Flagstaff Heritage Commission Navigates Ghost Sign Controversy, Federal Preservation Threats, and $1 Million House Relocation

Okay, I now call this meeting for the Heritage Preservation Commission open. Today is October 21st, 2026, and the time is 4.03 p.m. Let's see. I will now do roll call. Do I say, do I ask myself? Tori can do the roll call. If you can just first read the option to recess into executive session and then we'll move into roll call. Your mic is not on. Thanks. Notice is hereby given to the members of the Heritage Preservation Commission and to the general public that this is a regular meeting.

The Heritage Preservation Commission may vote to go into the executive session, executive session, which will not be open to the public for legal advice and discussion of the city's attorneys for legal advice on any I am listed on the following agenda. Thank you. Thank you. Duffy Westheimer is excused. Alec Oberman? Present. Alicia Hayes? Present. Emily Dale? Present. Jeanne Stevens? City council meeting, Arizona, Precious, M.D.: Present. Caitlin Stewart. Present. Jesse Dominguez. Present.

Would anyone like to read the land acknowledgement? Commissioner Dominguez. The Heritage Preservation Commission humbly acknowledges the ancestral homelands of the area's indigenous nations and original stewards. These lands, still inhabited by native descendants, border mountains sacred to the indigenous people. We honor them, their legacies, their traditions, and their continued contributions. We celebrate their past, present, and future generations, who will forever know this place as home.

Thank you. And then would anyone like to read the Heritage Preservation Commission purpose? Commissioner Stevens? Commissioner Stevens.

The purpose of the Heritage Preservation Commission is to protect and enhance the cultural, historical, and archaeological heritage of the City of Flagstaff by recognizing, preserving, enhancing, and perpetuating the use of those objects, structures, sites, and landscape features that represent distinctive elements of the city's cultural, political, architectural, and archaeological history.

The council finds and intends that preservation of the city's heritage is in the interest of the health, economic prosperity, education, cultural enrichment, and general welfare of the public. The commission implements the city's general plan and is implemented pursuant to the provisions of the National Historic Preservation Act of 1966, As amended, the certified local government program and Arizona state statute providing the standards and procedures for heritage preservation. Thank you.

I will now open the call to the public. At this time, any member of the public may address the commission on any subject within their jurisdiction that is not scheduled before the commission today. Seeing that there is no public comment, I will now close the open call to the public and we'll move on to agenda item 6, approval of the minutes for the regular meeting held on September 16, 2026. Commissioner Stevens. I make a motion to approve the minutes from the last meeting. Do I have a second?

I'll second that motion. Is there any further discussion? Seeing that there is no further discussion, we will have a vote on the motion to approve the minutes for September 16, 2026. All those in favor? Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. All those opposed? Aye. All those opposed? Seeing none opposed, the motion is approved. We will now move on to agenda item 7A, public hearing for 15 East Aspen Avenue, Certificate of Appropriateness.

All right Good afternoon Commission Lauren Clementino Heritage Preservation Officer I going to give a brief staff report and then invite the applicant up to answer questions and discuss his project So the applicant request is for the Commission to approve a certificate of appropriateness for a new mural location on the secondary facade of the Babbitt Building at 15 East. East Aspen Avenue.

And the applicability of a certificate of appropriateness in our heritage preservation code is this approval is appropriate if the proposed work alters a cultural resource but does so in such a way that is compatible with the historic or archaeological character of the resource and all major impacts are mitigated such that the work does not diminish, eliminate, or adversely affect the significance or integrity of the resource.

And here are the criteria The criteria of approval for making this finding. All five are required. That the proposed work is consistent with the purpose and intent of the division. The proposed work is compatible with its context. And two applies here that the appropriate context of the work in the historic overlay zone is the significant portions of the property itself, the surrounding properties in the neighborhood.

The cultural resources associated with the proposed work have been sufficiently identified and evaluated. Major impacts on the cultural resources are sufficiently mitigated. And the proposed work is consistent with the applicable development standards and design guidelines. And some project background. So this project proposes, again, to add a new mural on the alley facing the secondary facade of the Babbitt Building.

The mural's proposed location would cover a fading CERDA mattress advertisement, also commonly referred to as a ghost sign, previously painted on the exterior brick wall at this location. The date of the mattress advertisement is unknown, although included in the application materials was a 1982 photograph of the building which depicts the advertisement in a, you know, much newer and more intact condition. And the mural is not proposed to extend beyond the previously painted area.

And just a point of clarification, this application requests approval of a mural at this location. The mural concepts are included in the application packet. However, the final design and content is not included in this review and will be reviewed by the Beautification and Public Art Commission as the applicant is also applying for a grant, a Beautification and Action Grant that will be reviewed by that commission. And the application for that grant was included in your packet.

And for those of you who were on the commission, the property owner, David Stevens, gave the commission a tour of this building, including the proposed mural site, and discussed his plans for this project informally with the commission at a tour in March 2026. This building was constructed circa 1907 to 1911 and is located within the downtown historic overlay zone and therefore subject to the design handbook for downtown Flagstaff.

It's also a contributing property to the railroad addition historic district. And so, again, because it's in the overlay, we're using the design handbook for downtown and the downtown overlay zone. And this statement is basically just saying that that is going to apply. And so the design handbook, as mentioned in the staff report, does not explicitly cover murals. And so there aren't a lot of specific design guidelines.

Of course, most of it refers to rehabilitation or new construction within a historic district, but several design guidelines were—a few are relevant, and I will discuss those, and they were included in the staff report. So, in the special design guidelines for historic buildings at the beginning, one is avoid removing or altering any historic material or significant architectural features.

And the supplemental material for this guideline states that original materials and architectural details that contribute to the historic significance of the structure should be preserved whenever feasible. The proposed project is along the secondary facade and not the primary facade, and no character-defining architectural features of the building will be altered or removed. The original brick in this location has already been painted and thus has already altered.

And then specific to the Serta mattress advertisement So again it is unknown It appears to date to the late historic period It not original building of course but appears to be over 50 years old based on the photograph included in the application packet which is from the National Register nomination It is not called out in the National Register nomination inventory form as a character defining feature of the building And it has already sufficiently deteriorated to the point that much of the advertisement paint has been removed from the brick by the elements And H4 is maintain existing significant stylistic elements.

And the supplemental information for this guidelines say to protect historic material with maintenance treatments such as rust removal, caulking, and repainting. And the applicant does propose to carefully prepare and prime the brick wall before painting and, you know, patch, mortar, etc. as needed, and proposes that this mural, by restoring the painting instead of continuing to let it deteriorate, would help protect the brick.

And for the rehabilitation guidelines within the design handbook, the only one that really applied is leaving brick unpainted if it was historically unpainted. But again, the applicant does not propose to paint over unpainted brick and proposes to confine the mural to the existing previously unpainted or previously painted location.

And the supplemental information for this guideline also calls out that repainting brick that has previously been painted is a good building maintenance practice for the health of the building. And so based on this information, staff recommends that the commission can approve the certificate of appropriateness based on the criteria for approval. And I can answer questions. Otherwise, I will invite the applicant up to discuss this project and answer any commission questions.

I have a question, Lauren. So I noticed on the mattress ad that the phone number is a three-digit number. And I believe Flagstaff switched to four-digit numbers around 1957-58. Is that not true? Do you know? Like I said, it is a historic—I don't know the date of the mural or the exact date of the phone numbers, but as I said, it is—it must date from the historic period, so it is over 50 years old.

And there has been no other inventory that has called that out or assessed that since the 1978 inventory, which would then be 48 years old, correct? Correct. Okay, now I will invite David Stevens, the applicant, to come up and discuss his item. And David, I can pull up your application for you. David Stevens, I'm David Stevens. I'm an owner of the Babbitt Building. And we've been entrusted to be stewards of the building for the last 30, almost 30 years.

When I did the tour earlier this year with the commission members that were able to attend, we shared some information about the building that the the easterly portion was built in 1907, the westerly portion was built in 1911. One of the things that's been a blessing is that one of the original partners that I had was Jim Babbitt. And if you knew Jim, you'd know that he was an advocate for appreciating the historic nature of our downtown. So he was a great mentor for me in those younger years.

And since then, we've worked hard to take care of that building. For you, Mr. Dominguez, you might remember when it was photo outfitters and silver images and Jaramillo's barber shop. There's been a lot of businesses that have come and gone through the years. And about 25 years ago, we renovated the front. We had a couple of tenants leave all at the same time, and it provided an opportunity for us to take off the facade. We worked with Jim Woodward.

He was a architect that did historic buildings throughout the state. He was a designated historic architect, as I understand it. And he helped us take the original blueprint drawings that you might remember I dropped off and you guys were able to look at those a while back.

And he was able to take those drawings and we were able to as closely as we could replicate that facade So when people walk downtown today They would probably think it had always looked like it does today But we actually took 1950s 60s 70s kind of motifs with that brick aluminum sort of mattress kind of era look and brought it back to more of what the building itself might have looked like 100 years ago, 110, 120 years ago.

So I think you guys know that we've put a lot of effort into maintaining that building and recognizing that it has, the building itself has historic significance for our downtown. In terms of the the mural, the Serta mattress ad has faded and even when Jim was around, unfortunately he's not here anymore, there was really never any inclination that that mural had great value. It never was one that people said, oh wow, this is the coolest thing. Instead, it was like, really? That's what it is?

And so we never looked at it as something that was inherently in need of being maintained and restored, and it was deteriorating rapidly. And we…the application doesn't really address the years that we've looked into this mural and thought, well, what do we do? What would be best for the downtown? What would be best for the building?

And talking to tenants and historic preservation committee members and people at the city and people that are involved in the downtown business community, across the board, the inclination is alley activation and vibrancy and community events and things that are going to draw people to downtown, which the building itself does because it's historic. But when you look at the mural, we looked at should we repaint the Certa mattress? And unanimously, the decision was no.

That that wasn't historically significant and it's not something that as building owners that we're going to do. So it can either continue to fade or we could repaint it with something that is more attractive and is a draw. We studied lots of artists and you've probably seen that we were able to get Bruce Aiken, who's a world renowned water colorist, to allow us to put his artwork downtown on the same building just a few feet away on the cabinet. And people love it.

And then we were able to get Roberta Rogers, who's also a renowned, she was a local artist, to put her artwork on the building. And so we're looking at the, this is an opportunity to continue in that same line of thought of, let's put something that's really attractive and it's a draw and it fits with the vision plan that a lot of work was put into that vision plan for downtown. It fits exactly with that vision plan.

And to get an artist of this caliber, Connie Townsend, for her to allow us to use her artwork and then to have a muralist, again, a world-renowned muralist that's willing to paint it, is an opportunity that we look at as, wow, this is a great opportunity. And so we hope that the commission looks at it the same way, and I'm glad to answer any questions. Commissioner Dominguez. Commissioner Dominguez. Commissioner Dominguez. Thank you for that information.

I worked as a bellhop at the Weatherford Hotel, 1966, and I'd walk by that building to go get the mail from the post office. That was my job, you know, $2 an hour. And it's interesting that Jim Babbitt, a good friend of mine also, he was a historian for downtown. And I'd like to compliment you that you've done all this research, but I still have it. There's something about that sort of mattress murals sitting there, and it is.

All I can see is the little sheep jumping, you know, that kind of stuff, you know, over the—go try to see the sleep and what have you. But I think you're right. I mean, if it's outlasted its usefulness, at some point we must move on. Thank you. Thank you. I have a question about the design, the mural design choices, and I know these are just temporary mock-ups.

But do you envision that what would, if we approved a certificate of appropriateness, the chosen mural would be of a more modern, brighter, fuller color as presented here in these mockups versus a rather faded, historic type of design? Yeah, that's a great question. You know, we looked at what do we do with this? Do we repaint the mural as it was? And the decision was no. Yeah, and then we looked at, well, do we do we create something that looks historic?

