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Summary Minutes: Regular City Commission Meeting October 17, 2013 City of Sunny Isles Beach. Florida <br />Eduardo Castineira, Architect President /CEO of Axioma3Architects, thanked City Planner <br />Hasbun for her help in this particular project that has a large site going back many years and <br />for her attention to detail. He presented renderings and 3D models of the project, and noted a <br />couple of issues that are important to the project. He reiterated what was said earlier by <br />another presenter [Item 6B], a lot of these zoning codes are not done by architects, and then <br />when architects started designing buildings then we have a Building Code, Fire Code, ramps, <br />turning radiuses, and now the Building Department came up with a new Code where anything <br />above 120 has to have a fire lobby, different scenario for the cores of the building, etc. He <br />said it is a small site, and has all these elements around it that becomes challenging in the <br />design, and it becomes a really complicated. The way this building works and the ramping <br />system, there is only one way to do it, and we made it so it meets all the requirements of <br />parking, ramps, etc. There is one thing about it that starts again creating unique situations that <br />are very different to the typical office building. For example the core of this building is not in <br />the center of the building, it is to the side. It is a small office building, one he would consider <br />a boutique office building, and it starts sitting up a different type of system and scenarios that <br />influences things down the line. We work with a consultant that specializes in office buildings <br />to give them some feedback, and that consultant came back with several things that were <br />based on these observations. They said straight out that this is going to serve a local <br />community, this is not a high -rise building in downtown Miami that is pulling traffic and <br />people from wherever, it is strictly a boutique building serving the area. Therefore, a lot of <br />the traffic is going to be very minor traffic, people basically travelling a couple of blocks. <br />Architect Castineira said they wanted to make sure the building is attractive to the right tenant. <br />and that brings us to another decision. What type of classification do we want this building to <br />be, A, B or C? The type "A" building is the type of tenant that Mr. Milton would like to have <br />in this building which requires very specific things. One of the most important things that a <br />type "A" building requires is the height within the office space. Typically that height is 12 <br />feet from ground slab to the underside of the slab of the upper floor. Why 12 feet, because <br />two of those feet in this case will be taken up with mechanical systems. These buildings are <br />designed to have a lot of views and glass and therefore they have heat -gain, and that heat -gain <br />generates bigger systems, AC systems, etc., very different than in condo buildings. At the end <br />of the day you are going to have an office that is going to be approximately 9'/2 to 10 feet, very <br />similar to City Hall. The other aspect which is very important is we have a site that has the <br />only ramp wrapping around creating a very unique situation. The ramp is a couple of stories <br />high, and the views have to be above the ramp because nobody is going to rent Class `A" <br />office space and have views of a ramp. <br />Architect Castineira said at the very beginning of the design there were discussions about <br />having the entrance off Sunny Isles Boulevard. It was one of the things that staff had <br />commented on and talked about, and we insisted on making the entrance off from Collins <br />Avenue and pulling away from the intersection. The consultant verified that it was a very <br />good move not only by the office consultant but also by the traffic consultant. There is <br />minimal to no impact on the intersection because of the way the entrance works. The other <br />aspect to that is we have a fire lane as required by the Fire Department which in this case <br />works to our benefit in multiple ways. This fire lane becomes ideal for stacking cars as cars <br />pull into the building at any moment it can become congested, you can stack up to six (6) cars <br />in this area. Any delivery trucks coming in and having to back into the building will do their <br />5 <br />