By Brian CHERNICK

Glendale City Council failed to bring up a vote on a boutique hotel project design at the April 4 meeting after more than three hours of presentations, public comments and deliberation.

The hearing regarded the design of a future Hotel Indigo, a six-story 140-room high-end establishment owned by the InterContinental Hotel Group (IHG) on the 200 block of Maryland. The vote would have come months after the council voted 4-1 to send the project back to developers in order to address concerns regarding parking availability, project density and open space available for the public. Current city code requires one parking space per room; however, a staff report cited recent studies that have found hotel parking demand is closer to a 0.7 and 0.8 spaces per room. Even with the smaller ratio, the project would still fall 16 to 30 parking spaces short of the requirement dictated by city code.

Newly named City of Glendale Mayor Zareh Sinanyan and Councilmember Ara Najarian expressed their willingness to concede on the variance arguing that the hotel would be good for the city, which has been seeking to build a high-end hotel.

Residents, union members and business owners of Glendale spoke out against the project citing the need for more public spaces and affordable housing and requesting stronger guarantees from the hotel owners to provide jobs for local residents with union-equivalent benefits and pay. Danielle Wilson, representing the labor union group Unite Here Local 11, brought into question a portion of the lease agreement between the developers and the city that stipulated a $264,000 yearly rent credit for the first 10 years of operation to account for the construction of the public parking structure.

“[This] seems unreasonably justified by the fact that the developer is merely replacing the spots that are already there,” Wilson said, referring to the 66-space surface level public parking lot that would be demolished to make way for the hotel. As the project stands now, the current lot would be replaced with a subterranean structure that would accommodate 63 public spaces with three street level spots.

“Hotel Indigo is the perfect project for this market,” IHG Vice President Chris Dobbins said. “It’s about a neighborhood story, it’s about creating jobs, good jobs, for people. It’s about creating more economic taxes for the city to do more things with the city.”

Dobbins also argued that parking availability at boutique hotels typically is not in much demand due to its mostly younger adult patrons who are more likely to forgo owned or rented cars in favor of ride share options such as Lyft and Uber.

Councilmembers appeared to be in agreement over additional conditions to the project, including that developers provide an additional 30 parking spaces and a 15% local hiring requirement.

Deliberations came to a halt after Councilmemebr Vrej Agajanian suggested that the hotel owners donate $250,000 to the city’s affordable housing fund, positioning it as a condition to gain his vote to approve the project. Mayor Sinanyan and project developers questioned legality of such a condition. According to City Attorney Mike Garcia, because the lease is of public property, such a condition could be placed in the lease agreement but would require renegotiation.

Sinanyan adjourned the meeting to allow developers to consider the conditions and better assess Agajanian’s request.

City council is planning to bring the item back to vote in two weeks at the April 17 meeting.

  Brian CHERNICK