And the challenge with that is now you've now you just created something that people might think is historic and it's really not. And so it actually works against the thought process of educating people and having them understand what's historic and what's not. And when you look at the building facade, the black wood storefront windows with the gold trim, and that seems to be what it has been throughout the years.

All the pictures I've looked at, seems like that's a good indication of what that looked like. The panels might be a little bit different in terms of dimensions and things, but it's very, very, very close. And because the building had been modified through many years of different tenants, we had to look at how do we make without renovating and turning the storefront off the entire building, because we weren't able to do that.

We were able to do the easterly portion that we tried with Jim Woodward, the historic architect. We tried to come up with something that would most fit what was there because we didn't want to redo this and then have it be dramatically different than this. So they look harmonious. They look like they belong to both sides of the building. But creating a mural that if you go in the courtyard behind late for the train, you'll see some murals that are not historic.

They're just decorative, like Western Union. You go, oh, that's interesting. Jim created a mural, had it painted, and it's fun. But it's not historic. And it's not presented to the public as historic. You have to be a patron having your coffee in the courtyard. Courtyard. It's close to that look, but creating a mural that incorporates that old phone number and says Western Union or something would wouldn't be authentic.

It would go against what I think the preservation commission stands for of let's preserve what's supposed to be preserved. And in the building, you can see we put a lot of effort into taking care of that building. The mural itself, we felt like what would be better for the downtown in terms of vibrancy and community and being a draw would be something more colorful, more relevant. And like some of the other murals that are downtown, like the mural that's behind Right Side Bookstore.

Do you know which one I'm referring to? It's the black and white mural and it's, You guys must have seen it to have it be there. Very creative. It's a beautiful mural, but it's far from historic. Even across the street, when we look across Heritage Square at the Old Town shops, you've got the Soren mural, which is clearly a beautiful artistic piece of artwork, But not historic. And so throughout the downtown, there's, there are a lot of murals.

Flagstaff is becoming known for having wonderful murals. So we want to add to that. And we came to the conclusion that putting up something that might pretend to be historic actually goes against what we're intending.

Thank you for that answer I do appreciate you taking into consideration of like how putting up a mural that looks historic but is not historic could take away from the history of the area in Flagstaff and go against the Heritage Preservation Commission I do agree that I know for our overlay design overlays here in Flagstaff with Townsend for example with ADUs with proposed ADUs we have to make sure that they don look historic and that they are look more they fit certain guidelines but are also modern so that they don people don confuse them as historic So I appreciate you taking that into consideration for this mural Yeah, I appreciate the dialogue because a lot of efforts gone into getting to this presentation.

Literally years of trying to decide what do you do because it's going to have a lasting impact. And so we wanted it to have an impact where people would go, wow, this is super cool. Commissioner Stephens. Commissioner Stephens. Thank you for this discussion and thank you for your diligent work to preserve downtown historic buildings and all of the efforts that you've made. I have a few questions about this project.

You know, these ghost signs, you know, what's interesting, as Lauren said, like our code doesn't address them specifically, but there are hints in in our code, like shades that address it. And so I think the task we have is seeing how it fits within that. And so I just have some questions, you know, and concerns. The ghost signs, the ghost paintings on buildings, I mean, they are a less studied area of historic buildings, historic downtowns, historic districts.

And so a lot of them are going away. I think the term death by a thousand cuts has been discussed before. People want to paint over them. And like you said, you know, the relevance of a CERTA mattress ad or the Babbitt store ad is no longer with us like its past. CERTA mattress started making mattresses in 1931. And so if we look at the potential telephone number change that was referenced by Commissioner Hayes, you know, we're looking at something that's quite old.

Maybe it was refreshed around the time that photo was taken in 1978 because it is much more vibrant. But we really don't know about it. And so one of the criteria is like the cultural resource associated with the proposed work has been sufficiently identified and evaluated. And I have a question about that, if there's any way to get more information about that.

Another question I have is like, we don't really know what the mural is that's going to be in place that's up to a different area of government to evaluate. And so I don't know that we can really say that the proposed work is consistent with the purpose and intent of this division, because we don't really know what it is.

um it's good discussion that we don't want it to look historic but we also don't want it to not fit in with downtown but i think there's just some question marks there for me um and then another question i would have is is whether or not uh restoring it um as it is to retain that ghost sign and the character there and it's been there as long as i've been in flagstaff i'll be sad to see it go it is faded and degraded quite a lot um and i'm sure As a building owner, that doesn't make you happy.

But I'm just curious as to whether or not the ability to preserve it in place using current methodology, if that's really been explored in any meaningful way, not to offend you, but just curious. Yeah, it's a great considerations and we have explored it. And we came to the conclusion that that mattress ad was not adding value to the building or the community and it faded away and here we are today.

The partnership isn't looking at investing in restoring, repainting it to look brand new or recreating an artificial ghost image so it'd be more legible. What we're looking at today is, is it appropriate to have a mural on the building painted? And other buildings downtown, there's mural after mural after mural being painted. And so we would like this opportunity to repaint something fresh and vibrant and fitting with the downtown vision plan.

If this isn't approved, then it'll just continue to fade away.

Ms Shara Hayes Ms Shara Hayes I have more of a comment that sort of along the lines of what I asked earlier but again this is where having updated inventories that are more comprehensive than they were in say 1978 would be amazing because we are going to see building after building after building in the historic structure or in the historic district coming forward with things and we don have baseline information It really hard to make decisions when we don have baseline information We have a staff report that says unknown date So having an updated nomination when that's not 48 years old would be able to, it'd be easier for us to make a decision on something.

The other thing that we could take into account is does it have any integrity anymore? It's pretty faded. When it comes to like touching it up or anything, I would see that as if we were to touch it up as a ghost site, as a preservation activity, but how much of it's gone. I think that's something we have to take into account. But it's difficult without knowing actually, is it historic? Because we don't have that date. Has Klein Library been looked at for pictures?

Has anybody done any deeper assessment? I mean, 1978, it probably wasn't historic. I will say in terms of further study, David has looked extensively. And as he mentioned, there was a photography studio that had extensive historic photos that was housed in this building at one point. I know that collection's been looked at. I looked at all of my records for David and that photo included is the only one I could find in city records. Commissioner Dale. Commissioner Dale. Sorry, unmuted.

Yeah, I had some of the same concerns as Commissioner Hayes and others about not knowing dates. I mean, just doing basic research on the history of the CERTA company or the dates that the Babbitt company had, that phone number would be useful. I also want to push back on the idea that it doesn't have value because it's fading or it's just a mattress ad. I think the ad tells us a little bit about the way people use downtown in the past.

It contributes to the sense that people view buildings as spaces to advertise things, that it's a walkable space where people would go through and they would figure out, hey, Babbitt's got a furniture department and I can get a mattress there. Or, you know, there's the ice cream ad or just the big mural on the top of the Babbitt building. That it they do contribute to our understanding of what downtown was at the period that we have deemed it to be significant.

And so along the lines of what other we've said several times that we are slowly losing things and as soon as this mural is gone, then it becomes, oh, well, we've determined that murals aren't significant anymore so we can get rid of this one and that one and that one and then we're just like slowly losing everything. And I expressed all of this on the wonderful tour that we had when you brought us to the mural and asked us, hey, we're thinking of doing something with the space.

And I remember being, there was a sense of like, don't. It's part of downtown. It's part of, you know, we see people looking at it or taking pictures with it. And it is, it is historic and it's part of the feel of downtown and that alleyway and bringing walkable spaces back. And I feel like, yes, there are other murals downtown, but none of them have been on blank surfaces rather than existing art spaces.

And so the question then becomes, is there a different place to put a mural or a way to incorporate the mural into the existing, you know, Saving the part that is more intact that says mattress and building the mural around what we have, you know, putting a sheet... Lean into the character of what is existing and the history of that space. Commissioner Stewart? Thank you. I think those are all really good points.

I think the thing that we've all been struggling with is whether or not something that is historic, especially that we're considering the Flagstaff in particular, is does this certain mattress mural represent what we're hoping to keep Flagstaff for, right?

I appreciate the historic value of that mural but I don think that covering it up with something that is going to be what Flagstaff is now is taking away from the historic value of the building which is what we should be discussing So while I appreciate everybody's input, and I actually, I think Commissioner Dale made a very good point of these are the things that people have looked at and that does add to the character of the town.

I don't think, I personally do not think that Keeping this Serta mattress or getting rid of it takes away or gives to the historic downtown. That is just my perspective, but I wanted to put out there since I know everybody is-we've had a lot of perspectives on how preserving it could be helpful. Chair, if there are no additional questions, can we call for public comment before the commission like fully goes into discussion?

I now open the public call for comment on this agenda item, A7A for 15 East Aspen Avenue Certificate of Appropriateness. Seeing that there is no public comment, I will now close the open the public comment period for the for agenda item 7A, 15 East, ASPID, AFN, Certificate of Appropriateness. And we will now move on to discussion of this agenda item. Commissioner Stevens?

You know, I'm wondering if there is a way that there could be like a middle ground where an image of the original mattress ad and the mural could be preserved, like an image of it next to the modern mural. And maybe there could be some interpretation of the history of ghost signs. And that could be a small part, almost like a mitigation of the new mural. I've had the opportunity to go on a downtown mural tour with a group of middle schoolers once. It was a wild morning and a lot of fun.

And our public art spaces are really interesting, and this could add to it by teaching people about, teaching anybody who goes on one of these tours or does a self-guided tour about these types of signs, understanding that it's not in the intent to preserve it at this time, but what can we preserve? Commissioner Hayes? There have been some kind of creative ways of mitigating and preserving sort of the-preserving the image of the sign that have been done.

There's one that was done that's featured on the National Trust page where they project old ghost murals onto the walls or someplace near there. That's a different, that's another option of looking at the way to preserve it. I don't know, maybe putting it on a sign. I do know that I had, was looking for Serta mattress and Flagstaff Googling and I found a blog of someone who goes around and photographs ghost murals and he featured that one.

And then I found multiple people had posts of this particular ghost mural in Pinterest. So there are people who enjoy it. Commissioner Dominguez. I just have a curiosity question, and maybe Mr. Stevens can help us on this one. First of all, who had to put up there? Does anybody know? I don't think specifically. It was before. Yeah, they were in the ownership group. Commissioner Dominguez, we don't know who painted it.

And to address your comments about preserving it in some other fashion, one of the things that we felt very comfortable with is that there are photos of the building that both with line and, you know, I don't know exactly what inventory the city has, but the documentation is there. That's how we used it to present it as part of the package, is it's been well documented as what it was.

At one time, Jim Babbitt had paid for a brass plaque that recognized the building at And it was mounted near the clock facing San Francisco. One morning we went out and it was stolen. And so that's in today's world, that's something that we have to take into consideration. So if we say, okay, well, let's create some placard that we're going to attach to the brick wall. That wall, I don't know if you see if you're down there walking that alley very often, but there's a lot of graffiti.

And it's a component that I deal with all the time. I didn't think to bring it up earlier, but the… What I've noticed is when people paint the murals, they tend to not be damaged as much. People, for some reason, they tend to respect that. And maybe they see themselves as a fellow artist. You know, I'm a graffiti artist and that's a muralist, but painting it with a really fun, vibrant, attractive mural, I think is going to be better for the building.

It's going to be less likely that people are going to go spray paint that mural and ruin it. If we put up a placard, would we as owners of the building support that? Of course, we want to do everything we can to take care of our downtown. Is a placard going to get graffitied or stolen or damaged?

Our experience is yeah, but I don't know if that's something that the commission feels strongly about, that we would put a placard off to the side and mount it to the brick, and if that's something that we could have direction from the city's historic preservation office and say, okay, well, we've done this before. Here's what it looks like. Here's who you call. Here's…you order it. It's this photo. It seems like it's a reasonable request.

