2012-1115 Regular City Commission Meeting

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Summary Minutes:Regular City Commission Meeting November 15,2012 City of Sunny Isles Beach,Florida curves in. And so this is a very limited type of space when he lays out the core,and with the parking it really creates a very tight situation. Working with Shoreline and staff recommendations, Joe Milton agreed to do some mangrove mitigation and not limit the baywalk but give it a wider type of space all along the edge, and carved into the building trellis to give it even more space. So we achieved all the minimum requirements of the baywalk by several feet making it quite comfortable. Throughout the building there are areas that are going to have visual connections visually connecting the building from 163rd Street to the water. One of the recommendations was to create a walk along the west end that will be a physical connection between 163rd Street and the water. Again,the City has plans to turn this property into a future park(i.e. Gateway Park)so that is definitely something that is going to benefit both the development and also the City in the future. Architect Castineira said in terms of elevations, there are a couple of things that are very important that we looked at in this project from the previous St. Tropez project. In that project,the distance between the towers are roughly 70 feet and 66 feet,and we were able to have a distance of 128 almost 130 feet between these two buildings. The reason for that was to create a good visual line from other neighboring buildings in the area. We also wanted to do a much more slender building, and again,the theory about visual impact when a building becomes slender and taller it is less of a visual impact then when a building is shorter and fatter. And so this facade is the one that goes over the causeway and we have treated it in a much more slender architectural element. This facade will be facing the causeway so it becomes almost like a facade in its own merit to the project as it is about three stories high. Therefore, at that point we are high enough so that the visual impact of this building is lessened by the fact that you are in an elevated point of the causeway. We looked at all of those things, in the elements of the distribution of height in the project, and we felt that the project steps up into a much more linear and iconic type building at the west end making a lot of sense. Architect Castineira showed renderings of the project which shows a building that continues to be in that realm of a modern language, rather clean, rather simple, with the waving of the balconies having the sort of wave type of symbolism. The building is trying to capture its simplicity in a much more simple and elegant way than other things that have been done. We are also capturing the entrances in a very similar fashion to the St.Tropez project with similar elements and some of them will continue to elaborate to make sure that we have different detailing. On the corner building there is an interesting architectural expression that we are thinking about which is again a continuous façade that has to end at some point. It does end at the corner and so we have an element here that marks that entry. It is an ideal place for having a bank or things of that nature, and so it calls for concerns of an investigation of possible tenants in that space. At the same time when we turn the corner, now we are on a street(i.e. Collins) that has a lot of modern buildings, and so there is where we are playing a bit of an architectural language which is when you turn the corner,the Collins facade sort of terminates with this element similar to the one that turns on 163rd. However,at that point this becomes much more of an iconic modern type. The idea was with all of these elements that need to be open,we have to do something that is much more in tune with modern language which is the carving and fragmentation of space. With the canopy,metal paneling,and the lighting,it will give that sort of streamlined modern look that is much more in tune with an office building,a high-end hotel,etc. We have elements of glass walls for a lot of visuals from the offices,and 12