Preliminary downtown design standards raise hackles

I See House on Icy Day: The Amarillo Ice House, in the warehouse and light industrial district, was pointed out as an example of a building out of compliance with current ordinances with no apparent action by the city during the discussion on Feb. 2 of proposed design standards for downtown. Photo by George Schwarz

By Greg Rohloff

The Amarillo Independent

Ask people around town what they want for downtown, and the most common answer is to get Polk Street hopping the way it was when they were kids — whether that was in the 1950s or ’60s, when it was a center of commerce, or the ’70s or ’80s, when it was a place to cruise in your car and hang out.

The disparity of those two memories reflects the disparity arising between visions for downtown renovation.

Gussy up Polk Street and a few of the neighboring blocks as in the streetscape grant proposal that was submitted to the Texas Department of Transportation, and you don’t get much argument from anyone.

But talk about raising the visual standards for the warehouse district southeast of the Amarillo Civic Center or the light industrial area between Jackson and Washington, and a fire is lit.

At least that was the case on Feb. 2 when a first look at proposed standards for downtown’s appearance was presented in a rapid-fire fashion at the Amarillo Civic Center Regency Room.

About 50 Amarilloans attended the meeting in which Downtown Amarillo Inc. Executive Director Melissa Daily ran through the possibilities.

The overarching principal draws from the preliminary discussions over the past three years of what downtown Amarillo could be, with such themes as walkability — meaning doing something with the sidewalks downtown besides occasionally filling in the cracks and replacing the parts reduced to chunks — and making new uses of historic buildings to attract more retail, entertainment and housing.

Thus, Daily explained that sidewalks would be eight feet wide as most are now, but instead of starting at the curb and measuring toward the buildings, they would start about five feet from building fronts and extend toward the street, with a strip from two to four feet wide along the curb dedicated to trees and other landscaping features.

Benches and pedestrian lights would be encouraged but not required, she said. Trees would come from an approved list of deciduous trees, with species chosen that would not attract large numbers of birds.

New construction or refurbished buildings would be required to reserve the ground level for retail; windows would be required at regular intervals at street level; and every 30 feet of a building front should be some type of architectural feature.

Walled or fenced developments would not be allowed, but parking lots could have fencing along the alley and either landscaping or a three- to four-foot wall facing the street, with lot entry limited to one driveway per block marked by a simple sign denoting parking.

If a parking garage is built downtown — an unlikely development given the rising cost of such structures — the design standards propose that the ground level be used for retail, or at least be able to be converted to that later as demand for retail locations downtown grows.

Her explanation of sign regulations for downtown drew murmurs as she noted that those standards would be consistent with the new sign ordinance, with limitations on how far a sign could extend into the walking area.

Daily said creative signs such as the Paramount Building’s refurbished neon sign would be encouraged, while building plaque signs would be most common, but would have size restrictions.

On major buildings such as the banks, a large dominant sign would be allowed on each side of the building, given that some buildings accommodate more than one business.

Businesses could incorporate their names on awnings or doorway canopies, she said, and restaurants could use sandwich board signs in front so long as they were removed for the restaurants’ off hours.

Prohibited would be pole signs, rooftop signs, off-premise signs or the so-called supergraphics in which a side of a building makes up a single sign.

Monument signs in front of a building could be no larger than eight feet tall and would require landscaping.

If a service station were to locate downtown, its monument sign could also include the pricing information, Daily said.

Tenant directory signs could be attached to the wall near entries and would be limited to being six feet tall, while leasing information could be incorporated with a permanent sign, or could be a temporary sign, she said, repeating that the standards would have to be flexible.

Existing buildings, signs and landscaping features would be grandfathered, Daily said, but if an exterior change were planned of sufficient scope to require a building permit, the design standards would come into play, and the changes would require approval of a design standards board.

And while that fed the grumbling, the greatest disagreement came when she explained that the downtown standards would cover an area roughly similar to the Tax Increment Reinvestment Zone — bordered by the railroad tracks on the north and east sides, Washington-Adams on the west and Interstate 40 on the south.

Arvell Williams, a commercial real estate broker and investor, said design standards for such a large area would be an imposition on the rights of property owners in the fringe areas that include industrial businesses, warehouses and other storage facilities.

Property owners now are faced with asbestos abatement requirements and numerous other rules that make another set of rules and restrictions economically untenable, Williams said.

When a suggestion was offered to start with the design standards for the core business district — Buchanan on the east, Van Buren on the west, Third Avenue on the north and 11th Avenue on the south — Daily explained that developers for large projects within that area would be concerned about what would be located nearby.

The point is simple that Daily was trying to make, but one that wasn’t readily caught.

Old metal buildings surrounded by chain link fence with barbed wire around the top and tumbleweeds for the only landscaping feature would not be the view hotel or condominium developers would accept from one of their suites.

Thus, that view would mean no development.

Williams and Ryan Hodge of Maxor Drug raised a stickier point, selective enforcement of existing city ordinances.

Hodge said Maxor wants to improve the security of its parking lot near Third and Polk with some other type of fencing than described in the presentation because of frequent car break-ins.

And, Hodge said, walking from Maxor to the Chase Building can be difficult, given the dismal state of some sidewalks that the city has not required to be improved.

Williams added that city code enforcement now is spotty, pointing to the Ice House building on the northern edge of downtown as an example.

The building has not been used as a business for nearly 20 years, and was severely damaged by fire in December 1996.

At the time of the fire, a fire department official was quoted in the local media as saying that the city code enforcement office was making arrangements to knock the building down.

Yet, Williams said, the building still stands, while at a recent City Commission meeting, commissioners condemned a temporary building that a north Amarillo resident used to store furniture.