Will it accomplish what you need or is there a better way to accomplish it? I don't know. So that's something that you guys could direct us on because we're open to that. Again, it'd be a shame to just let that wall space look like it's neglected and deteriorated because we're not treating the rest of the building that way. We feel like there's an obligation to put up a really beautiful mural, and this is an opportunity to have these two artists. I don't know that we'll find anything better.

I think when we've taken these images around town and solicited feedback, people are like, wow, that would be great. We haven't had anybody say, no, that's not appropriate. That's a bad idea. Everybody's been tremendously supportive of doing it. And why would we go through this much effort unless it was for the benefit of the community? Because it's just a wall, right? It doesn't really benefit us. It benefits the community. That's what we're trying to accomplish.

I've got a little follow-up question on that. I'm trying to make the connection of CERTA with downtown. And I remember Babbitts had a furniture store across the street. So was it the Babbitts that had that mural put in there? And the other one is the three-digit phone number. Is it the Prospect 4? Do you know if that's Prospect 4? I remember my growing up Prospect 4, 2855 was my mother's phone number. So the PR4 was the three digit plus the numbers.

Is that the same thing that we're talking about on that phone number that is there? Is it a Prospect 4? Which was the only number there was in Flagstaff at that time. But my connection was, did the Babitz have that mural installed for their furniture store across the street? Upstairs was all furniture. I bought a couple of recliners from them and what have you. So I'm just wondering if there's a connection there. It's just curiosity for me.

Yeah, I think it makes sense because I'm not aware that they had a furniture store in that building. There was a bank. No, it was across the street upstairs is where their furniture for our furniture store, bedding, couches, you name it. You could buy anything from Babitz upstairs across the street. Yes, it's great looking at the old pictures of the building because you can see that there was a pharmacy. It was a bank. Sutcliffe Floral.

There's been so many different businesses in there, but it would make sense that maybe that had a connection to the furniture store across the street.

And I do remember as a kid picking up the phone even though I didn grow up here my aunt and uncle lived here and so you call just four digits And on campus you do the same You didn have to dial the prefix you just dialed the four digits As long as somebody else wasn using the line remember you had those party lines Yeah yeah that right Commissioner Hayes So I looked pretty closely at the sign. It says, um, Babbitt's, I think it says on the bottom, Babbitt's Pharmacy, but it says phone 124.

And then on the top, it says Babbitt Brothers Furniture Department. And then it also says, a CERTA sleeper, which was a brand of, which was a kind of like a model, I guess. It was a particular mattress that CERTA started selling in the 30s. And then it said, sleep on, not sleep in. And that ad starts in the 30s and was ran through the 40s.

Lauren, I was wondering if you could clarify something for me real quick as part of this, because there is the beautification commission, public space, I don't know if I'm saying all the words for that commission, but we cannot hold any requirements on what the mural looks like, correct? And it's less to do with the BPAC needing to review it and more there are no design guidelines in the design handbook for murals.

So if it so essentially like if you approve a new mural, you're approving a new mural at this location, but we don't have design guidelines that you would review for the content or the color that would, you know, say yes or no, you can have this artist and this style of design. So there are there is nothing in the design handbook, which is that's the main reason that that was called out as what this review is. But it but yes, if this is approved, it will move on to BPAC for review.

And as part of their grant, they would be reviewing the content of the mural. So, I mean, and I'm sure you can, if you would like to make recommendations or suggestions for David to consider, but that, again, as there is nothing specific called out, either in the design guidelines for signs, which talk about like new mural signs, or in any other place.

The only, the closest thing is design guidelines for paint, but those are not, That is primarily talking about earth tones for the majority of your building surface and then using brighter colors for accents and as this would essentially be an accent. Yeah, there's really no limiters in the design handbook. Thank you for that clarification. Commissioner Hayes? Yeah, I have a question, Lauren.

Did you look at the applicability of Historic Preservation Brief 25 from the National Park Service and whether that applies to advertised signs painted on buildings? I don't think that there's anything in there that specifically would help guide this case due to the substantial deterioration of what's there. Most of that is talking about in-use signs, creating new signs on historic buildings.

Because, again, this is so far gone and it doesn't even really talk about preservation of a ghost sign and best practices for clear coding it. So I didn't see anything that I think is specifically relevant to this case. Because, again, it's primarily talking about in use historic signs that are still relevant to the building or adding new signs or preserving something that has a much higher degree of integrity.

Well, I have it here and I'm looking at it and it says retaining historic signs whenever possible, particularly when they are associated with historic figures, events, or places. Significant as evidence of the history of the product, business, or services advertised. Significant as reflecting the history of the building or department of the historic district. A sign may be the only indicator of a building's historic use.

And I would say, again, because the integrity is so far gone and it no longer says any of the things that do convey the historic use of the building, or as Commissioner Dominguez pointed out, more likely mostly the building across the street. I don't know that any of that specifically applies, but that's what's before the commission to decide. I just brought it up and you're right.

Certa at Babitz Furniture Department Babitz Drugs we deliver So I mean it was part of the Babitz advertising from across the street So it does talk about the Babitz So I assuming they the ones that probably had that mural or at that time it was probably an advertisement for Babitz Furniture The City council meeting Arizona Proper nouns Commissioner Stephens COMMISSIONER STEPHENS- I'm thinking about the comment that placing a plaque or an interpretive, some interpretive information with a photo of the old mural or the old sign, that that could be something that's stolen or vandalized.

And I know we're bouncing around a lot from whether or not it's possible to preserve it to what we could do to potentially interpret the history while putting a new mural up. But I think it would be up to the owners and you would be better placed to think about a way or propose a way to interpret the history if we were to ask for that, rather than for us to say we want X. I want to hear what others think about that.

If we were to go in that direction, like, I think it makes most sense for the owners to do it in the way that they think is sustainable and compatible. So I'm just putting that out there. CORY CALLERSON- I appreciate that. And I think that working with Lauren and her working with you, we would be welcome to suggestions after the fact of saying, well, how can we help make sure that this is readily available to people, part of that community history that we want to make available to people.

So with all the work that we've done on the building, of course, we would want to do what we could to help. And I would just add that yes, if the commission votes to approve, that could be a condition in the motion. And it could be that if David is amenable to doing a plaque and that's something that's decided now, that that could come back to the commission for review or to me for review.

Or it could be looser than that, that, you know, David, it's approved with the condition that he would come back to the commission or to me for approval of an unknown mitigation step. Commissioner Dominguez. Yeah, I actually like your suggestion of maybe having a plaque with the picture of that mural. If nothing else, just to preserve historical value of what was there, the history of how we got there. It says Babitz right on there. What's more historical than Babitz in downtown Flagstaff?

So to me I think if there's a way to be able, maybe everybody would be happy. I mean we know we can't redo that sign. And I'm trying to remember the gentleman that used to paint the signs here in town. I'll remember tonight at midnight. But anyways. Zeb. What was that? Art. Zeb. Art. He was the guy that painted everybody's sign in town. Painted our signs. Yeah. And so if maybe there's a way that we could preserve it with a plaque. And the history. I mean, the phone number.

If nothing else, the phone numbers. I think we could do that. It's up. Commissioner Stephens says it's up to you. I think it's on behalf of my partners, I think we would be receptive to that. I don't know that we want to have to come back to the commission for another set of approvals. We've got two amazing artists that would, Connie, who's going to have to create the artistry, and then we've got the muralist that's going to be spending a, She's going to have to block out the time.

And so what we're looking for today is the certificate of appropriateness, is what I understand. And I really didn't expect to get as much pushback. We thought that this would be something that people would say, yeah, this is a great idea because that's what we hear in the community. And yet I respect the fact that this is a historic preservation commission and you guys have researched this and that's, This is what you're here to do.

So we appreciate that you're doing that and you're exhausting all the different aspects to make sure that you're making the right decisions.

So together with that if they have a plaque and I don know whether it a photo or a bronze casting or I don know exactly what that would look like but I could see the ownership of the building creating a plaque with Lauren Some direction of going well here what other buildings have done for the same thing They accomplished the same thing and it a brass plaque and it looks like this or it a photo in a plastic case Whatever that is I wasn we tried to avoid drilling more holes into that brick wall but for this need we could put them in and put them in the mortar joints and it really not going to hurt the wall itself Lauren and I talked through that How would we do that without hurting the wall?

I think it's easy enough to do. So if that's something that the commission thinks would add value, then again, why wouldn't we want to participate in that? But I don't see that we want to have to come back through as an agenda item after the fact. What I think what we're looking for is, do we have your approval to move forward? And if we don't, then we don't. And then the wall just stays the way it is. So it's in your hand. The ball's in your court. Commissioner Dale?

You may be muted, Commissioner Dale. We're not hearing anything. I am in fact muted, yes. Thank you. I just wanted to reiterate my suggestion that if the artist is up for it to incorporate aspects of the sign into the new mural, like maybe they're driving past a billboard and it's got, you know, come to Babbitt furniture with the phone number on it.

And that could be a way of preserving sort of the spirit of the sign and the parts of the sign that have been lost that are most pertinent to Flagstaff rather than just mattress without you needing to worry about drilling a hole or someone stealing a sign. And I don't know. I mean, that is extra work on an artist, but it could be one way of keeping the sign on the building while also fulfilling your desire to make it a more up to date space.

It's a great suggestion because the artist has incorporated some little iconic things in her different artistry where you could envision it could be a heart and then FLT. G on the license plate or if it's a truck or Jeep it could have a symbol on the truck or Jeep that says Babbitt ranches and or Babbitt brothers trading and then the phone number. I think that that is a great idea where it gets maybe it gets incorporated into the mural. I hear what you're saying that that sort of ...

Maybe it's got a great big mattress in the back of the truck. I don't think that's what we're going to find. That's the way you have to move ... It's tied to the top of the truck, right? That's a valuable idea. But going back to Commissioner Dale's suggestion, Lauren, correct me if I'm wrong, we would only be able to make that as a recommendation, not a condition, correct?

Well, if David is willing to commit to including that in the design, I would still know, I think, that you probably wouldn't see the design again for approval, but if he's willing to commit that and then know that BPAC would have the final approval of the design, Well, and again, I'm working with an artist that we have to respect her as an artist as well. So we're giving her some direction of saying, we really want this mural to speak Flagstaff.

So when that tourist from Italy comes and takes their picture there and they're going back, they'd go, oh, that's the mural from Flagstaff. That's was downtown Flagstaff. And so it may have the peaks. It may have other things in the, in the artistry that really speak to being a Flagstaff design. Whether there's a phone number or CERTA or you know I don't know exactly what the artist would feel the most comfortable with.

Having a plaque that just is a picture of the original mural then there's no ambiguity. It's like this is it and that's that I think accomplishes a lot of what I've heard is you want to see I think that we can see that original CERDA mural kept or available for people to see without us actually just repainting that because we're not going to do that. Thank you. Commissioner Hayes?

I think because the mural as it is right now doesn't have a lot of integrity, I would be open to an homage in the, in the new design that would be whether it's like a serta looking sheep on the door of the truck or something like that, or a billboard in the background.

I mean, just if you convey that to the artist, I'm sure they can come up with a great way to incorporate what was there before in a way that those who know the story or have seen it before, those who live in Flagstaff and remember that that Serta mattress ad was there would know what that was sort of tying that in from the past to today. So... Commissioner Stephens? Full support for that plan. I think it honors the past, it brings it forward, and it allows it to be modern.

And it can have some whimsy to it. I agree. Whimsy is a great, pardon me, I didn't mean to interrupt. Whimsy is a word that I keep hearing over and over and over. Connie's artwork, you walk in and you see it in postcards and places downtown, and it's just so much fun. And people say it's whimsical. It speaks to people. How can you not love the dog hanging out the pickup truck with his ears flapping in the wind? Commissioner Hayes?

