gunther volvo - News - The Coastal Star2024-03-28T13:55:29Zhttps://thecoastalstar.com/profiles/blogs/feed/tag/gunther+volvoGulf Stream: 11th-hour talks bring peace between Gunther Volvo and neighborshttps://thecoastalstar.com/profiles/blogs/gulf-stream-11th-hour-talks-bring-peace-between-gunther-volvo-and2017-05-31T16:30:00.000Z2017-05-31T16:30:00.000ZThe Coastal Starhttps://thecoastalstar.com/members/TheCoastalStar<div><p><strong>By Steve Plunkett</strong><br /> <br /> A proposed three-story garage that Place Au Soleil feared would bring unwelcome noise and light will instead be a concrete reminder of good-neighborliness.<br /> Eleventh-hour negotiations between Gulf Stream and Gunther Volvo resulted in a series of concessions just before Delray Beach’s Site Plan Review and Appearance Board gave the project its final OK.<br /> Four members of the public commented at the May 10 SPRAB meeting — Gulf Stream Mayor Scott Morgan, Place Au Soleil Homeowners Association President Chet Snavely, resident Julio Martinez and Ann Bennett, a Place Au Soleil resident and vice president of the town’s Civic Association. All were in favor.<br /> “I figure that we are going to be looking at this garage for the next 50 to 100 years, so it was important to us that we get a project that was digestible. I think, I hope that we’ve gotten to that point,” Snavely said.<br /> How the car dealership will control lights on the garage’s upper level, where its employees will park, led to the breakthrough of using motion sensors. Gunther lawyer Matthew Scott said it was too soon to say whether such devices would do the job.<br /> “We just had an aha moment about motion sensors today,” he told the review board.<br /> If the sensors will not work or if Delray Beach police do not approve the idea, Gunther will turn off half of the top-level lights at 9 p.m. and the remainder at 10. Delray Beach code would have allowed the lights to stay on until 11.<br /> Morgan, who called Gunther’s efforts “very reasonable,” sent a letter to town residents detailing changes the dealership would make. Among them:<br /> • Adding black honeycomb grilles to openings in the walls to cut noise and light, and recessing interior lights in the ceilings.<br /> • Moving the site for offloading vehicles from the east side of the property, next to Place Au Soleil, to the south side and restricting offloading to 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. weekdays. (“There will be no weekend delivery and it will not be at night,” Scott told the board.)<br /> • Adding a dense tree line to the 20 existing oaks on the east property line.<br /> • Making the perimeter berm higher and adding a wall on top, effectively making a 10-foot sound barrier.<br /> • Buying new car washing equipment designed to minimize noise and putting it inside the garage to make it even quieter.<br /> • Relocating the trash bin from the east side to the south side. <br /> • Not installing a public-address system outdoors.<br /> Review board member Linda Purdo-Enochs complimented both sides “for working together and finding a happy medium.”<br /> Gunther will also plant three more sabal palms at the southeast corner of the garage to screen it from the Delray Preserve apartment complex.<br /> The dealership’s current showroom is showing signs of age, Scott said. “It’s not exciting. It’s not fresh,” he said.<br /> Volvo is rebranding itself to get away from a historical emphasis on safety and become cool, Scott said. Gunther’s dated furniture inside will be replaced with a modern, warm, Scandinavian design.<br /> Under Delray Beach’s comprehensive plan, auto dealerships are “specifically directed” to the east side of Federal Highway north of Delray Preserve, city senior planner Amy Alvarez said. The garage, which will be 65 feet away from Place Au Soleil at its closest, could have been 10 feet away and met code, Scott said.<br /> Fort Lauderdale-based Gunther paid AutoNation $13.5 million in 2012 for the Volvo and neighboring Volkswagen dealerships. <br /> Snavely said letters he and the HOA overnighted to Joseph “Jay” Gunther Jr. and Joseph Gunther III were game changers. The older Gunther emailed back that he wanted “to work with you folks. You are our neighbors,” Snavely said.<br /> Relations between the car lot and Gulf Stream were less cordial in the months leading to the garage-showroom’s OK. <br /> As recently as mid-April, Snavely said the dealership was intransigent. “Volvo was not interested in spending any money for any redesign,” he said.</p></div>Gulf Stream: Place Au Soleil gears up for next battle with Gunther Volvo over parking garagehttps://thecoastalstar.com/profiles/blogs/gulf-stream-place-au-soleil-gears-up-for-next-battle-with-gunther2017-05-03T15:30:00.000Z2017-05-03T15:30:00.000ZThe Coastal Starhttps://thecoastalstar.com/members/TheCoastalStar<div><p style="text-align:center;"><a href="{{#staticFileLink}}7960716295,original{{/staticFileLink}}"><img width="500" src="{{#staticFileLink}}7960716295,original{{/staticFileLink}}" class="align-center" alt="7960716295?profile=original" /></a><em>Gunther Volvo plans to build a 31,050-square-foot showroom-service area and three-level parking garage</em></p>
