Plans for a boutique hotel at the intersection of San Antonio Road and Main Street could fizzle if the city requires a larger public plaza on one side of the proposed three-story building.
Abigail Ahrens presented plans to the Architecture and Site Review Committee (A&S) June 30, earning a 2-1 approval for a 4,500-square-foot, 19-unit French-style hotel dubbed “Enchanté” on the 6,000 square-foot gateway property. The site, formerly a Shell Station, has been an empty sandlot for years.
The plans are scheduled to go before the planning commission Aug. 5.
According to Ahrens, the city would require a public plaza on the corner of San Antonio and Main to comply with Downtown Design Guidelines. But A&S committee members said the plaza might need to be larger to satisfy city desires.
If the plaza were to increase by more than 2 feet, Ahrens said, it could knock out one of the hotel’s rooms and render the project financially infeasible.
“I could lose my financing,” Ahrens said. “And then there’d be no hotel.”
Natalie Taaffe, the Alta Alliance Bank senior vice president and construction lender handling financing for the project, was unavailable for comment before the Town Crier’s press deadline.
Ahrens purchased the property in April from developer Jeff Warmoth, who submitted plans in 2008 for a mixed-use office building on the site, but that project languished after the city council approved the plans in April 2008.
Ahrens, who has designed and sold many homes in Los Altos, said the city hasn’t provided adequate incentives for her to develop the site.
“I’m the good guy – I’m giving one-third less parking demand (than Warmoth’s previous proposal). Where’s my bonus burger?” Ahrens asked, adding, Los Altos “is giving me nothing.”
Warmoth’s 2008 permit reveals that the city approved 31 parking spaces and approximately 1,000 more square feet of mixed-use building area than the current hotel project in exchange for the inclusion of a public plaza.
According to a staff report, Ahrens hasn’t proposed any new parking spots, but 20 spaces are required per city code, said David Kornfield, planning services manager for Los Altos. Two nearby parking plazas would likely satisfy that need.
Additionally, based on the project’s proposed use, Kornfield said, most traffic associated with the hotel would occur in the late afternoon and evening – when there isn’t as much demand for city parking.
If hotel patrons “are doing business in town, they’re probably being dropped off by friends, airport shuttle or taxi,” Kornfield said. “Amenities would all be within walking distance, and there’d be reduced parking.”
Ahrens said she began planning a hotel for the lot more than a year ago.
“I feel the community has always said it wanted a hotel,” she said. “I feel I could do it because of the kind of residential scale I would give to a commercial-use building.”
Economic benefits
A&S committee member Randall Hull said that rather than nitpick code-compliance details, the project should get rolling.
“We need to figure out what to do with this city,” Hull said June 30. “Are we going to keep a sandlot for fear of the parking boogeyman? … We’re letting our fears get in the way of something that in the long term will be very useful…. It will be a dynamic improvement to our (downtown) gateway.”
Anne Stedler, economic development coordinator for Los Altos, said that while her department hasn’t crunched numbers on the preliminary proposal, it could provide a valuable boost in occupancy-tax revenue for the city.
Kornfield said revenue from a hotel could rival that from a retail business.
“Although (the hotel) wouldn’t generate sales tax, it would generate a transient occupancy tax,” he said. “Typically, patrons of hotels spend a lot of money. It would be good foot traffic, too (for downtown merchants).”
Contact Elliott Burr at [email protected].