Just to add one more thing, I think that would be an appropriate mitigation measure. And I think one thing that we would, if we ever get an opportunity to revisit the design guidelines, that we should definitely address that. that because painted wall advertising is a part of the past in cities all over the country, and I think it was overlooked originally. That makes it difficult for us because it wasn't assessed. Commissioner Dale. So Lauren, this would be a question for you.

Would it be possible to make a condition that the owners speak with the artists to see if that's possible? And if it is, go that way. And if not, then It fall back on something like a plaque. Yes. Thank you. You could make a motion with that condition. And then again, I would just add, it sounds like everyone's amenable that either way, it could be approved administratively by me and not come back before the commission. Yeah, because I assume the artist isn't here today.

No, and I understand David's reticence to speak on their behalf about what they can do. I noticed that you have some beautiful photos in the hallways here. We could do a photo of that mural, frame it nicely, put it in the lobby of the city hall, and everybody would be able to see it in city hall if that interested you. It'd be another way to pay homage to the The mural and have it protected from the elements and protected from other things that could happen to it.

So that's one idea if you had some free wall space that we could put that together. Commissioner Dale, are you still wanting to speak? Your hand is still up. All right. Commissioner Hayes. In the building itself, that would be very appropriate to have a picture in there if it fits in with, is it late from the train that is the inside, or maybe even on that enclosed patio or something. That would be more appropriate, I think, than in here.

Yeah, I'm sure we could work with Lauren and first and foremost, we could work with the artists, if she has any thoughts on how she could incorporate something. You know, she's got artistry where she has a Route 66 sign in one of her drawings. She has other things that she's incorporated. So she might have some really good ideas that would accomplish that. But I can see the value of having something that actually just shows that original CERTA mattress ad and where it goes.

If Lauren and the commission gave us feedback and we said, well, do you want it here? Do you want it here? You want it here, you want it right there. Where would be the best place to put it? I think we could work together to figure that out. Closer to where it is right now, like in the building and you know not even that big, just sort of I'm thinking something like aluminum or glass or something.

Just reproduce the photograph on that with a little, this was the ad from approximate dates or something, anything you might know about it.

I think that would be appropriate And I would be interested to hear if you would just pass on to Lauren with how that working with the artists and everything It be interesting to hear for a follow and see what the creative proposals are because it kind of a challenging thing right We want to preserve the sign but also we understand it pretty deteriorated Yeah. Appreciate those ideas and we'd love to keep you involved and keep you up to date.

Commissioner Hayes, I think that your suggestion was a good suggestion to put it inside the building. I think that's a much better use of putting the photo rather than here in city hall. I think just to, yeah, that way it's easily available for the public to see at the business. Commissioner Stevens?

So are we ready for a motion to approve the certificate of appropriateness with the condition that there is an image produced of the original sign and interpreted somehow at the location with-and leaving it more open-ended for the artist to decide if the artist would like to incorporate that into the design? Which would be handled administratively by Lauren. Hopefully somebody else can say that more eloquently.

So, seeing that there is no further discussion, we, well, that was asking if we're ready for a motion. So we need someone to make the motion first. It wasn't a formal motion. Was Emily listening? Because she's really good at making motions. Thank you. I am, but I'm still not sure which way I'm going to vote based on how the motion is worded, so I'll let someone else do it. Commissioner Stephens? Okay, here we go. Round two.

I make a motion to approve the certificate of appropriateness for this mural project with the condition that there will be a photographic representation of the original mural and interpreted at the location or near the location where it is now inside one of the building. The additional consideration is that the commission would like to hear back the results of this project as it progresses forward.

And the artist, we're requesting the artist to consider incorporating this into the artwork, the historic mural. And all of these approvals can be handled administratively by Lauren. Do we have a second? I second the motion. Seeing that there is a second to the motion, we will now have a vote. All those in favor of the motion say aye. Aye. Aye. Any opposed? Seeing that there is none opposed, the motion is approved. Thank you. Thank you for bringing this to us. We appreciate it. All right.

So now that we are now closing the public hearing for agenda item 7A, 15 East Aspen Avenue, Certificate of Appropriateness, and moving on to agenda item 8A, discussion on 418 East Birch Avenue. Thank you. I'm just going to give a brief summary for commission members who weren't here last year for the original discussion on this property, and then the property owner is here to discuss with the commission.

The property owner, Kevin Peterson, requested a discussion with the commission to receive informal feedback or guidance on, essentially, on changes to a previously approved project and mitigation measures for proposed major impacts. And as you may remember, Chair Westheimer has also requested information on this in previous two from at the end of the last few commission meetings.

And so in May 2025 the commission reviewed a phase one cultural resource study for this property That study determined that this was a significant cultural resource under our heritage preservation code And the commission approved that study with several changes to the study Those were made by Lynn Neal who was the preparer of the study and I approved those administratively One of the changes was that the addition of the upper story that was proposed at that time was identified as a major impact to the integrity of the building and that that would be mitigated by restoring the original clapboard siting to the building And so, and that project as is, and those, the remodel plans that were looked at at that time are included in the Phase I Cultural Resource Study, and the study and the notice of decision from the commission's decision were included in the packet.

The owner is now proposing different development plans, which were also included in the packet. So the plans now show that the majority of the existing house would be demolished, essentially retaining the front porch and then has a new design, larger footprint, and it now includes an attached two-car garage. So as there is a change in design per our code, the previous approval is no longer valid, and so it falls under the code requirements again.

And similarly, there is still a major impact to the building as the majority of it is proposed to be demolished. And as the heritage preservation officer, I recommended completion of phase two cultural resource study requirements, such as as-built drawings and archival photography to supplement the existing phase one, which already meets part of the phase two requirements, as you know, for the text description, to meet the code cultural resource study requirements for major impacts.

So, again, so we have the phase one already, and so adding those two levels to essentially as attachments to make that the phase two to mitigate the impacts. And does the commission have any questions? If not, I'll invite Mr. Peterson up here. Okay. Hello, Commission. I'm Kevin Peterson. I live at 418 East Birch, obviously. And yeah, I'm just here to kind of discuss some changes I'm proposing to this plan that got approved.

I came here a year ago, and as we moved through the process of developing the plan and figuring out a way to implement the plan, And it became clear that we were making a very complicated project that was already kind of essentially a nearly complete demolition of the house. I was leaving the front porch in the approved plan. I was tearing back, tearing off a porch that was converted into a bedroom. At some point I was tearing the roof off, adding a second story.

I was moving every window in the existing house. And, you know, by the time the, you know, the architects and the engineers and the feedback from the building department and all the stuff you have to do to actually build a project came back. You know, I was, you know, basically tearing down the whole house and it was recommended by the engineer and the architect that I do tear it down. With the, you know, except for the front porch, which we love. It's the kind of heart of the house.

You know, it's the gathering place. You know, we call it the stoop. It's the facade. It's what you see. It kind of makes the whole house. But anyway, as it became more and more complicated, I just thought, you know, why am I making this so complicated? Why am I adding a second story? There's a lot of work to be done with that.

So we developed a plan that is a one-story house that is wider than the existing footprint, two feet taller than the existing footprint, but also two feet shorter than what you approved. And I look at both of these things, both of these projects as a major impact, which obviously they are.

And you know I basically here for your advice you know because I you know I put a lot of time and effort into this and there more to be done And you know in my opinion you know the requirement for a phase two is an undue burden on me It costly and expensive and I hoping we can find a path that works for everybody because I think this proposed project is better than what I proposed a year ago and came and had approved So if you have questions, I'd be happy to answer them.

And perhaps I should show them. I don't know if you've all looked at what was proposed before and what is what I'm proposing now? Yes, they're all in that. They were all in that pocket that the commissioner reviewed. Commissioner Hayes? Yeah, I have a question. Look, the floor plan was included and it looks like the layout is the same. Is that just because there isn't a layout or is this just with the garage attached only?

Because I looked and I thought, well, It doesn't look like it's changing, except that there's a garage attached. It is wider, so it's not the same footprint as before. It's eight feet wide. It's four feet. So we're keeping the front stoop, which is an enclosed porch, but it was enclosed, who knows when. You know, it's the facade of the house. Let's see, I guess I can look at it. You know, so this area, if you go to the elevation, you know, I guess this is probably good.

You know, this right here is the front porch. And the new, yeah, the proposed project is, yeah, it's eight feet wider. It's four feet wider on either side of the existing porch. And the roof will be two feet higher. The roof is two feet higher than the existing structure, two feet lower than the proposed, you know, the approved plan with the second story, which was a half story.

So the actual, you know, because the, you know, this new, this proposed house is actually has a lower ceiling height than the existing by a foot. And so, Lauren, remind me, when we last year, or almost a year and a half ago, did we approve the changes then for the building without a Phase II?

Yes, the commission voted not to require a Phase II, but instead, because it was the same building footprint, require restoration of the original siting, As in lieu is mitigation, which in my opinion, you know, made more sense then because much more of the original fabric was retained. And so restoring it was, you know, in some way offsetting the major impact. There's hit to integrity in one space. It's still a major impact in my opinion.

But it also, again, as you pointed out, right, the floor plan, some of the things that are in as built were still staying the same. And now, as it will all be new material, anyways and none of the original will be left there to restore it. I don't think that that is is any longer and the design changed so much is still sufficient mitigation. So in this building is not in a historic district and not a contributor and not in the historic downtown overlay, right? Correct.

No overlay, no existing district, just recommended individually And it's primarily recommended individually eligible because there aren't very many more examples, correct? Correct. So it's for the architecture, not for events or people. It's for the architecture and being one of the last remaining examples in an area that is seen so much development. I can't remember exactly what it is, but doesn't the NPS have guidance on not using rarity as applying towards historic property?

Well, for architecture, though, I mean, it can. And again, we're not debating the significance of the property because the commission already determined it was significant. So, right, we have that determination. But because if it is, you know, it is a rare example, that is one of the criteria for determining that it's eligible for architecture or design. And we approved major impacts last time with no need for a phase two.

That is what the commission…well, right, the commission took the clapboard siting as the mitigation instead of a phase two. Are you proposing a clapboard siting again on these changes? She proposes clapboard siting. Yeah, if, you know, we, yeah, that's something that I'd be happy to do. Is that, I'm just curious, looking at those photographs, I thought, oh my gosh, that siding that's probably on there right now has asbestos in it, just from that era, right?

So you would be putting something different on, I'm sure, but something that's clapboard siding. Was it originally clapboard siding or was it…because that didn't come around until later, right? This is like early 1900s? Yeah, some of it in the enclosed area, Lynn in the report discussed the original siding because some of it is still available to view, so matching what was already there. Behind the transite siding, it looks like there's clapboard siding from what we've seen.

So I guess, you know, I'm just kind of looking for clarity, you know, just because, you know, I was doing, I don't know, if we look at the, you know, both of these are major impacts. Again, I think this elevation is more true to the original house versus what was proposed. It was kind of a rectangular building. I guess I just don't understand the need for a phase two when I essentially have approval for the demolition of the entire house. The roof is coming off. The windows were moving.

The foundation is compromised. I'm tearing off the back third of the building. The house was built on the ground. There's all this rot, termites. The house has a lot of problems. Commissioner Hayes? So, Lauren, this is an informal discussion, really. It's not being brought forward to us for a certificate of appropriateness or basically review whether a Phase 2 is needed. Is that it? That would be a different agenda item? Correct. There's no…nothing has been submitted.

Again, per the cultural resource section of the code, you know, really some sort of report needs to be submitted, you know, for the commission to review. So I think just my recommendation again is just amending the phase one to add archival photography and the as-built to make it a full phase two and that be submitted to you for review and approval.

If the commission has suggestions for other types of mitigation, I mean, we could maybe have this come back as a, you know, revision of the existing phase one. But and and a phase two, the commission could, in my opinion, could have required that last time. I mean, again, there was a major impact. That is what our code calls for, to mitigate major impacts as a phase two report.

