The Franklin Board of Mayor and Aldermen and Municipal Planning Commission discussed a development plan revision to The Factory at Franklin at a joint workshop Thursday night.
The plan proposes adding a 2,600-square-foot carousel building and modifications of standards related to signage, refuse area placement and fencing height.
Local bronze artist and master carver Ken Means will assist in the carousel’s construction and provide the carousel animals, which he has been carving and painting for several years. His work includes horses, giraffes, tigers, dragons and other whimsically designed species, and he has been featured in multiple news outlets.
The carousel building’s accessory use is considered commercial recreation. The city of Franklin zoning ordinance reserves the use for establishments “engaged in providing participatory athletic, recreational or physical fitness services to the public for a fee, such as fitness and recreational sports centers, health and fitness studios, bowling centers, miniature golf courses, paintball or laser tag arenas, recreational day camps and other recreational activities.”
Holladay Properties, which purchased The Factory late last year, is also requesting to allow dumpsters in the second frontage of The Factory along Liberty Pike and amending the wall height chart to enable a wall to be closer than the required 15 feet from the lot line in a side street of a corner lot. Both requests require modification of standards.
“Our request to modify this standard would accommodate expanded capacity by new businesses and tenants, integrate with proposed parking, and be screened from view with additional landscaping,” a presentation at Thursday’s workshop read.
Furthermore, Holladay Properties wants to allow signage to be the shape of an item that is representative of a tenant logo or symbol, one band sign per tenant along the same façade, canopy signs to be above or below the roof line, vertical blade signs along a façade when the elevation is less than two stories, one small projecting sign per tenant along the same façade and two direct painted wall sign signs on the existing water tower at approximately 350 square feet each.
“There’s a great pedestrian activation happening here, and I think we ought to treat this property a little differently because of that,” Ward 2 Alderman Matt Brown said. “I think we can all be very excited about the economic, the cultural and the quality of life impact this thing is going to have on our community, so I think to the extent we need to make those modifications, we should.”
The development plan revision will be resubmitted on Aug. 4 for the planning commission’s discussion on Aug. 25.
