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if the ground floor was retail and the second floor was office, and their proposal in that regard is to reverse the run of the stairs in the back so it does not require any corridor to get to the stairwell. He then presented a slide of the ground floor plan one level down, showing the back side of the office in the retail portion with mailboxes and a rear exit. He indicated that they were going to make more of that area so the stairwell can be accessed directly from within or on grade, and this would work equally well if those two floors are not rented together. Mr. Grant stated that five of the six ground floor spaces are residential; one is retail. He indicated that if all six spaces were converted to retail, there would be only one in business after about three months, and that would be the one fronting on Spring Street. He explained that the reality is that the site is not really connected to the Downtown and not visible from Main Street; it is around the back and not on a travel path to other retail. He added that he appreciated the Commission's understanding of that and recognized that the better use for this site is to provide a place for pedestrians to literally live Downtown and patronize it. He explained that the intent has been to create five side -by -side bungalow -style executive townhomes where there's a common ridgeline for each and dormers that provide the head room in what otherwise would be attic space of the third floor. Mr. Grant stated that they received comments from Gerry Beaudin yesterday and will make those happen. He noted that a couple of things have been mentioned: the overall scale of the trash enclosure will be reduced by a foot to a foot - and -a -half to lean that up a little bit; and the architectural - style, traditional chimney stacks are not active, and they are fine with deleting them. He added that they love the idea of the mission tile and the natural wood doors, both the man doors and the garage doors, which play beautifully against the white walls. He then introduced Jim Knuppe, the property owner; his wife Kathy, and his son, Mike. He added that Charles Huff, project architect, is also present tonight. Commissioner O'Connor referred to the comment made that if all six units were retail, only one would be in business. He inquired if they considered taking one of the residential spaces and making the building bigger where it fronts on Spring Street and splitting it down the middle to create two spaces downstairs that were twice that depth as opposed to just one with a smaller square footage. Mr. Grant replied that they did look at that. He stated that as predominantly retail architects or mixed use architects, they study tenant spaces all the time and what seems to work best. He noted that in this case, because the tuck -under parking space at the retail building was eliminated, the resulting 850 - square -foot area was a relevant building space for retail with a reasonable depth of 31 feet. He indicated that retail takes about 2.5 times more parking than residential, and they really felt the mix in terms of providing the residential and still providing the retail fronting on Spring Street was a good blend. He added that there is an appropriate or a successful depth of retail spaces — 50 feet is good, 60 feet gets a little too deep, and 70 feet is marginally successful in terms of the rentability of that back area — and this is another supporting document for the retail being the size that it is on the ground floor, fronting on Spring Street. PLANNING COMMISSION MINUTES, August 26, 2015 Page 29 of 43