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Developer seeks 14 zoning modifications for Ovation PUD in Franklin City
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Summary
At a Franklin City neighborhood meeting, Greg Gamble of Highwoods and Center Cal presented Revision 4 to the Ovation PUD and requested 14 modifications to development standards — including angled parking on internal drives, a loading area and screen along Crothers Parkway, expanded signage allowances, and an LED screen in Central Park — with questions raised about transit access and truck deliveries.
Greg Gamble, a landscape architect and land planner representing Highwoods and Center Cal, outlined 14 requested modifications to the Ovation planned unit development at a public neighborhood meeting, saying the changes would not increase residential density but would alter certain development standards to support retail, restaurants and public programming.
"There are no density increases in this proposed master plan revision," Gamble said, and added that "the first modification of standards that we're going to request from the board of mayor and aldermen has to do with permitting angled parking along internal drives." He described angled stalls as short-term, 15–30 minute spaces intended to serve quick visits to shops and cafes while most longer-term parking would be provided in distributed parking decks (Decks E, B, H and L).
The package includes a design-driven exception for Building C, which has two fronts and "no rear," Gamble said; the team proposes a loading area between the building and Crothers Parkway, achieved by lowering grade for truck access and screening the zone with a 10-foot masonry wall and landscape buffers. When an attendee asked whether the plan anticipates 18-wheel delivery trucks, Gamble replied, "There is a specific tenant, the print boutique grocery."
Gamble also asked to relax façade-orientation rules where buildings pull back to create pedestrian refuges and pocket parks along Encore Lane and Knoll Top Lane. He described a Central Park amenity — an LED display screen facing Building G that could host evening movie events and limited advertising for local businesses — as part of activating the public lawn area.
Signage was a substantial portion of the request. Gamble said the proposal would allow irregularly shaped band signs, canopy-top signs, freestanding directory signs in the landscape, internally illuminated hanging/projecting signs on internal drives, and adjusted rules for vertical blade signs to serve upstairs residential entries above ground-floor retail. He asked to permit both painted wall signs and conventional wall signs on the same façade in some cases and to increase allowable painted window signage from 15% to 20% of individual window area.
Residents and local officials who spoke praised the design choices. "I love the angle parking in certain places because it lends itself to quick in and out of stores," said Bev, a neighborhood participant who told the presenter the project is "in my ward" and encouraged more pedestrian spaces and angled building forms. Alderman Cesar joined late and said he would review the meeting recap.
Gamble framed the requests as modest, design-oriented changes intended to avoid reactive revisions during construction: "Our team is really getting down to the details early as opposed to waiting until we're way down the road under construction and then having some knee jerk reactions to some things." He said the formal requests for modifications will be made to the Board of Mayor and Aldermen and noted planning staff will post the recorded meeting to the city's neighborhood meetings web page.
Next steps: the presentation served as a neighborhood outreach session; the applicant will submit the modification requests to the Board of Mayor and Aldermen for their consideration, and planning staff will post the meeting recording online for public review.
