Developers and design team members presented an updated design for a community education/assembly project at 59 North Front Street, describing a single-story pavilion-like building and an amphitheater-style outdoor seating area. The board agreed to begin coordinated review and to circulate project materials to Columbia County, the State Historic Preservation Office and relevant state environmental agencies.

Project and code path
The applicant said the building will be filed under the ‘E’ occupancy classification in the building code and is designed to accommodate programmatic activities; the maximum building occupant load used for the fire-code calculation is 136 but the operational enrollment the applicant seeks site-plan approval for is 90 students and 10 staff. The team said the one-story redesign improved accessibility and simplified egress/egress calculations.

Floodplain, stormwater and geotech
The site is partly within the FEMA flood hazard area, the team reported; the design raises building foundation levels and proposes compensatory excavations and stormwater management. The applicant said they had completed multiple geotechnical borings and will provide the geotech report and updated water/wastewater engineering documentation in the municipal portal. The board requested a floodplain overlay on the site plan and compensatory-volume calculations to document how proposed fill will be offset.

Coordination and next steps
The board voted to declare a coordinated review and to circulate the application to Columbia County planning and the state agencies identified during the meeting. The applicant was asked to post updated engineering reports, lighting and landscape plans and a project narrative describing daily operations (drop-off/bus routing, deliveries and staging) before returning for a formal hearing.