Last night the Sacramento City Council discussed the future of the proposed 23 story hotel and parking garage at 8th & K/L St. by developer Bob Leach/USA Hospitality. The last time Mr. Leach was to appear before the Council two weeks ago, he asked for a delay because his proposal was going to be slammed over the financing for the proposal. This time he came back to the council offering 40% of cash flow instead of 10% over 10 years and asking for 50% of the Transient Occupancy Tax rebate over 14 years instead of 100% over 10 years. USA Hospitality’s now asking for $31.5 million subsidy from the city in an effort to make this project feasible. After a few council members made their opinions known about keeping the façade of the Bel-Vue by incorporating it into the hotel project, the council agreed to a 90 day extension to see if USA Hospitality can pull things together and make this project work.
It looks as though the 90 day extension may have ended Tony Giannoni hopes to also build a 165-room hotel at 10th & K Street. A spokesman on behalf of Mr. Giannoni told the council that if they gave a 90 day extension to the 8th & K St. hotel proposal, they would see that as a sign to drop their project because the market could not support both projects. If after 90 days the USA Hospitality’s bid gets rejected by the council and the other proposal at 10th & K has already withdrawn their plans… we could be left with no new hotels on K Street.
This project still has to go through the Design Review Commission and Planning Commission as a part of the entitlement process. If this current design with the separate parking garage manages to be approved by both the Planning Commission and Design Review Commission, it will demonstrate in my opinion that neither the Commissions or the City Council really understand their roll in helping both designers and developers comprehend the rich context of this unique place in our city.
Hopefully that doesn't happen. The people that are involved need to really look into the issue, and make sure no mistakes are done. City blocks need to have curb appeal, that's what attracts people to the core in the first place. A cool-hip scene, well planned. Sacramento is suburbia, so people like going into downtown to get that city feel. So I would assume that the residents of Sacramento would want a downtown we can all be proud of. Once the project is done, it is done. It's not like you can go back with an eraser and erase a whole city block and start all over again..
ReplyDeleteWell said becks :)
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