Design Advisory Board gives Williams Village site review feedback on entries, massing and retail layout

City of Boulder Design Advisory Board members on March 12 reviewed a site‑review proposal to redevelop the Williams Village area at the southwest corner of Baseline Road and 30th Street, offering detailed design feedback but no formal approvals.

Chandler Van Schaack, case manager in the Planning and Development Services Department, described the proposal as “to redevelop the site shown here at 2952 Baseline Road with 5 new buildings from 4 to 5 stories each that would include a total of 412 dwelling units. A 27 of those are intended to be student housing. And then there'd be a large ground floor retail component, which would actually increase the amount of commercial square footage on the site from, I think, 54,000 and change to, about 60,000 square feet of commercial use.”

The board’s discussion focused on a handful of recurring design issues staff flagged in the packet: where building entries engage the public realm, the visual impact of long, uniform facades and parapet lines, how to configure ground‑floor retail and grocery access, and balcony treatment. Members gave the applicant a mix of specific requests and general design direction and asked the applicant to return with revisions; no formal site‑review decision was made.

Applicant team representatives from Coburn Architecture outlined the design intent. “The site is…