ARMENIAN RESTAURANT DESIGN IS APPROVED
By Jason Wells

Glendale News Press.
Aug 17 2007
CA

Revised plans mean Urartu gets green light to move into site Shakey’s
Pizza formerly occupied.

CITY HALL – Plans for an Armenian restaurant to take over a former
pizza joint that have been stuck in a design quagmire with the city
and surrounding community won final approval Thursday.

Construction plans to rebuild the former site of Shakey’s Pizza at
3463 Foothill Blvd. can now move forward after a Glendale Design
Review Board unanimously approved changes to the original design that
was rejected July 19.

Janelle Williams, the land-use consultant representing the project,
told the board Thursday that the new design addresses concerns brought
up in the July meeting, as well as those that came out of two community
input sessions.

Board members had originally sent the project back for a redesign
based on opposition from La Crescenta residents and activists, who
felt it was incongruent with a forthcoming master plan guiding the
design future of the Foothill Boulevard corridor.

Williams facilitated the meetings between those community members
and the architects for the new restaurant, to be called "Urartu,"
which will see a 472-square-foot addition and an extensive remodel.

"There was a real spirit of cooperation there," she said.

What came out of those meetings was a simplified design with more
glass, a toned-down color scheme and more comprehensive landscaping,
she said.

The new plans – and the process that brought them – were widely
praised by board members, some of whom had criticized the original
design for superfluous details that bogged down the overall concept.

But board member John Cianfrini referred to those initial criticisms
as blocking cultural acceptance of the restaurant owners who clearly
wanted to advertise their Armenian cuisine through the building’s
architecture.

"I’m rather unhappy that the first one didn’t pass," he said.

But other board members dismissed that assertion, instead applauding
the spirit of cooperation that led to the result.

"I think it was needed," board member Hamlet Zohrabians said.

"I think it brought more harmony to the neighborhood."

The Crescenta Valley Chamber of Commerce, which had opposed the
original design for not fitting the neighborhood mold, is now excited
for the restaurant to become the newest addition to the business
community, said Eleanor Wacker, a board member for the chamber.

"We put in our input, and I think they listened to us," she said.

Rebuffing Cianfrini’s assertion that the more toned-down design
stripped the restaurant of its Armenian style, design board member
Giuseppe Aliano said the project still communicated its purpose,
just in a more stylistically clean way.

"It still conveys the same ideas," he said. "You serve Armenian food?

The architecture says it."

In approving the design, the review board attached a condition
calling for a landscape plan that would complement the entire site
and new building.

Board members also heard lingering concerns from the Crescenta Valley
Town Council’s Foothill Design Committee, which is finalizing a
set of design standards for the Foothill Corridor in unincorporated
La Crescenta.

While the restaurant technically is in Glendale, it is near the
border with La Crescenta and along the corridor the Town Council
hopes to make more pedestrian-friendly with upgraded amenities and
enhanced landscaping.

Richard Toyon, who co-chairs the Foothill Design Committee, told
board members the committee was still concerned about a lack of trees
blocking the parking lot, lack of pedestrian access from the street
and the fact that the main entrance to the restaurant was on the
building’s side.

But he stopped short of calling for a continuance of the review,
instead echoing Wacker’s sentiments.

"We want them to have a successful restaurant; we want them to be
very much in the limelight," he said.