<p style="text-align:center;"><em>on Federal Highway. Place Au Soleil homeowners fear the project will fill their neighborhood with noise and light.</em></p>
<p style="text-align:center;"><strong>Rendering courtesy City of Delray Beach</strong></p>
<p style="text-align:left;"><strong>By Steve Plunkett<br /> <br /></strong> Decision day is May 10 in Place Au Soleil’s fight to shield the neighborhood from a three-story garage Gunther Volvo wants to build right behind their single-family homes.<br /> Delray Beach’s Site Plan Review and Appearance Board postponed considering Gunther’s proposal at its April 26 meeting because it lacked a quorum. The car dealership backs up to Gulf Stream but sits inside Delray Beach.<br /> Earlier in the month, the Delray Beach Community Redevelopment Agency praised Gunther’s proposal, but encouraged its lawyer to work more to address Place Au Soleil’s concerns about noise and light.<br /> At the April 17 meeting of the Gulf Stream Town Commission, the president of the neighborhood’s homeowner association, Chet Snavely, said he and Mayor Scott Morgan met with Gunther representatives and Delray Beach officials to craft a solution, but without success.<br /> “The noise situation and the light situation were pretty much dismissed in Volvo’s response letter to our meeting,” Snavely said. “Volvo was not interested in spending any money for any redesign.”<br /> Morgan recruited the rest of the Town Commission to join the battle by having commissioners sign a letter opposing the plan that they had previously authorized Morgan to sign by himself. The letter was to go to Delray Beach planning officials and Mayor Cary Glickstein.<br /> “I just feel it should be signed by everyone,” Morgan said.<br /> Snavely said a barrier of aluminum louvers behind the 519-car garage would block the light and muffle the sound. So far, Gunther has agreed only to raise the concrete wall at the back of the parcel from 6 feet high to 8 feet.<br /> Fort Lauderdale-based Gunther bought the Volvo and neighboring Volkswagen dealerships in 2012 for $13.5 million from AutoNation. The land, which lies on a plat named Borton Motors after an earlier dealership, is designated for “auto sales” in Delray Beach’s land-use plan and zoned “automotive commercial.”<br /> <strong>In other business</strong>, commissioners met in closed sessions with their attorneys to decide what to do with one public records lawsuit brought by resident Martin O’Boyle and seven cases brought by resident Chris O’Hare. Outside counsel Robert Sweetapple said at the end of the month there had been no movement in any of the suits.<br /> O’Boyle urged the commissioners before the closed sessions to accept what he called his “sacrificial lamb” to end the litigation, without providing many details. “If you want to resolve all [the cases] as I do, we together have an opportunity to be fair with one another and accomplish just that goal,” O’Boyle said.</p></div>Gulf Stream: Town, neighbors unite to block plan for 3-story garagehttps://thecoastalstar.com/profiles/blogs/gulf-stream-town-neighbors-unite-to-block-plan-for-3-story-garage2017-03-01T18:52:13.000Z2017-03-01T18:52:13.000ZThe Coastal Starhttps://thecoastalstar.com/members/TheCoastalStar<div><p><strong>By Steve Plunkett</strong><br /> <br /> Town commissioners promised their Place Au Soleil constituents they would throw their weight behind an effort to block Gunther Volvo from building a three-story garage next to them in neighboring Delray Beach.<br /> “We are extremely concerned about the effect on our community of a vertical, heavy-commercial, vehicular traffic garage,” Chet Snavely, president of the neighborhood’s homeowner association, told commissioners at their Feb. 10 meeting. “It’s clearly an inappropriate proposal.”<br /> Snavely said the homeowners will be happiest if Gunther relocated the garage to the west side of Federal Highway, where it would back up to railroad tracks instead of abutting a residential area.<br /> But the dealership could also reposition the structure elsewhere on its property and perhaps make it two stories instead of three, he said.