[2:57] . Welcome to the walnut creek design review commission for wednesday september 2nd. If there is anyone in the audience that wishes to address the commission as a member of the public please fill out a speaker's card nd when invited by the two by the cigaret

[3:13] commission secretary please state your name clearly and where you live and whom you represent and make sure you're speaking into the microphone. All right. That's good enough so I guess we can call. Thank you. Thank you. Commissioner newsom, you're commissioner prose, your vice chair riley here chair bastien here and commissioner case is absent tonight.

[3:50] she did inform staff prior to this meeting. Thank you. Okay. So are there any items on the consent calendar? Nothing on the consent calendar today. All right. So next up is public communication aids. I don't see anyone in the audience from the public unless either of you guys are okay.

[4:20] were there any ex parte communications between commissioners? No, last week. Oh, okay. So now e will move on to the public hearing. God evening design review commissioners. My name is jessica gonzales, senior planner and tonight I will be presenting the master sign program amendment sign exception and sign height requests for the property at 1500 mount diablo boulevard.

[5:03] getting started with the location the site s an existing three story building located at the corner of north main street and mount albert boulevard. The three story building is occupied by various restaurants and surrounded by other commercial and retail uses within the downtown area.

[5:24] just some context on the site I've included some photos of the building on the screen showing the building facade along north main and the building facade along mount diablo boulevard. Some additional photos showing the facade along commercial lane and the interior side of the building getting into the master sign program amendment before you.

[5:54] the property has an existing master sign program that was approved in 2015. The proposed master signed program amendment packet before you tonight does preserve portions of that existing plan and incorporates new plan sheets to accommodate new signage. As proposed the amendment package does require a signed exception and a sign height allowance request.

[6:19] so the overall goals for the master sign program amendment package is to remove an unused previously approved a 60 square foot mural sign. Allow for additional sign size for for ground floor signs. Redistribute the allowed sign area again after the removal of the mural sign.

[6:47] add three new signs for a newly created ground floor tenant space where the old vineyard vines location was. And to add a secondary sign for the existing third floor rooftop restaurant business. And so the amended mcp does remove the previously approved mural sign as mentioned.

[7:11] and so while the amendment does include the updated allocation of sign area for the building, the proposed total sign area does exceed the llowance by 40ft2 and so a sign exception is required. I'm just getting into the new proposed signs so the four new signs are shown on the building elevations circled in green a green circle.

[7:43] these are the elevations for north main street and mount diablo. As you can see one wall sign is for the existing rooftop third floor tenant space and the other signs are or the first floor tenant space. And so since the rooftop proposed wall sign is above 25ft, it does require a sign height request.

[8:09] so here is the sign layout for the existing master sign program just to get an understanding of how many signs the existing sign program allows for 19 signs including walls, signs, banners, signs, plates, signs nd again the one mural sign here is the proposed amendment sign layout.

[8:34] again the three are the four proposed signs are circled in green and so in order to approve their requested sign exception to allow the additional sign area the drc must make the findings shown on the screen.

[9:06] as noted in the report, staff believes those findings can be made as the request only represents an additional 40ft2 and the signs generally match the size and scale of the already approved master sign program. And then lastly regarding the height increase request, the required findings are also shown on the screen.

[9:31] and so again staff believes these findings can be made as the rooftops sign is ell designed and is directly adjacent to the attendance space. And so with that staff does recommend that the drc move to determine that the project is exempt from sequel and to adopt the draft resolution granting the master sign program amendment sign exceptions and height increase request 'm available for any questions the

[9:55] the pplicant suitors lami is also available with the presentation and the property owner brian hirahara is also available for questions. Thank you. Do we have any questions of staff at the moment? Okay great. Thank you. Thank you. This. Good evening brian hirahara beach development owner and developer of this project.