So if the commission is willing to discuss other types of mitigation, it would all still have to come back to the commission, though, for formal approval at a later date. However, because, again, the so much more of the building will be lost now and the original design, I still think of phase two. is the most appropriate action.

Oftentimes the commission requires additional mitigation in addition to a phase two, so if the commission has thoughts on that that they would like to share at this time, that could be helpful for the applicant. I would not recommend that. My recommendation would just be, again, the as-built and archival photography. I also did suggest to Mr.

Peterson that because, again, the floor plans have already been prepared, I think They could be modified fairly minimally to provide the as-built that the commission needs. So maybe in order to keep those costs down because they've already had to be prepared for the remodel project, if the commission has thoughts on that, of what, you know, making it easier to fulfill that requirement. Yeah. So yeah, as I understand it, the code is pretty clear.

This is a complete...while yes, the first cultural resource study did take in a major impact, this is a new major impact. And therefore, a phase two cultural resource study is going to be needed by the city, according to the city code. And I understand the frustration of time, money, resources to get this done. I'm an archaeologist. I do subcontracting, so I know how long these things can take.

And that is something that we can maybe address in our city code in the future But unfortunately right now that where it stands at least to our understanding of the city code So, you know, previously, I mean, so the, the, you know, keeping the front porch is not sufficient mitigation and the restoration or you say restoration or, I guess reproduction of the clapboard siding is not similar mitigation to what was approved before, because it seems logical.

It's just, you know, again, this is more of a bungalow style house than what was approved before. I mean, it seems to be a better project. And I appreciate what the code says, but it seems like a significant burden to put additional nearly $6,000 into a report to get a project approved when the previous project You know, was very similar demolition, very close. But that's just my opinion. But I don't see, it doesn't seem like there's agreement from, you know, anyone other than me.

So, but yeah, I figured I would come and see what you all thought. So, if you have any more feedback, I'd love to hear it. Commissioner Hayes. Commissioner Hayes. So I think one thing that why we as a commission review things like this is because sometimes it's not a cookbook, you know? We are saying you require to do as-built and, you know, a professional photography for something as complex as Old City Hall and then for a very simple bungalow.

So I think it's upon us to be able to think about what's appropriate for scale and change. Hence, like the first time around, we didn't require a Phase II. So I'd like to know more about Lauren's suggestion about taking the floor plan drawings and using those for as-builts. If that's a way to make this a little bit less of a burden on the homeowner, I'm open to looking at something that documents what the building is.

It isn't in a historic district and it's not a contributor, but we do want to have some kind of documentation. So I think working with the homeowner on what is reasonable is-there's potential there. Yeah, I don't have as-builds that wasn't part of the original. You know, something I'd have to produce. Although there are, because the first floor was all remaining in the design, there are measured drawings. Yeah, we do have the floor plan of view.

Right, and that is with those measured drawings are one of the requirements for as-built. So those do already exist and may need to be modified as you're not going to need to show the changes proposed for the demolition plan. And then, of course, then it's elevations for each. Some of which, they weren't detailed elevations though, what was included in the Phase 1. They were not. Commissioner Dominguez? You mentioned a while ago, is it a complete demolition? No, sir.

Well, the front porch is what I'm proposing to... So it's the front facade of the house. So if you're looking at this design, it's this portion of the building. So you're basically using the original floor plan, correct? No. No. It's not the original floor plan and the remainder of the facade that's not the porch is being demolished as well as the rest of the house. As was happening in the previous approving.

Well, and what the commission approved was, again, as you mentioned, taking the roof off and building a second story, but it was retaining the original footprint and first floor and much of the original fabric of the walls. There were modifications, but again, this is the scale of the major impact has changed. Well, if we're—go ahead, Commissioner Hayes. So when I look at the livable space and that, because there's the two floor plans side by side, is that basically the shape?

It still sort of the same shape It just eight feet wider and two feet taller Right With an attached two garage which of course detracts from the historic nature of the property Which is set back, kind of like additions we often approve. It is set back. It's set back, I believe 22 feet from the front of the house and 41 feet from the sidewalk. But it is a similar, it's a rectangle and a much simpler design.

You know, and I believe, you know, more of a, more, more, more true to the original house and, you know, more similar to a bundler style than what, than what was approved before. And is there an addition right now on the back? Is that what I'm seeing here, that there's just going to be like the addition will just be bigger? Is it sort of just like the floor plan has just gotten bigger? Because that's what it looks like in the drawings. There's an addition on the back of the existing house.

There's an addition on the back of the building and there is an addition on the back of this house. The house is bigger. The house that I live in now is 1,100 square feet. The-this house is 23 square feet. Commissioner Stephens? So just to ask a question, the drawings and what, Lauren, you're asking for, That documentation will also address the change in the proposal. Is that correct? Because like the phase one was written for like a different plan and that was… I did not require or that.

I mean, the commission could. That would be an additional step of revising the phase one to assess the difference in the proposal. At this point, it's clearly a major impact per our code, so I don't really think that assessment is necessary. I think that is a step that we could save the applicant by not having him have his consultant, you know, revise the phase one and instead just submit the archival photography and the ASBILDS.

My question was kind of like, is this documentation to be submitted as part of the phase two? It'll also cover like the adjustment of the phase one proposal, kind of. But what I'm kind of hearing is you don't require like that. And that's fine. I'm not asking for that phase one to be revised. I'm just trying to get a sense like of what that additional documentation will do. It sounds like it'll provide the documentation as well as document what this new project is.

And maybe and that is a suggestion you could provide the applicant that you would be looking for some kind of cover document discussing the proposed changes and what the new plan is going to be in lieu of and or revising the phase one to include that. But I look at all of this as yeah, is like an addendum to the phase one and not revising it. I have full support for whatever your office thinks is appropriate. Lauren?

If there's no other discussion, it sounds like the general feedback from the commission is that we are going to require the phase two level documentation of as-built drawings and archival photography with the comments mentioned here for possible ways to make those easier to achieve. Okay. Is there photographs in the phase one that would satisfy the professional photography? I mean there was quite a few pictures in the in the original report, right? Yes, and we would just need them.

I don't know if Mr. Peterson is going to use the same consultant. When we first started discussing this, she did reach out to me and said that, yes, she had already taken essentially enough photographs, they weren't even all in the report, and could just, you know, convert them to archival level format and submit those with a photo log, which is what we usually require.

I would be open to whatever is sort of missing in the gap and just kind of keeping it minimal and see if from the existing construction drawings and whatnot if the as-builds couldn't be pulled from that to be sufficient It not a highly visible building It not a contributor to a district It seems kind of a lot to require pretty much the same thing as the demolition of 19 Westbridge Thank you, Kevin. Thank you very much.

We will now be moving on to agenda item 8B, May-Hicks-Curtis House relocation and use discussion. Okay, yes, thank you. And just to note for you, Chair, I do believe that we are going to have public comment online on this item. So I'll do, we can do the presentation and then answer questions and then call for public comment before just any further discussion. Okay, thank you.

And so I know several of you were on the commission when you reviewed the combined phase one, phase two, cultural resource study for the May Hicks-Curtis House. But for those—and have heard me talk about the relocation efforts. Some of you were here, wrote a letter of support when we were seeking grant funding from the National Trust for Historic Preservation and seeking to list the house on the 11 most endangered lists. But just a quick recap for those of you that weren't here.

So these are photos of Mahick's Curtis Hill. She sewed Arizona's first state flag for a rifle competition that her fiancé, Frank Curtis, was in at Camp Perry, Ohio. So here she is with the flag. The flag is currently in the Arizona Capitol Museum on permanent display. It's owned by NAU, but on permanent loan to the museum. This was sewn in 1911. And so the house was, well, still technically is listed in the Southside Historic District as a contributor. It was located at 13 South LaRue.

So here is the photo of it in 1964. And then this is the photo from when the cultural resource studies were done for proposed development project a few years ago. So, side by side. So, again, the documentation was done because the House was proposed for demolition through this development project. And through a combined series of events, so the demolition was approved by the city, the phase two was done as mitigation and approved by the commission.

But after a lot of folks got involved, including our Secretary of State, we, the city, stepped in to move the house. So we pledged city funds and got a grant from the National Trust for Historic Preservation to move the house. But we moved it temporarily to our materials recycling transfer facility on Butler Avenue. So here it is driving in the middle of the night to be parked behind the house. MRF and that is where it is right now.

And so, and we, you know, I know in the past presentation, we, for those of you who are here, we discussed the move. So, we've moved it and I've given other two from updates about we, at the, oh geez, almost a year ago, had worked with a contractor to secure it in place, do some light mothballing, put fencing around it.

And in the meantime, we've been evaluating potential relocation sites and uses and had an architect do a code analysis and mock up some interior concepts for us to look at other uses that could work, including keeping it as a residence. And we had our contractor also take those and then do some initial construction cost estimates.

So now we're at the stage where we've done all this background, but in order to keep moving forward and to keep going with our fundraising efforts to do this project, we really need to lock in a site and a use selection. So, okay. And now, our real estate manager, Bryce Doty, is here with me to talk about some of these options. Good evening. All right. So we've got a few, a handful of slides here. And really what we're just trying to show you is we did our homework.

We've looked at a number of different sites, a lot of municipally owned sites, a lot of privately owned sites and contacted people to see If there's anything that could make sense for this. So all the red dots that you're seeing on this map, these are all potential locations. And there's two green dots. And I'll save you the surprise. Green means we thought those might be good sites. All right. First off, there's the new downtown connection center.

We thought it could be great to kind of use this as a commercial space and kind of site it within that existing planned cultural space. However, there's just not enough space right now. So what you're seeing is a really big, messy side of the area. The red hatching is the floodway. The blue is the AE flood zone. And then you've got some drainage basin, detention basins existing there. And until the Areta flag comes through and maybe revises this, there's really just not enough room to site this.

It would be really kind of threading a needle. So we looked at that. There was no interest. Over here down at the bottom of the corner, there was at one time a request to abandon that alley, and we considered, well, maybe we could abandon that alley, and then we have enough room to put it there behind. That's actually Fratelli's there. Property owners weren't interested in that. And so the search continues. You can never go home again.

So the project that received the permit approvals to demo the house is actually not moving forward at the time. So we're like, well, can you just put it back? Well, you can't just put it back because you can't put a house in a floodway. So it can exist in the floodway, but once you remove it, you can't put it back. So that's kind of fun. So that's what that star is. And that's what's preventing us from kind of making a deal with the owner of the lot just below it.

And then we also have some little scraps and pieces that are also in the floodway that are just not going to happen either. We've got two housing parcels that we thought we've got extra land here. Ultimately, the housing departments are kind of mandate right now is to find the highest and best use of these to support the housing program.

And plopping this down is going to impact either the number of rental or the number of units that you can get or the change the use of it in case the use is actually not housing. So we felt like putting those on here was going to be just too great of a hit on the ultimate objective of what these properties are going to be used for. This was a fun one. So where we're at on Phoenix Avenue here, you've got four south San Francisco right here. The city actually owns this parcel.

The railroad owns this. This was their old field house, which they've since built the new one just to the southeast of there. They're in the process of demoing that building, and they had approached us and said, hey, our buildings are pretty close together. We think they're connected. We might not be able to demo ours without demoing yours. And we said, oh, great. And then, well, we've got a historic house, we'll put it there.

But they later came back and said, actually, there's enough separation there that we can do our job without that. And so, is it a good idea to go ahead and demo an existing-use building to put this? No. But if it was going to happen anyways, we thought that might have been a fun solution. We're still on Butler here. So we've got the Murdoch Center. There's really just limited space for that beyond to meet your parking counts. And then there was going to be kind of an undefined use.

We couldn't quite find a compelling enough use to, you know, you could further the civic space there or further the kind of meeting space, but the size of the building really doesn't support a lot of uses that aren't already fulfilled by the existing structure. We had this lot off of Butler that had some base flood elevation issues and then we sold it earlier this year. So not our parcel, not our problem anymore and not an opportunity. We looked at the cemetery.

