Demolition and appropriateness of Santa Maria plans tabled until November

On the agenda for Thursday afternoon’s meeting of the Historic Architectural Review Board in St Augustine was an Opinion of Appropriateness and Certificate of Demolition for the Santa Maria Restaurant, closed since its sale to White’s Wharf LLC.

The applicant for each request is Cronk Duch Architects — an unusual name that should sound familiar. Joseph S. Cronk is the man whose late-filed, on-again, off-again, application for a seat on the city board, was recently forwarded to the city commission for approval — even though Melinda Rakoncay, who’s name and paperwork was filed on time, never made it to the table.

Cronk does not live in St Augustine. His firm and business partner are in Jacksonville, although he has a branch office in the Cathedral Place office building on the plaza. Of course, since he is employed by David and Cathy White, he won’t be able to vote on these two applications.

The City has postponed hearing these applications administratively; they are being continued until the November 19th meeting because the Cronk recusal and other member’s schedules will not allow a quorum.

The restaurant is located at 135 Avenida Menendez. The opinion of appropriateness asks to construct a replacement building for the existing restaurant characterized by a grouping of buildings with shingle-covered, gable roof systems and shed dormers, a covered wrap-around porch, and two detached hipped roof structures.

The building faces the HP-2 zoning district and the visible facades to the historic district must be found to be reasonably compatible.

Historic Architectural Review Board members include, H. Randal Roark, Chair, Paul L. Weaver, III, Vice Chair, Matthew Armstrong, Joseph S. Cronk, and Antoinette Wallace.