Full house at HDC review of 98 Cannon Street plans.Renderings and design plans for a project on the former site of 98 Cannon Riverfront Grille were presented to the Historic District Commission (HDC) and a full house of Chestertown residents on March 4. John Hutchison, the Chestertown-based architect developing a project for the waterfront property owned by Don Urgo, requested and received conditional approval for the plans after his presentation to the HDC on Wednesday.
The HDC has purview over location, height, and architectural design, but elements like parking plans go to the Planning Commission. The project design will return to the HDC after receiving Planning Commission approval.
The proposal is for a two-story building with decks on each floor that will include a restaurant and conference rooms on the first floor and 10 guest rooms on the second. The restaurant-inn will be 15 feet wider than the 120-foot-long building currently on the site, and the new building will be just short of 34 inches deeper.
“One thing that we were very certain of is that we did not want a tall building, and we have not designed a tall building,” Hutchison said.
The commercial marine zoning site has a three story maximum with a maximum building height of 45 feet, according to the guidelines.
To emphasize that the new construction will not be uniquely obstructive and will only “block a little bit more sky,” Hutchison compared the height to waterfront buildings like The Custom House at Washington College, which stands at about 36 feet tall, and The Scott’s Point townhouses alongside Wilmer Park, which are two-and-a-half story buildings approximately the same height (+-34′) as the proposed 98 Cannon street building.
As for obstructing the river view via length of the building, Hutchison said that the proposed restaurant-inn will not uniquely interrupt any preexisting riverviews, considering the standing property does not allow for a view of the Chester without standing on the river-facing docks. Noting the waterfront view around the site, though, Hutchison said that the 98 Cannon building is 250 feet from the nearest building, compared to a “normal” street density in this part of Chestertown of 40 to 45 feet between buildings.
The design proposal also includes plans to raise the building, per elevation requirements as a site on the Chester’s floodplain. Hutchison said the building site sits with FEMA’s Floodplain Elevation 7 floor of the building is going to be raised to just below 10 feet to ensure the site will not be at risk of flooding. Floor height is included in the overall building height.
In addition to focusing on creating an appropriately-scaled building, Hutchison said the architectural team has worked to create a design that fits the town’s aesthetic but is itself fresh and non-historic looking. In the design goals written out in Hutchison’s plans, the town-facing side of the building is described as catering to “the more traditional architecture” of Chestertown, while the riverfront facade intends to be “more modern and whimsical” as well as “more public, airy, and substantially more transparent” and conducive to a waterfront environment.
Questions asked by commissioners after Hutchison showed renderings of the riverfront site included whether Hutchinson considered the “historic significance of the site” in design plans. Hutchison said “no” at first, noting that the new project is intentionally not attempting to replicate or mimic historic buildings in Chestertown, but offered a “yes” to aspects like how the project will fit aesthetically in the town and how it adheres to planning laws.
“We do not want to design a historic building, at all. It’s one of the number one tenets that is in the Secretary of the Interior Design standards guidelines: you want to design a building that is compatible with the historic fabric of the town in scale, in texture, it’s not detracting; there’s height, mass, but you don’t want it to look historic,” Hutchison said.
The exact language of the guidelines Hutchison referenced during the meeting is in the style section, IV.3.1, under the new construction chapter of the Chestertown HDC’s design guidelines.
The project designers are abiding by historic guidelines, Hutchison said, while also considering other aesthetics that play into the town’s architectural makeup, like the nearby Peter Newlin Pavilion, the Hodson Boathouse, and WC’s Center for Environment and Society building. Hutchison noted that these sites are not part of the Historic District of the town and so are not subject to historic purview like the riverfront proposal at the 98 Cannon site.
Hutchison updated the HDC on an initial non-voting, schematic review done by the Planning Commission last month, where he said the project team received feedback from the planning commissioners and ensured there are no red flags in the design.
The five items Hutchison outlined that have not yet been designed and will require later approval from the HDC include 1) exterior lighting 2) landscaping; screening, or fence coverage for 3) condenser and refrigeration units and for 4) garbage and propane areas; and 5) a kitchen exhaust system.
The HDC also requested a clearer timeline of the project when Hutchison returns, likely by mid-April.
Though the commission chair noted that a number of residents have expressed concern about the project, the majority of residents who gave a public comment during Wednesday’s meeting expressed their support for the project as an important investment in the economic and social future of Chestertown.
Multiple residents emphasized during the public comment period that the site has been vacant since a fire closed down the former restaurant-grill in 2022, and a new business would be an economic and social boost for Chestertown. Commenters expressed appreciation of Hutchison’s perspective as an Eastern Shore. architect and urged the commission and residents in opposition to see the proposal as an opportunity that may not come around again if rejected.
Hutchison’s full design proposal is attached to the online agenda of the March 4 meeting.The next Planning Commission meeting is March 18 at 6:30 p.m.
Logan Monteleone, special to the Spy.
