Crown Point tries to define Williamsburg style for Broadway corridor

"We would like to hear what the seven commission members would like to see," Ban said. "It's sometimes difficult, because sometimes visually you have different ideas. 

"Trying to make a car wash look Williamsburg quite frankly has been difficult," Ban said. "We don't need to upset anybody with what we're representing."

What is Williamsburg style?

Mayor David Uran said Williamsburg first was introduced to the city in the early 1990s by then-Mayor James Metros' administration. Metros wanted to define the corridor of Broadway as it was first being developed from 93rd Avenue south to U.S. 231.

"They wanted to have some architectural standards to define a gateway to our city," Uran said.

The style is based on Williamsburg, Virginia, and the historic district known for its colonial architecture. Crown Point has a Corridor Protection District, which says construction should contribute to the improvement of the architectural and visual character of the major entrance corridors to the city.

It's a comprehensive, multiple-page document that details guidelines to be followed developing the city's corridors.

In 1998, Crown Point adopted a resolution for architectural standards for the Broadway corridor. That resolution, a little over a page long, says development plans for all commercial, residential and industrial buildings or structures located within the Broadway architectural area, shall utilize a Willamsburg architectural style and brick or masonry materials on the exterior of each building or structure.

Uran noted there are no defined guidelines. And since 1998, he said, plan commission members have come and gone, businesses have been built along the corridor and the philosophy never has been consistent.

"It's just the idea of what Williamsburg is," he said. "So when you get different members come in, and it gets to be more of an opinion, it may send the wrong message to a person who wants to come in and build."

Williamsburg an ongoing issue

The issue prompted heated debate during a February 2016 plan commission meeting discussing plans for Coyne Veterinary Center, near the southeast corner of 109th Avenue and Broadway, as reported in The Times. Developers had to alter plans following criticism from commission members that it was a nice building, but not in the Williamsburg style.

Commission member Dan Rohaley said at the time if the Coyne plans were approved, the city might as well tear up the corridor standards.

Fellow commission member Laura Sauerman called it a gorgeous building, but not compatible with the others held to the Williamsburg-style standards.

The Coyne plans eventually were approved 5-2 with Rohaley and Sauerman opposed. Coyne Veterinary Center was completed and opened in March.

Looking at it now, Uran said the Coyne building is "beautiful" with a lot of the brick features that Williamsburg style has.

"Is it traditional Williamsburg? Is it colonial? No," he said. "But it has a lot of finishes you see up and down the corridor."

Uran said if you look at the philosophy that has been carried out by the plan commission, they've done "pretty well" adding to the corridor's value. But he also said having defined standards means not having seven different philosophies from seven different members.

"That is a difficult message for that person to take back to their architect and try to marry a little bit of something together to make everyone happy," he said.

He also said it can result in a developer's spending thousands of dollars  re-engineering renderings "based on a feeling."

Ban said it is difficult to try to estimate what is acceptable by the plan commission.

"In the Williamsburg resolution there are no defined mechanical rules you can at least start to measure architecturally. It just says, 'Williamsburg,' " he said. 

Ban said in many communities DVG works in, such as St. John and Valparaiso, they are specific about those types of things.

"It helps guide us in the right direction," he said.

C.P.'s Williamsburg rules vague, subjective?

Commission member Michael Conquest said there is no real Williamsburg architectural style, that the whole thing is "vague and very subjective."

Conquest said he doesn't want to see a strict adherence to any one style of architecture, but a liberalized interpretation that allows new ideas and new twists on old styles.

"I think we should always want high-quality buildings and construction," he said.

"We should also be sensitive to a building complementing a neighboring building. I think that could be accomplished with building materials and colors as much as it can with columns, roofs and dormers."

Conquest said discussions — and at times heated debates — about the Williamsburg design standard has forced the commission to take a long, critical look at building construction on Broadway.

"We haven't always all agreed on whether we like the way a building looks, but I think all of us on the plan commission would agree that we have gotten some very nice and high-quality buildings as a result,” he said.

Sauerman said the Williamsburg ordinance was kept "loose" on purpose, she was told, but with an eye toward including the use of brick, limestone, columns and gables, and classic lines. She said more modernistic steel bars and tie rods are not complementary to "classic" architecture of the colonial period. Hence the controversy over the Coyne building — beautiful construction, she said, but out of place on Broadway compared to the standards other new-construction buildings on that corridor were held to over the years.

“If we are going to have standards in place, they need to be enforced. If we don't want to enforce them, then the design standards need to be removed,” she said.

Sauerman said there are some attractive buildings on Broadway in Crown Point as a result of the design standards that are in place, and many designs have been improved when petitioners have worked with the plan commission to tweak designs and put forth their best interpretations of Williamsburg style.

“Their cooperation and vision are much appreciated,” she said.