[10:32] at a high level when we this was a city owned property if you remember or it's been there ten years so this is probably 12 or 13 years ago it was an rfp process request for proposals that we competed with and we told the city at the time that this is truly a

[10:50] gateway site and our intent was number one to create a building that was in keeping with the traditional downtown the older area of downtown. We had recently completed the sassa building which was an old 200 year old brick building.

[11:13] so we utilized 100 year old reclaimed rick from an industrial building in stockton for all the brick and frankly kind of went a little crazy with I don't want to be designer architect so had fun with a living wall. A living roof corten steel there's no stucco on the building and a lot of landscaping which you can see and I'll bring up why that's important.

[11:34] the other goal that we told the city was that if we were smart we would just put a two storey retail building here but we really wanted to create a building that would draw traffic across melody boulevard and create a buzz of activity in that again important north the downtown traditional downtown corner.

[11:58] so we put a retail retailer on the corner being it in vines and then three restaurants on three floors and I think we've been very fortunate that the restaurants have been very successful in the way retail has changed.

[12:20] vineyard vine to close vineyard vines end up closing the building and we ended up with the retail being the weakest piece of the project and I think that in looking at the building we did so much design wise that there's signage almost I say disappeared but it kind of does I feel a little bit bad because originally I didn't want their pink whale on

[12:42] the building and so they did not and I think it was as we relook at the building signage for the retail is really important. The second component is that we are demolishing the space into two spaces and so as jessica described we're trying to provide signage for both of those tenants and the vertical

[13:09] blade sign at the corner was just to do something unique to give them more visibility. So a lot of it though is just just that there's so much going on visually with the building which was our intent but I never thought that that would take away from the retail presence of the building.

[13:27] so we're trying to counteract that and provide them more visibility. Thank you. Any questions for me? So that vineyard vine space is being separated into two tennis spaces, correct? Putting in a gelato operator from brazil and a male operator from china like the starbucks of china on the corner. Nice.

[13:53] so one fun tidbit within walking distance of my house. Yes. Anybody else have any questions ? No. Good evening. My name is cittaslow. We would design our thank you all for your time and to review this project before we go through the boring signage stuff.

[14:22] I just wanted to kind of when I heard this new tenants have been excited for me to kind of see what who they are and what they do and I did a quick little research so chidi and I used a correct me if I'm wrong if anybody knows more about this but I did some quick

[14:39] research and it said basically the word cha means t and the g it refers to a female role in traditional chinese opera and this this is how they started their branding this place this is started in south china is in a city called yunnan and and ever since they've you know

[15:01] this is the place I guess they make the most that they grow the most amazing tea and that's where this whole brand is originated from there and it's quite fascinating that they started this in 2017 and right now they have over 6000 stores all over the world.

[15:23] and and interestingly they they you know, they started in southern california, india and I guess sounds like the walnut creek is going to be their second store in northern california which is exciting and same thing with the bocce with the latte which is I kind

[15:43] of find a very interesting name for that in italian it means kiss of milk. Yeah, it was kind of interesting and they also they originated in 2011 brazil and my guess again were probably the third store here in northern california and they globally have over 200 stores.

[16:04] so I just started we kind of get to know these people before we start talking about their selling and so this is a if very brief and description of this changes because I know when we were looking at the original sign program and a lot of signs are showing so I just

[16:24] thought I did a quick before and after so this is what how the original master sign program was approved back in 2015 and there is n after if you o it oh I'm sorry and this is the after basically those four spot that I've highlighted and there those are basically

[16:44] the changes and in this space is basically divided up between these two tenets obviously that the charges and the locked and bocce and the latter so let me go back to that first slide slide first I'm sorry did I mess this up? Thank you.

[17:09] and so the the blade sign that we see on the very on that let me see. I have a copy of this thing because I can't truly read that thing so on the east on the east elevation we have that sun blade sign j which is for charge and then we added that

[17:37] new rooftop sign v2 which is also a new sign and this is basically balance out the existing sign that's already on the south elevation.

