have fun there.

Uh designing whatever trees.

There's that lot of dead trees that need to be.

Yeah, there are there are quite a few trees that need to come out, and there are a number of dead and dying that would need to be removed.

And so that's where um I mentioned the cape.

You know, this space is designed wholly, right?

All these trees are put in basic at the same time.

Are they going to 30s when they built the amphitheater?

Is that all?

Yeah, all itself.

And so they're all gonna age out at the same time.

Okay, right.

And so now we're gonna have you know, uh potentially a whole naked amphitheater, uh treeless amphitheater.

Right.

So, how do we start now to plan to make sure that doesn't happen, right?

Taking out the bad stuff, or looking at the big gaps that we have now and filling those in.

And so one of my comments was the back side of the fence line facing south, the bottom of the page.

That used to be all um arborvite and cedar, I believe.

And so we should start to formulate a response right now to get those trees in the ground, and that'll help offset the loss on the other on the interior of the fence line when when those start to go down.

Right.

So we I don't know if that's us as board or we as general citizens, or we as uh representatives um start to work on that plan, or it gets picked up by the Thornton Park Association.

Um, I know Miranda may possibly was gonna come today.

I'm not sure.

I wasn't sure if she was.

That came up during the discussion because of not heights, right?

If you plant something new, you get all these big trees.

So having a conducive plan that makes it consistent all the way around.

Are you saying take all the trees down and put new ones so they're all consistent at the right form?

Or that's how the park that's how it was designed.

Right.

And I'm not saying that's what we want to go do, but that's where shepherding from the TPA can come in and help and understand and drive that conversation, create that dialogue to get community support.

And so when uh trees are starting to be felled and cleared, there's an understanding of what the plan is.

Thornton Park Association.

You're a member, right?

Yes, I am.

Yeah.

So it sounds like we all saw kind of the same thing as we're out there looking at protecting the integrity of historic material.

I think that's one of our um the biggest battles is you know each of our parks um has a unique character to them, uh provided through brickwork design or cobbles and pier stone piers.

Each of our parks is uh slightly different and gives it an identity, and so the removal of these components starts the erasure of that identity of that space that makes that you know uh unique.

You know, I could I could tell you growing up on Tipperary Hill, playing in Burnet Park every day.

I I can I could sit here and doodle what that stonework looks like, right?

And it's gonna be different from up onadaga, it's gonna be different from Thorndon, uh it's gonna be different from Lincoln, um, but they're similar.

Right.

It was the same architect, but from my understanding, the architect that did Central Park did a few of the parks up, I know they did Anadaga, Hirondaga Park since that point.

They did no, um so Olmsted uh designed the yeah, Olmsted did Central Park, but you can see it in Thornton Park, you can see some issues.

I think it's the same it's it's a similar aesthetic, it's not the it it not by the same land.

It's not an Olmstead park.

Oh, okay.

Not but um definitely influenced by Olmsted and and what was happening uh in the nationwide nationwide as well.

Yeah, yep.

Um okay, so recommendations.

I think I got them for the parks department um and with the priority being in and retaining historic material stone and historic materials and features.

Yep.

Okay, to the maximum extent possible.

Yes, right?

Okay.

Are we good with those comments?

Okay.

Yeah.

Okay.

All right.

In which case I think that's it.

All right.

Good job filling in.

Uh percent.

Make a motion to adjourn.

Motion to adjourn is in made.

Do I have a second?

Second.

Second, Bob.

All right.

All in favor?

Aye.

Opposed.

Motion carries.

Adjournment.

Thank you very much.

Thank you, Jim.

I was showing you powered uh