So here's Citizen Cemetery just kind of catty corner to NAU. They said, yeah, sure, we'll take it, but what we'd really want to do is turn it into a bathroom.

NAU also said hey we have some needs for some bat houses Could we turn it into a bat house which is some kind of refuge and get them out of the bats from flying in the dorms Didn feel like any of these projects with this house is going to kind of be expensive And if we going to put enough money into this we need to kind of balance the public use for that and the why the heck did we save it in the first place And I feel like bathrooms and a bad house are probably not going to meet that threshold Could we fit it into Wheeler Park?

And so what you got right here is an outlay of what this future is closely mapped, but the downtown mile is actually going to come in and we're going to have to redo this pork We have a bookshop here, so we will have some extra space here that will become kind of future right-of-way. You could set it there. It's kind of on an island by itself. Again, why do you do with it? Is it some kind of interpretive structure? Is there any kind of use there? Didn't feel like that was quite compelling.

Yeah, you could put it on the lawn, but wait, no, the city hall's in a floodway, so that's not going to happen. Yeah, because we fit it in the meeting of Wheeler Park and we kind of discussed that with parks to see if maybe we could use that as some type of, you know, office space for park flag or something like that or for rentals or something.

But really, you've got such a tight limited area on Wheeler Park anyways and sticking a house right in the middle of that is going to impact the ability for the existing, the way that the existing permits, limited event permits function. And so they felt like that's going to take away from the experiences of kind of all these longstanding traditions of permitted events there. What you're looking at here is in La Plaza Vieja.

So there's that tiny little pocket park just north of the whole, not full foods, natural grocers. You know, this could be an option, but it's going to come at the expense of parking or it's going to come at the expense of the park. There's a lot of the other neighborhoods like Southside that does have some kind of meeting, neighborhood meeting space. This could fulfill that purpose. But really, it's a tiny house.

It's going to be a small meeting of few people there that you could actually functionally program and just felt like that was probably going to be challenging. The additional considerations is that, you know, the city's already owned some of these sites, maintains them.

They do rent them out to non-profits, but in terms of putting all these expenses into something that is ultimately going to become a maintenance burden where you're not really recouping enough of the rent from the non-profits to cover your maintenance, do you want to get into that kind of arrangement again and facilities would care not to? That's just where you would put it on that La Plaza Vieja so you could take up some of this parking here.

We do have some additional parcels that are being purchased from the Lone Tree Project that we could try to program. There is in the Southside specific plan, there is talk of concept for some type of park out here so that this house could become part of something like that. Problem is, we don't have any—all this is going to be dependent on these projects moving forward, and we don't have a great sense of when that is. There's no funding for that future program right now.

And then what are you going to do with that house in the park? Is it going to be storage? Is it going to be a bathroom? It's challenging to try to find uses that are going to be worth the effort and expense, but also honor the history there. And so we felt like this is probably not the right side either. There's the concept plan from the Southside-specific plans. And so, you know, you might could have it on some type of foots trail. People could come visit it.

But there's not really a lot of programming I thought beyond interpretive place, interpretive house. I'm not sure if anyone's familiar with those cabins up by Thorpe Park, up by the pond there. I'm assuming this would kind of be something like that. If that's a valuable thing in our community to do, that would be a consideration. But the objectives of my search was trying to find ways to activate the house.

And so I felt like that failed this test We could stick it on its own little island of misfit toys along with all the other things on Macalester Ranch So we got a whole bunch of other historic components that are kind of in various states of disuse So we could stick it there Again what the virtue of that I don know but it at least we got a house outside out of the recycling center and somewhere more permanent But we felt like we could do better So we nixed that one off the list All right So here our two green dots both off Cherry So we got 311 West Cherry and 11 West Cherry or 11 East No it just 11 West Cherry And I will give it back to Lauren to let her explain why these are the best that we could do And just to, yeah, add with the McAllister, as you know, I mean, this is a historic property, so there'd be impacts to both.

There was some initial talk about like, well, it's still on Route 66, and because this had been off Phoenix and the two boarding houses associated with the Hicks family are on Phoenix, which was the historic alignment of 66, that there's like a very tenuous 66 historic connection. But it's not a great, compelling argument since it's a different section, different time period, not the same Route 66 context as being downtown. Okay.

So, and again, as you can see from the map, right, we focused the majority of the search in Southside with the effort of trying to be able to put it—to keep it in the Southside Historic District and maybe relist it there someday.

However, for all the previous reasons mentioned, mostly to do with the floodway or timing of other projects or, you know, having to leave it sitting vacant in an unfunded park for an unknown period of time subject to vandalism, the two that we're moving forward are not in the Southside Historic District. So, first, 311 West Cherry. So, I'll go into, like, a little bit more about the uses in a second, but this site is within the Townsite district and overlay.

I did have a preliminary discussion with SHPO about, hey, what if I put it in a different district? Would you support that? And the feedback I received was yes, essentially yes. There are other houses on the street that it fits in well with. We've got precedent for that.

I mean, the preference would still be south side, but if what's better for the building is to not have it sit at the Murph for five years or sit vacant and a lot for five years in order for you to relist it in the district, then yes, we would support going with the townside district. So we purchased this for the Rio de Flag project, and when we purchased it, there was a house on it.

The house has since burned down and we have $116,000 in insurance holdback money for this to reinvest in this parcel that could be used for the rehabilitation of this house. We're moving it there. And that at first seemed like that was a pretty compelling argument for why, especially once we get to the full cost of this project, like, you know, that's a big chunk of change, seemed like it would help.

It also—I'll go into more funding considerations later, but it could, if we're able to relist it in the townside district, that might make it eligible for future heritage funds. It would not be eligible for community development block grant funds, though, because this is not a target area. However, there are some concerns with the Rio de Flag project. Again, we did buy it to be—we'll show the slide in a second—but we did buy it to use the temporary construction easement.

So we do need a portion of the site for that regardless. We think we would probably be able to site the house there, but just a consideration that that construction project would be next to it. And because of the Rio de Flag, we do have issues with the sewer easement and would probably need a taking from a neighboring property. And going through that might actually eat up all of that 116,000 and kind of wipe that out.

So once we've started doing that analysis, it may not be that that 116,000 is much of a pro. But this is also, I should have mentioned, some community commercial, so it could be a variety of uses. So here are some things that our architect looked at. So here's some concepts for it being a one bedroom or a two bedroom residence. For those of you who've been in the house, it's like almost a two bedroom right now.

There's like a weird, like kind of walled in area behind the kitchen that has an exterior door that's been used. was used as a bedroom. I mean originally it was a one bedroom. So pros of using this for housing, if we did go after Heritage Fund money, having a preservation easement on the property is required. So putting this in the city's land trust for affordable housing could probably meet that requirement.

It would also meet one of our regional plan core priorities for housing attainability and equity.

Challenges though this would be a very expensive rehab for minimal occupancy And as housing it would be limited public benefit It would keep it as the historic use but one of our big goals is hoping that folks after we gone through all of this are going to be able to interact with the house we going to be able to do interpretation and there would be very limited opportunity to do that here It will be next to a Foots trail, so, you know, potentially we could do some interpretation on the trail itself, like not on the house talking about the history, but it would probably be limited to that.

We also looked at it being an office use. So, and that could be beneficial to meet city needs for city staff, or we could lease it out for the community needs as an office. And again, with the zoning, it would be easy to have this be an office here. However, again, it's going to be a very expensive project. The cost for office is greater than cost to keep it as a house. And the ongoing rehab and maintenance costs to help recoup the initial investment and keep it going are a consideration.

It also has, it would have a six-person capacity, so it would be a pretty small little office, which could work, but again, we're not adding a lot of capacity here. And it would still be limited public benefit. If the city was in there, we could maybe be able to program it a little bit for interpretive things and maybe have a plaque outside, etc. But still be somewhat limited public benefit. So here's…this is showing where the TCE would be needed. Temporary construction easement.

And so here's what it looks like now. And here is just a rendering of if we did plop the house there to get an idea of what it would look like, scoot it over far enough from the Rio that we could make that happen. And so the other site that we're talking about is the Theatricos parcel, which the city owns the Theatricos building and rents that out to Theatricos. And this is in our central business district. And the proposal here would be to rent it out as a separate commercial space.

And so it's not within the district downtown, but it is within the downtown overlay. And I'll go into more funding considerations for this parcel in more detail in a little bit, but this parcel also would come with some funding availability in that the Arizona 250 commission recently—I'll go into more depth—but we have We have 25,000 available in funding if we commit to this proposed use and parcel.

There's also a potential of a state bill that we could work with the state legislature on for additional funding. However, this would not be CDBG eligible because it's not a target area, and it most likely would not be Heritage Fund eligible because if we're looking at this location, most likely we're taking it too far out of the context and we're not going to be able to relist it.

And that is one—this just may be, though, one of those cases where—I know we talked about this in a CLG training recently—sometimes you do a historic preservation with capital HP, and sometimes you do it with a lowercase HP, and that's still what's best for the building. So, you know, it's not—it may not be a—this is such a compatible historic context that it could be relisted, but it still has other beneficial considerations.

So where we are looking is the beaver side here where the red truck is, essentially this lower parking lot. So not the upper parking lot that's used by Theatricos but this lower level, so different. The facade of Theatricos faces Cherry and this would face beaver. And here is rendering of what it could look like. And this, again, this is an AIA generated rendering, so it's not exact.

It doesn't exactly match what we're going to show you with the floor plans either, but just an idea of what it would look like if it was on the parcel. And so our architect looked at some kind of bar cafe use to put here. So and this is slightly higher than the other two uses in the construction cost estimates, although they're actually…they all came in fairly close. That was That was one thing we were wondering. Are they, is one of them going to stand out as being significantly different?

And they didn't. So the pros here, it actually could provide a bigger, it's still small, but a bigger restaurant bar space with 26 occupants than we expected. And it would be the highest public access and engagement because it would be open to the public. Anyone could patron it. It's right downtown. Anyone could walk by it. Again, we could still do the interpretive signage outside as well. We're inside. And we would have different options.

We could solicit proposals for leases who would do the rehab in exchange for nominal rents. And having some kind of rental income would offset the ongoing facility maintenance costs for us. And we have given this presentation to the Secretary of State's office. And when we did that, our secretary of state, Adrian Fontes, did support this option and recommended moving it forward. So I threw that in here is one of the pros.

And again, for those of you who remember, he was very influential in saving the house to begin with and has been a great supporter of our project. Challenges. We would lose a little bit of downtown parking. However, we are putting new parking in across the street from the courthouse, so not too much of a consideration, or at least not a long-term one. And there is, though, the consideration of we do already have a historic building on.

It's unevaluated, but we have Theatricos is also a historic building, so we'd have to, again, consider impacts to both. And there are some pros here in that, right, it's going to face a different way. It's not blocking any, it's blocking the like really ugly exterior emergency exit on Theatricos and not much else of the facade. So I think there are things we can work around.

We'd have to work through the downtown design guidelines, but I don't think they're, you know, things to think about, but not necessarily showstoppers. Okay, so here are the costs. So we've kind of shown you the cost for the three concepts as we went along. Our house mover said it would be most likely about $30,000 additional dollars to move it again. And then these are base costs, though, so there would be additional design fees.

We would have to do site prep, of course, for either of these in order to move it and also just threw in some contingency costs. So this is what we're looking at most likely for the overall cost. So we're getting close to a million dollars for this project for any of these uses. So funding considerations. So I will just say the Heritage Fund is based on last year's cycle. There is no current money available.

The numbers do change every time based on how much the state gets allocated from the federal government. So the maximum award for the last cycle was 60,000. That's substantially reduced from previous years. Sometimes they had been 100,000 or more. It does require 40% match. And as I mentioned earlier, it does require listing the National Register of Historic Places and a preservation easement. It also cannot cover all of the work necessarily.

