Roma Pizza in Pottsville impressed the city's Historical Architectural Review Board on Wednesday night with a facade renovation plan that included an awning and stone veneer.
"We're sprucing up the whole place from top to bottom," Peter F. Russo, co-owner of the restaurant at 116 W. Market St., said at the HARB meeting held in the second-floor conference room at City Hall.
"And the awning, that will be a canvas awning?" HARB Chairman Michael Cardamone asked.
"Yes. It will be standard. It will come out with a flat edge. It might have our name on it or something to that effect," Russo said.
The plan was approved with a motion by HARB Member Stephen Buzalko, seconded by HARB member Marcia Smink and carried unanimously.
Other HARB members present Wednesday were Lisa Fishburn and Ann Shollenberger. Also there was the board's solicitor, Tom Campion, and David J. Petravich, city deputy code enforcement officer and HARB recording secretary.
HARB's approval is a recommendation to city council. The council may vote on the plan at its February meeting slated for 6:30 p.m. Monday at council chambers, City Hall.
Roma Pizza opened in 1969 at 116 W. Market St. It was started by two brothers, John and Frank Russo. John's son, Peter J., Orwigsburg, now co-owns the restaurant with his cousin, Peter F., also of Orwigsburg.
The restaurant only sold pizza and soda until a 1995 expansion added other items, like subs and burgers, to the menu. During a second expansion in 2004, a downstairs dining room was added and a liquor license was acquired. A new facade was built for the restaurant, and an old building was removed to make way for parking.
In 2008, a second floor was added to the dining room.
Last year, the owners started renovating a former laundromat just west of its current restaurant to expand its kitchen and counter area.
"We're about 75 to 80 percent complete," Peter F. Russo said Wednesday night.
"We're going to change the counter area, the pizza display area. We're going to have a brick oven there. Our standard ovens are going to be behind us. And on display we're going to have breads, pizzas and pastries," Russo said.
Russo did not have a specific time frame for completion: "It will be in the next few months."
The facade improvements are being made to improve the look of the entire front of the restaurant, and to make the new addition match the rest of the complex, Russo said.
"For the exterior, we wanted to do some type of stone, a cobblestone effect with grout lines," Russo said.
He brought samples of the type of stone he'd like to use. Colors included dark gray and shades of brown and tan.
"The stone veneer will run along the bottom sections of each store front, starting at the east side of the property and continuing west to the parking lot," Russo said in his application to the city.
"Stone will also be applied to sections between the windows," Russo said.
Eventually, he'd like to install an awning, which will also run east to west. While a color hasn't been selected, Russo said, "it will match the stone veneer."
"As long as it's consistent with the historic colors," Cardamone said.
"I was thinking of a heavy beige or maybe a charcoal black," Russo said.
"That would be fine," Cardamone said.
In other matters at Wednesday's HARB meeting, the board advice to Mike Ghannoum, owner of an art gallery, "Mike Ghannoum Art" at 2-4 N. Centre St., on how to replace a temporary door he installed on the front of his building.
In 2011, HARB recommended Ghannoum install two steel-framed clear glass doors, according to Buzalko.
However, Ghannoum installed a single residential-style door with a leaded stained glass window on the front of his building, contrary to recommendations made by HARB, according to Petravich.
"I really wanted one door," Ghannoum said at Wednesday's meeting.
"But you didn't ask permission from the board to put the single door in," Petravich said.
Cardamone said HARB is willing to see the existing door as "a temporary solution." But HARB doesn't want it in the city's historic district for a long period of time.
"You need to have doors that are consistent with the style of the building. That building was a commercial building. The door you've put in, while satisfactory in a residential setting, is not acceptable to go along with the architecture of that commercial building," Cardamone said.
On Wednesday, Cardamone said the board may allow Ghannoum to install one steel-framed clear glass door instead of two. But said the board needs to see a picture of a proposed replacement door first. And if the board approves the replacement project, it must be given final approval by the city council before Ghannoum can go forward with it.
Ghannoum, who was at Wednesday's meeting, agreed to get pictures of possible replacements. But he complained that the replacement project may be expensive.
"Really, I can't afford it," Ghannoum said.
"I'm telling you that there are certain requirements and certain conditions that are part of being in the historic district," Cardamone said.
"Fine. Fine," Ghannoum said.
"I see this as a temporary solution. This door is not a permanent solution. It's not something I want to see on the building 30 years from now," Cardamone said.
In June 2007, Ghannoum, Ashland, bought the property, the former Centre Square building, and turned it into an art gallery featuring his own work and paintings of little-known artists. A high-profile building in the city, it stands at Centre and Norwegian streets.