<br /> Another major concern of Place Au Soleil is a proposed water retention pond with a bottom at 10 feet of elevation surrounded by a 5-foot berm, Snavely said. The floors in the closest house to the dealership are 12 feet above sea level. <br /> “One of the three cardinal rules of plumbing, I believe, is that water flows downhill. And 15 feet to 12 feet is downhill,” Snavely said. <br /> The homeowners group met with Volvo representatives Jan. 23 to get information about the project before deciding to strongly oppose it. Also attending were Mayor Scott Morgan, Town Manager William Thrasher and the town’s staff attorney, Trey Nazzaro.<br /> “Very tall parking garage, lighting on top — no way that could be screened. That was most obvious,” Morgan said at the commission meeting. “The Volvo people said they could screen it some way. They talked about putting plants up the side of the parking garage to look more aesthetically pleasing, but it was pretty obvious it would have a terrible impact.”<br /> Commissioners voted unanimously to authorize Morgan to send a “strong” letter of opposition to Delray Beach planning officials, who are reviewing the plans, and to confer with Delray Beach Mayor Cary Glickstein and others in hopes of a regional solution.</p></div>Gulf Stream: Neighbors protest car dealership’s plans to expandhttps://thecoastalstar.com/profiles/blogs/gulf-stream-neighbors-protest-car-dealership-s-plans-to-expand2017-02-01T18:26:49.000Z2017-02-01T18:26:49.000ZThe Coastal Starhttps://thecoastalstar.com/members/TheCoastalStar<div><p><strong>By Steve Plunkett</strong><br /><br /> A proposed redevelopment plan by Gunther Volvo that includes a three-story parking garage at the back of the property has neighboring Place au Soleil up in arms. <br /> “We are very concerned about the pending Gunther Volvo development in Delray Beach on Federal Highway,” Chet Snavely, president of the Place au Soleil homeowners association, told Gulf Stream commissioners. “Good municipal planning is at stake here. We need a good relationship between the city of Delray and the town of Gulf Stream.”<br /> Quinn Miklos, whose home on Avenue Au Soleil is directly behind the car dealership, is heading up investigative efforts for the homeowners group. He listed the neighborhood’s concerns in a Jan. 9 letter to Delray Beach officials, warning that the proposal will have “dire consequences” for his community.<br /> Among those concerns:<br /> • A 21-foot-tall garage access ramp at the rear of Gunther Volvo that will abut the single-family residences, creating “an intensive ‘vertical travel’ vehicular use at the doorstep of our community.”<br /> • An extreme “intensity of use” with a 182,473-square-foot garage, 10,145-square-foot showroom, 9,398 square feet of automobile service area and 11,492 square feet for parts, car wash and service writers. “Unless I am mistaken, there is no existing commercial three-story building on the Federal [Highway] corridor that directly abuts a residential neighborhood — for good reason,” Miklos wrote.<br /> The architects took no notice that the garage will be visible in Place au Soleil. “Aesthetically the parking structure is brutally unappealing,” Miklos said.<br /> • Increased light pollution. Place au Soleil neighbors have already bought blackout curtains but cannot enjoy their yards at night because of the light spilling from the Volvo dealership, Miklos said. “There is a [7-foot]-high fence between our property with [20-foot]-high landscaping on our side and still the light pollutes our home,” he wrote.<br /> Snavely brought copies of Miklos’ letter to the Jan. 13 Town Commission meeting and met with Gunther representatives the following week. After that meeting, which he called “polite,” he said his group decided it is “totally against” the proposal.<br />“It’s a quality of life issue,” Snavely said.<br /> In other business:<br /> • Former Vice Mayor Robert Ganger, who resigned in July after suffering a stroke, spoke during the public comments portion of the meeting. “It’s been a long trip for me — nine months and a couple of weeks — and it’s supposed to get better in nine to 12 months, so this is kind of a little bit early,” he said. “All of you have been so kind and so thoughtful and I’m so, so, so very, very, very thankful. We’ve got a great town here, and an awful lot of awful nice people, and I really appreciate it.”<br /> • The construction company putting utility lines underground in the north part of town will bring in a third crew to meet its June 15 deadline. Consulting engineer Danny Brannon relayed a request from the contractor to allow work to be done on Saturdays, but commissioners refused, citing the noise caused by drilling and pumping.</p></div>