“The risk of creating something new to look old is hard to execute and can come off as contrived,” he said at neighborhood meeting for the project in March.

This is not the first time an addition to the Browzer building has been proposed. The project appeared before the UDC in 2005, the application said. That plan called for a remodel of the two-story building and an addition of four stories. The remodel was completed, Bruce said, but the addition never took place.

A similar project for the property appeared before the UDC in 2009. It too, proposed a four-story addition to the existing building. Langhammer was the developer of the project, and his design created 20 apartment units in the addition. The UDC said that design was not inspiring, and a “throwback to the 80s.”

Bruce said the current plan was essentially another iteration of the previous designs, with a different exterior.