It won't do landscaping, any site work, and it won't cover converting it to a new use. Although it's such a small amount in the grand scheme of this project that I don't think that's not necessarily a deal breaker. But that is one funding consideration that we've looked at. We've also looked at the community development block grant funding and talked with our housing folks about that. And this is really going back to the Southside. Southside is a target area for CDBG money.

However, basically, we couldn't do housing there with this money because it can't be because of the flood designation. So it just kind of wipes that out. So unfortunately, if and for to qualify for this money for non-housing, it would have to be within a specific target area.

So the funds I alluded to earlier, so the in the last month, the Arizona 250 Commission had a meeting in which they voted to award $25,000 in funds to this project if that bar cafe option at 11 West Cherry is selected, and if we commit to that option before March 31st.

And so it just for that option If we select something else then we of course do not get those funds and they revert back to the commission to award to a different legacy project The funding here is fairly flexible It doesn necessarily have to be brick and mortar work Most of what I talked about like the Heritage Fund is brick and mortar work This, however, could be planning put in here. It could be something like a fundraising gala that would help us generate additional funding for the project.

So, kind of unique from most of the funding that we've looked at. And the potential state bill, State Representative Justin Wilmoth from Deer Valley is interested and potentially he's also on the AZ 250 commission and heard the presentation and was part of that vote. And then is interested in potentially as we move forward sponsoring a state bill to provide state funding that the if the city would match. So kind of in the range of, you know, just again, this is all suggested.

It's not official yet, but possibly in the range of like 300 to 500,000, which would potentially be half of the project. And then the city would try to match the rest. And just for reference, he also previously sponsored the bill to designate Pluto as our state planet. So he's got some interest in Flagstaff and these things. So, what if we didn't move forward to any of these options? So we, as you can tell, to keep the cost down, have primarily been looking at options for city-owned parcels.

We did. It wasn't in the presentation. We did reach out to the Pioneer Museum, Museum of Northern Arizona. And before it had been moved, we'd reached out to Reardon Mansion and the Townside Community Land Trust, all of which passed on taking the house. So we've reached out to other places to see if anyone would take this on. No one is interested. So what are other alternatives?

So we could solicit to try to sell the house to someone, you know, who and maybe try to put stipulations or conservation easement to require preservation. Although, you know, we would lose some control over the final outcome. There also may be very low interest in that, again, based on what we've what we've heard so far.

And we could investigate other non-city owned sites, although of course then we've got the, we would need additional funding to acquire them, such as the site that it came from, right? Like we would, we couldn't just put it back there. They're trying to sell it with the plans that they have approved, so we'd probably have to pay that full market price for that and then acquire an additional building to maintain.

Or we could, if there are no amenable options or affordable options, consider under what terms or conditions would we consider demolition. But what we're really hoping for today is to get your feedback on particular sites and uses.

and we are going to city council next month and so we would like to get commissions input and then we will take your input to council and council will make the ultimate decision on whether or not on a particular site in use or to send us back to go look at other alternatives on the previous screen. And do you have any immediate questions for us? Yeah. One question, multiple questions. What is the square footage of this helm? 830.

And I'm glad you mentioned about reaching out to the Museum of Northern Arizona Pioneer Museum. As you were going for the presentation, I was like, were these local museums ever reached out to you about that? So thank you for clearing that up, Lauren. On these uses, I have, how did you get down to the uses of office, housing, and cafe and bar? How was that determined? Sure. I know like one thing that's come up is like what if it was a museum, for example.

Right, and we do not have capacity to also add additional city staff and budget that. As you all know from the years of the HPO being half-time, we are not going to be able to get a museum administrator reasonably to run a museum. And again, and the other museums in town passed on taking this.

So realistically we were trying to focus on something that provides a benefit to the city hopefully to the community meets city goals but also keep it as affordable as possible Because if we talking about those ongoing costs of having staff it just escalates it significantly So that the main reason the museum is not here We also as you know though like the Pioneer Museum still isn really open They only have I guess at this point like a year and a half left of funding So museums are struggling here right now.

They're not being funded at the state level, so that's also just somewhat of a murky territory for us, given their experience, which is, of course, part of why they can't commit to taking it. There was some interest in, again, just having no services, no utilities, just sitting as another interpretive piece behind the main museum there, like the buildings in Thorpe Park. But yeah, they just don't know their future.

So these are the main ones, plus looking at what they're zoned for, what would work there. So going back to the museum, thank you for clarifying that. I was wondering, has this been FOV as a museum throughout your whole presentation? And I do understand, yes, the city is tight on money when it regards to having a museum administrator, but I've been to several museums or historical areas where it's kind of just like a walkthrough.

You walk through on your own, there's like really no staff, there's signs, there's pictures, there's displays, exhibits, but you walk it on your own. Has that been considered?

Those would still have maybe not the same cost as having a full-time staff member, but it would still require staff time, programming, and the budget to keep it open, to have the janitorial cost, to have the city maintain it without, especially if it's unmanned and we're not charging any kind of admission, it would still, doesn't seem feasible to us with ongoing maintenance. costs and the staff time that even if it wasn't, was just open.

And again, I think that would work mostly in those park parcels that we've talked about. And my main concern, especially with the Lone Tree one, is it will be sitting vacant for a long time in an area without a plan. And even if it's closed up, I think I'm extremely worried about vandalism in that location. So same as the bathroom. If there's no one there, also it's very vulnerable to any kind of arson, somebody moving in.

You may have said this, but did you guys run the cafe bar idea by the Chippo office and Bill Collins? I mean, would it have any...it wouldn't be a contributor. So it's not in a district, so it would have to be individually eligible. And we have not...I mean, my gut opinion is it wouldn't be. Right, it's not in contact anymore, and it would be rehabbed pretty heavily, but then, you know, sometimes things are rehabbed pretty heavily.

Like, didn't the Lumberyard Brewery win a Governor's Award years ago? And that does not look like a Lumberyard or a hardware store anymore. Right. Yeah, and that could be, maybe they would support it. I mean, I know even, I have talked with Ariana Urban at SHPO about it and the Heritage Fund, and she said, you know, there is maybe some more flexibility. It also, there is some flexibility in that you just need to apply.

And so I could go through all of the motions of applying to list it to get Heritage Fund money, even if the ultimate outcome is expected that it's denied by the keeper. Commissioner Dominguez? Lauren, I know you want to keep it in Southside, correct? That's your wishes. That was that right. That was the original goal except for the- And then sort of piggybacking off of what Alex just mentioned, uh Willow Bend, there's a lot of land over there, Coconino County owns it.

would they be willing to maybe allow it? You already have parking spots from Willow Bend, and maybe in a corner somewhere maybe be able to park it right next to the police department. And I know Southside is always looking for neighborhood meeting places. I know we are. We're homeless. We have been homeless since McCracken Place left. So there's always a way, And it's also in a targeted neighborhood, and CDBG also fits in that neighborhood. So you might want to just look at that avenue.

That's just my suggestion. Commissioner Dale Commissioner Dale Dale I don have any recommendations or preferences I just wanted to say thank you so much for all this hard work of saving the house and moving the house and trying to find a home for the house and thinking about adaptive reuse for the house and for this very thorough breakdown of what you have done and where you have looked And I just really appreciate everybody work on this Commissioner Stevens.

I want to piggyback on that and thank you for this work and the preservation and just these continued efforts. Talking about the adaptive reuse, I'm always delighted when there can be income generated from a historic property. It kind of takes that whole idea that heritage preservation costs more and it flips it around. And so I know that you're evaluating a lot of different options, but I was really excited about the cafe option because people can be there.

It'll reach, like the interpretation will reach a different demographic. Everybody likes to learn more when they're eating, right? Right. So, you know, there can be some really some big positives there. I don't have a preference on any of them. That one is appealing to me. I do have a question about the one that's in near the floodplain. And is that far enough out of the floodplain if we had like a hundred year flood or, you know, a more significant flood?

Yes, we could cite it that it would be far enough away that it would meet requirements that we could still develop. The insurance requirements would make it not CDBG eligible, but it would still be able to be used as a residence or an office. Commissioner Hayes? Yeah, thank you for all the work you guys done. That's an awful lot of parcels to look at. And I still remember your presentation about how you were showing how you helped move the logs. That was great.

When you guys were moving it with the Christmas tree lights underneath it. I liked the cafe bar idea. When you were presenting that and I saw that picture, I was thinking how fun that could be to maybe work May Hicks into some kind of theme, you know, with whatever they served or however the decor was or something.

So I also really like the idea of, you know, even if it's not eligible to be listed anymore, saving that where people see it and it becomes sort of like everybody knows in the community instead of like, what's that building doing over there? Thank you. And just a note, Chair, if we don't have any more questions, if you want to call for public comment. Oh, right. Sorry. Thank you. Is there any more questions? Okay. I do have one question, actually, that I just thought.

With the housing concept for this plan, would the city continue to own the house and rent it out, or would they sell it? We would…we could either rent it or…it would stay in our land trust, and so we could sell it as an affordable house or rent it, but keep it in the city's land trust. Okay. Thank you. Seeing that there is no further questions, I will now open public comment for agenda item 8B. I have a public comment. I didn't see the hand raised feature. Hi, everyone. I'm Laura Tarek.

I am with the Secretary of State's office, the executive director of the Arizona America 250 Commission. Apologies that I'm in my car, but I safely pulled over. I've been listening to all this and just want to echo Lauren. Thank you. We've had the pleasure of getting briefed on all of these options and are looking forward to supporting what the city decides.

But from a commission perspective, we were also really excited about that flag house option, particularly for some of the reasons that came up tonight as a way, a unique way to honor May Hicks and introduce her to maybe new audiences that would go to a cafe or a bar or some sort, but maybe wouldn't necessarily go to a museum. So we are excited to potentially be a part of this project with that $25,000 seed money.

And if there's an opportunity also, depending on how the city wants to use those funds, if this moves forward, we could potentially be of support in using that for some sort of fundraising endeavor to grow that project. that money as we recognize 25,000 is a drop in the hat comparatively to the project as a whole, but we're excited to support and look forward to what the council decides. Thank you. Is there any other additional public comment for agenda item 8B?

Seeing that there is no additional public comment, I am closing the public comment portion for agenda item 8B. So, a feedback. Thank you again, Lauren, for putting this presentation together and all of the city staff that worked on this, that's a lot of parcels to look through. And I appreciate explaining like why this wasn't selected and this selected and this selected, breaking it down. Because again, I know the effort was to try to have it to stay in the south side.

But you do have keeping it in relatively downtown Flagstaff area, I think is a, is it, is the next best option. And I appreciate finding the resources to do that here in downtown Flagstaff. I personally like the feel of 311 West Cherry Avenue keeping this house in a residential area rather than 11 West Cherry Avenue. I know with the concept of a cafe and bar, having an 11 West Cherry Avenue may present better because of the parking situation versus 311 West Cherry Avenue.

But again, I think if we're trying to potentially get this relisted one day and also keep the integrity of it by keeping it in rather a residential area versus commercial area, I think 311 West Cherry Avenue is good. And also, I think it supports the city's development of wanting to have like more mixed use areas rather than just straight residential and straight commercial.

So I think having 311 West Cherry Avenue supports the keeping the integrity and significance of the home alive and gives us a better potential to be relisted in the future and also supports the city's future goals regarding development for Flagstaff. I like the option of housing. I like cafe and bar being very that gives it deal that gives it public involvement, public exposure far more than housing, but I also do like housing because that's what originally was.

I do, I'm not that supportive of the office use. It would be very selective.

It would just be kind of sitting there as this never of one of several buildings in the downtown area that used to be houses but are now office spaces and people like oh that's a cool that looks like it could be a cool house but unfortunately it's taken up by businesses and I know businesses have a lot of small businesses have a need a place to be and being downtown is cool and convenient for them so my suggestion my feedback is 311 West Cherry Avenue housing or cafe and bar option for the reasons I stated.

