EXETER — Engineers contracted by the new owners of the Ioka wrote the Select Board saying the building’s iconic marquee will require a "significant" amount of structural reinforcement and is currently not in a "safe condition."
Attorney Sharon Somers, representing Ioka Properties LLC, wrote in a July 24 letter, owners David Cowie and Jay Caswell are seeking permission to remove the marquee on a "temporary basis" and stored off site, while interior stabilization work on the building continues. In her letter she states the town will be subject liability if the marquee were to fall and result in, "injury or property" damage.
The request comes after the town’s Historic District Commission (HDC) voted to require Ioka Properties LLC to keep the former movie theater’s marquee as part of the proposed redevelopment of the building. The applicants originally submitted a design without the marquee and were proposing to take one set of the "IOKA" letters and run them down the front of the building.
The preliminary project entails converting the first floor into retail space, a speakeasy-style bar in the basement, with a river deck to be constructed within the building’s foundation in the Squamscott River and condominiums on the upper floors.
"The purpose of the removal being to eliminate a situation that may result in injury," Somers’ letter reads. "As the issues in this letter are urgent, and where we are unable to take action due to the ruling of the Historic District Commission, request the (Select Board) take immediate action to prevent injury and property damage."
With her letter, Somers provided an evaluation of the marquee from JSN Associates, a Portsmouth structural engineering firm. The evaluation from JSN President Jeffrey Nawrocki states the marquee protrudes eight feet from the building and is affixed with a single chain to the front of the building and is causing "distress cracks" in the masonry it’s attached to above a second-floor window.
"It is safe to say engineers do not like heavy objects pulling on the face of un-reinforced masonry buildings," Nawrocki’s evaluation reads. "(The marquee) is currently not a safe condition and would take a significant amount of structural reinforcing to correct it."
The letter goes onto state if the Select Board was unwilling to grant the request to remove the marquee, Somers sought closure of the sidewalk running underneath the marquee while construction was ongoing by the board.
While the decision to keep the marquee was within the HDC’s purview, the Select Board had the authority to order the closure of the sidewalk but did not put the issue to a vote.
Instead, the Select Board wants clarification from Ioka Properties on the timeline for removing the marquee on a "temporary basis" the owners had in mind. Chairman Niko Papakonstantis ended up referring the matter entire back to the HDC to discuss the proposal with the applicants.
"Temporary can mean a lot of things to a lot of people," Papakonstantis said. "If in fact it did work out that portion of sidewalk and road were closed, I would think as a town we want to know what the finite period is."
HDC Chairman Patrick Gordon participated in the board’s Zoom meeting and said he welcomed the owners Ioka Properties returning before the commission to bring "more clarity" on their construction process. He said he did not necessarily oppose the temporary removal of the marquee, but barring a successful appeal to the Zoning Board of Adjustment on the part of the Ioka owners to tear it down, he wanted to ensure the marquee would be re-attached and stabilized, otherwise risk a zoning violation.
"We understand that with construction going on above (the marquee) it’s going to be hard to protect if you have new openings being cut into masonry, and you have pre-cast lintels that you’re going to be cutting out and moving," Gordon said. "There’s got to be a construction sequence in place to make sure it’s protected. … There’s multiple things that can be done to help save the structure, but what I don’t want to hope is that this is an attempt to short circuit of the HDC decision without going through the formal appeal process."
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July 31, 2020 at 12:26AM
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