Last year, the city gave the developer of a 101′, 100-unit luxury condo building on Avon Street 365 days to submit finalized site plans for the project. Randolph Croxton, the building’s architect, used them all.
More than a year after the City Council and the Planning Commission approved a special-use permit for the project, known as 201 Avon Street, developers submitted finalized site plans on October 10, the last day before the city’s approval expired. So the nine-story building, which includes condos and a six-room boutique hotel with spa, remains on track.
 This earlier rendering shows how the 201 Avon building would change the south Downtown landscape. |
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Time running out for 201 Avon St. BAR relents on nine-storey building City Planners accept nine-storey building Nine-storey, south Downtown development deferred |
Brian Haluska of Neighborhood Development Services says that it’s uncommon for city staff to receive materials on the last day possible. "We do have projects that get to a certain stage and then stop," he says. "That happens a lot. But it’s not terribly common to have someone wait an entire year. But also projects of this size aren’t terribly common either."
The 201 Avon building is one of six current projects that top out at 101′, projects which came after a 2003 rezoning that encouraged high density development. But the project’s green features set it apart from the pack. Croxton has said that he is striving for the building to be platinum-certified for Leadership in Energy and Environment Design (LEED). That level is something only a handful of buildings in the country can boast.
While it’s unclear whether the building project’s high environmental standards contributed to the delay in submitting finalized site plans, Haluska says those concerns pertain more to the building documents. "There were some considerations that had to be made during the site-plan process in order for them to set things up so that they could do that," he says.
City staff is currently reviewing the submitted plan and will likely give the developer comments in the coming two or three weeks. After that, the developer will have to resubmit a revised site plan.
Croxton could not be reached for comment.
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