Anyone else have anything? Commissioner Dominguez. It's sort of funny. There used to be a house on that site. It was really a nice house because I was in it. And they actually had a well. They used to have the greenest grass. Of course, the water was coming from the Rio de Flag. But anyways, but I agree with Alec. I think that's a good place for it to be. Let's replace what we had already. I mean, it was a perfect spot. Somebody lived in that spot for many, many, many years.

It was a cinder block home that I remember. I used to deliver newspapers to that house, so that's how I know. It seems like I've been all over Flagstaff, right? But it was on the old side. And I think it would be, I agree with Alec, it's just something put back into a residential area. It's close to downtown and that's hopefully some affordable housing. Commissioner Hayes.

I like the idea of the cafe bar and the potential of earning income, having higher visibility, whether or not it's relisted again. I hate to say it sounds bad for someone who does preservation, but I think having that higher visibility is in general good for all of our preservation efforts and we could do that with this property.

And there so many people who might be you know introduced to May Hicks a woman in early 1900s Flagstaff in Arizona who made an impact Any further discussion or comments from commissioners? Do you feel like you have enough, Lauren? I do, yes. Thank you all for your comments. All right. With that, we will be moving on from agenda item 8B to agenda item 8C, amendments to implementing regulations for section 106 of the National Historic Preservation Act. Thank you.

And I will just note at the request at the end of the last meeting that we set a 20-minute time limit on this discussion. Tori is going to get that pulled up for us. So we stay within those bounds.

So I provided the information that's here via email several weeks ago and then again put it in the agenda, but at the request of Vice Chair Overman, we added this discussion item to the agenda for the commission to share resources with each other and the public about the proposed implementing regulation changes to Section 106. of the National Historic Preservation Act.

So in July, the Advisory Council on Historic Preservation released proposed amendments, and a regulatory review is currently being conducted by OIRA, which is the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs. It is not yet available. The public comment period is coming soon. It is not open for public comment, but you can find—you had an opportunity to review additional information on the proposed changes.

There are links in here to the redline version, to different if you wanted to get involved personally, different ways to send in comments. And so, this is a discussion and informational item on this topic. And just another note, and we did discuss this last time. So, this, for clarity, does not specifically address HPC's review or our HB code. These will not be affecting that at the local level.

This is at the federal level, so, you know, I as a city employee am not involved in the changes at the federal level, and really what we're going to see as a city is it would—these changes would potentially come to play for projects that we are getting federal funding for as a city that have to go through Section 106, so that may change there, or projects that as a consulting party we review, consultation on.

But again, it doesn't directly affect the HBC purview and it doesn't affect our code at all. And with that, I'll turn it over to Vice Chair Overman, since this was your requested discussion. Yeah. So yeah, I just wanted to get information out there for the public to see this. This is quite a significant change to Section 106 in the National Historic Preservation Act, which hasn't been The commission has been greatly altered since its passage in 1966. This would be quite the overhaul.

And I just thought it would be important for that the public know that we're discussed that the commission is aware of this and that we and that there are resources for individuals to Um, express their opinions about it if they wish to do so. For example, Lauren mentioned the public comment period when it does open. Um, and just I would like to give a brief summary for the recording if anyone in the city is watching and decides to watch it later in the future.

Um, so federal agencies will no longer be required to try and void or minimize damaged. And this is a I'm just kind of going off the. The savingsplaces.org summary of this. There is quite a there is a significant amount of rule changes and it's very technical. So I like this summary of it rather than giving my technical summary of it that looked at. So federal agencies would no longer be required to try and void or minimize damage to America's historic architecture, neighborhoods and landscapes.

State and local governments will no longer have the right to be notified or have the opportunity to comment when federal agencies propose to damage or destroy historic places in their jurisdictions. The public's opportunity to comment on federal historic preservation policies or actions would now be entirely optional at the discretion of the federal agency.

And then the federal government will no longer be required to consult tribal communities or seek their expertise regarding their own significant cultural resources Significant cultural landscape features will not be considered historic properties So federal agencies would not be required to take into account any adverse effects to significant places such as the Grand for example here in Arizona the Grand Canyon or Oak Flats This is largely around traditional cultural properties Federal agencies would no longer be required to consider reasonably foreseeable consequences or actions on historic properties rather than direct actions that physically damage the properties.

And another thing I'd like to add, going back to the second statement of state and local governments will no longer have the right to be notified or have the opportunity to comment where federal agencies propose damage or destroy historic places within their jurisdiction.

Currently, right now, state historic preservation officers and tribal historic preservation officers are part of the consultation process from the very beginning to the very end regarding federal agencies' actions on historic properties.

The proposed rule changes would make it that state historic preservation officers and tribal historic preservation officers do not get involved in the consultation process until the end after the federal agencies has generated the report and made their analysis on impacts to historic properties by their actions.

And then also local governments will no longer be local governments and preservation organizations like Society for American Archaeology will no longer be part of the consultation process whatsoever.

It would be optional at the discretion of the federal agency, whereas they would be, they would automatically be required to, as part of the consultation process for Section 106 of the National Historic Also section 106 is the implementation portion of the National Historic Preservation Act, just in case anyone's wondering for those that may be watching online or watching in the future.

So yeah, the Society for American Archaeology has, they are a member of the Advisory Council on Historic Preservation, same National Association of Tribal Historic Preservation Officers. They have both, they both voted no to this, these proposed rule changes and Society for American Archaeology has prepared a letter. And so that's just kind of a general summary and I want the public to be aware.

As Lauren said, this doesn't affect the HPC or the city code, but there's a project the city is working on that has federal dollars or if there's a project, for example, on the Coconino National Forest lands, these changes would impact those type of projects, for example. And a good, there is a Senate, there's a, I believe like 33% of the city's boundaries are on the, were within the Coconino National Forest. So it does, it could impact Flagstaff in the future if these rule changes are adopted.

And as a personal note, I have on November 17th, if anyone is interested, I submitted a citizen petition that will be heard by city council, let it be considered by city council for a future agenda item on November 17th, asking the city council to oppose, to adopt a resolution in opposition to these rule changes, to these proposed rule changes, and submit that resolution for public comment once they're approved. the public comment period opens.

And also when the public comment period does open, there is only 30 days to submit public comment. So I'm hoping they take a OIRA takes a little bit longer because my resolution won't be my citizen petition won't be heard till October 17th, November 17th. So does anyone else have anything? It looks like Commissioner Dale has her hand up on mine. Commissioner Dale? I do. Yes, thank you so much for that summary. I also wanted to point out Can you guys hear me? Yes. Yes, we can.

Well, this is a really good summary of the ACHP's proposals. There is a congressional bill, the 2026 American Affordability and Jobs Bill of 2026, or some combination of those words, that is proposing major changes and gutting the NHPA. And that is going to go for a voting in Congress in early November. So that is something you can comment on now by contacting your local representatives here in Flagstaff.

That would be Eli Crane, Ruben Gallego, and Mark Kelly if you want to tell them why you do or do not support the bill going through Congress right now Just to add on to what Emily said, that Senate Bill 5653, I believe, and it's Title III where it talks about environmental permitting reform. And I believe the vote goes before the Senate on November 9th. Oh great, thank you so much. Any further comments or discussion from any of the commissioners?

Seeing that there is none, we are now closing agenda item 8C and we'll be moving on to 8D. I would like to point out that Commissioner Dominguez had to leave. And so we are down to five commissioners. And it looks like, I'm not sure when, but Commissioner Stewart dropped off online. So if anyone else leaves, we'll no longer have a quorum to end the meeting. So thank you for keeping track of that chair.

So our historic signs and facades grant, there are no changes or updates since the last meeting, so nothing to report. Except we still have lots of money, so tell your friends. Okay. Yes, go ahead. So we are now moving on to agenda item 9A, reports and approvals for reports. Yeah, so a handful of certificates of no effect here, you know, for the usual variety of roof replacements, I believe a window replacement, a new sign.

So please let me know if you would like me to go through any of those in more detail. And let's see. And we did have one, the phase one culture resource study that was previously reviewed by the commission with the request for, with conditions of approval for changes.

Um, those changes were were made and I attached the final copy here so you could all see, um, you know, that it is an accessible PDF, the integrity condition sections were rewritten, um, the Flagstaff Register of Historic Places section was added, plus they discussion, more discussion was added and they added a whole section explaining what the register was. So let me know if you have any questions on those.

Seeing that there's no questions or comments regarding agenda 9A approvals for reports, we'll be moving on to agenda item 10, informational items to and from the commission members and staff. And I do have a couple to start with. So I am going to read something from the clerk's office that all board and commission liaisons were asked to share with their boards and commissions.

So at the direction of council, the city clerk's office was asked to evaluate the boards and commissions program and make recommendations to council regarding ways the program can improve effectiveness, efficiency, and service to the community. A discussion with council and a presentation of recommendations will occur at the November 17, 2026 council meeting.

Materials outlining the proposed recommendations will be available in the council agenda packet the week prior to the November 17 council meeting. We encourage commissioners to attend the meeting in person or watch it live for additional information and specifics regarding the recommendations. Recommendations may or may not be accepted by council, and we welcome any and all public comment. Thank you. So an FYI there.

The other I alluded or was an official last meeting, but we did receive two CLG grants from certified local government federal pass-through grants to do context study updates. So, a strange situation. I applied for the current cycle for $20,000 with to match with my time and my intern time. And then SHPO let me know that actually they had 13,000 in the current grant cycle leftover that I assumed grants had fallen through that had been awarded.

And they still needed an award and they needed to spend on a pretty quick timeline By the end of the fiscal year of next fiscal year. Yeah, because you federal folks are just ended your fiscal year. Right. So this, the new federal fiscal year. So we essentially rewarded two phases. So 33,000 almost total. And then it will all be matched by my time and intern time.

The first phase is going to be divided by Developing a context statement for Sunnyside, which was a project that the city started about five years ago and then didn't complete due to COVID. But as we are moving into doing neighborhood planning for Sunnyside, it's still necessary. And as you know, we see a lot of reports in Sunnyside and there is no historic context and we really need one. So we're going to do that.

And then if we have money left over, also do inventory, depending on how that goes. If not, hopefully match intern time, at least get the interns out there photographing everything. They've already done some work. They've already done mapping work, identifying all the historic age buildings in Sunnyside. So that's underway. And then phase two is a loose historic context update to all of the other historic context.

Of course, 20,000 is not going to cover historic context updates to all the ones we need to update, but it's the first step. So we'll prioritize, and as you know, we need that because if we're going to go out and do inventory and evaluations, we got to get the context updated past 1935. So that's an exciting piece of news there. And then I'll turn it over to everybody else because I know it's raining again and it's getting late. Commissioner Hayes?

Well that good news I mean it a start And I go to some classes over in Sunnyside and I keep seeing historic buildings disappear that were probably going to fall over pretty soon anyways So they got quite a few of those The very first case I seen of the part of the code that says that the building official can declare this an imminent hazard and it could be demolished because there are no corrective measures recently happened in Sunnyside That might be the one across from my Tai Chi studio that didn't have a roof at all.

Possibly, yeah. There's one that had been subjected to a fire and then just left there for a few years afterwards. Commissioner Stephens? Yeah, just expressing a lot of support for this. It's very exciting. There's also an old ranger station right across from Coconino High School that was moved there, the one that was up by the hospital. So, very excited about it. There are a lot of buildings that have been moved to Sunnyside. It's going to be a complex one, but really interesting.

Yeah, should be really exciting. So we're, we just signed the contracts and now I'm working on procurement and next steps for actually getting a firm on board to help us with that. Seeing that there is no further additional items to or from commission members and staff, We will move on to is now we will now close this agenda item 10 and it is 646 and I call this meeting adjourned. City council meeting,