[17:53] I know it's kind of over the height limit and 25ft but we just thought we kind of balance each other out and be the kind of on the same same same level and and then and then basically charges wall signs or basically similar to the existing master sign program and there's a new location but we adding two new signs for bocce delight which is the sign type e three and k

[18:19] and I believe that is the program sort of and in the master sign program I'm here to answer any technical related question nd the sign program itself was you know at the individual tenant and they were there designed by their own sign vendor or design consulting. So we incorporate that into the master sort sign program.

[18:43] so if have any technical detail I'll do my best to explain what the intent is. So I have a question about the the new b to rooftop sign. Okay.

[19:04] and the ties with I guess the the b one and no the b one rooftop sign was approved under the previous application and if there's a request for the second rooftop sign was any consideration given to relocating these signs to the building corner where it meets north main and mount diablo and this this particular sign is actually facing north main and

[19:28] we feel like they need some kind of presence on on north main side there was a but I'm not quite clear exactly what we're just by you're referring to it whatever location you're recommending yeah so in this photo in the lower left photo the left hand side above the

[19:47] good of windows, you know was that location considered for signage as opposed to again so on the corner of corten tower yeah one of the biggest challenges always and you heard the term but stack signage in a multi a mixed use environment it gets really challenging so

[20:06] we located the rooftop at the at that north orner because it's not competing with below that's actually a stairwell exit stair and if we put it above the corner then you get the challenge of the retailer. It's the retailer saying well we don't want their signage on top of ours. It's confusing.

[20:27] so we really it's a really prominent tower so we just felt that by keeping that conflict was a cleaner way of doing it and in rooftop doesn't currently have any signage on on the main street north main street so we thought that was a better location for it. Thank you. You're elcome. Thank you.

[20:51] any other questions? Brian bail me out. You know. Okay. Do we want to move to commissioner comments? Do we have any comments? I mean since we're making comments I know first we were we just met with these guys before and I think to me this is a very interesting piece of architecture and when you

[21:36] create a piece of architecture like this, it omes with its challenges and I think we're seeing them ere. You these guys have innovated a bit and have had to adapt to to the market a lot and I feel like his type of architecture to have these tenants work together you actually need

[22:00] these signs and I, I was just in a tell franco yesterday you know I go I'm always always going to these places and and I think in and I am a student of these things being an architect I think I generally support everything that's said here and I understand how it works. That's all got.

[22:29] I'll add I can obviously understand the as well to support really some comments you know the complexity this building and bravo brian for wanting to step up and play designer and and make something more power to ou and it does provide challenges.

[22:50] I do struggle a bit with you know again base really common about kind of setting precedent and I know the previous mattison program allowed for the sign that piece on the middle of a boulevard and so with that being such a I'm not compelled to have any

[23:12] objections to this sign on this elevation on the ell on north main street sign. No, my only comment is I think that it's probably going to be really successful having these two new restaurants in the bottom and I'm excited to see that so excellent. Me too. I echo that.

[23:37] I also really like that you are consistent with the rooftop signs on the brick. It's it's it's sort of branding and it flows nicely for me and I love this building. I always have. So thank you brian for building it that's those are my comments. Okay.

[24:00] shall we take a motion to accept staff's recommendation for I believe so you make the motion and second and then I'll do the roll call. Yeah, I'll make the motion and make the motion to to approve a staff recommended I second that. Okay. Okay, great. Commissioner newsome? Yes. Commissioner prose. Yes. Vice chair riley. Yes. And chair bassey.

[24:37] yes. Okay. So motion passes. Approved passes. Great. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Just simple. Thank you all very much. Are there any other considerations that the commission should be aware of? I don't have anything. Okay. Do any commissioner members have any announcements or. Okay staff has not announcement just a reminder.

[25:10] so we do have two items on the september 16th the drc hearing and both are new construction and residential care facilities and we are hoping to have a quorum that night. Well that is all I have. Thank you. All right. Thank you. With this we are adjourned.

Design Review Commission: 9-3-2026

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