Proposed Brooklyn hotel recommended for DDRB denial

[thelakelander]

A proposal to convert a blighted surface parking lot into a 6-story Home 2 Suites hotel is being recommended for denial by the Downtown Development Review Board staff. Take a look at the proposed plans and let us know if you think this project would be a positive addition to the Brooklyn neighborhood.

Read More: https://www.thejaxsonmag.com/article/proposed-brooklyn-hotel-recommended-for-ddrb-denial/

[Charles Hunter]

And yet, the DDRB grants a step-back/height exception to the River City site apartments on the SB Riverwalk.

How is this hotel supposed to "wrap" the parking lot?  I guess they could spread the 100 rooms around as a 2-story motel?  Except in doing that, the building would consume nearly all of the hotel parcel.

[thelakelander]

They'd basically end up with an unfeasible project because they only option they'd have would be to build the hotel over the parking lot.

[marcuscnelson]

Seriously? I thought this had been approved months ago.

I'd like to see the people who came up with this policy draw what exactly the hotel is supposed to look like then, and where the financials to build and operate it are supposed to come from.

[jaxlongtimer]

And yet, the DDRB grants a step-back/height exception to the River City site apartments on the SB Riverwalk.

How is this hotel supposed to "wrap" the parking lot?  I guess they could spread the 100 rooms around as a 2-story motel?  Except in doing that, the building would consume nearly all of the hotel parcel.

All of these "decisions" come down to two things:  (1) No master plan/vision that developers and the community can count on and (2) so many exceptions made to any standards/policies that developers get false expectations that they will get the same exceptions those before them got (thus, the danger of making excessive exceptions).  This unpredictability, unequal treatment and uncertain enforcemnet of standards/policies makes development here a bigger crap-shoot than it already is.  This is why we have chaos in development and does more to drive developers (and their potential customers) away than anything else. 

This furthers my points about the lack of backbone in enforcing height setbacks along the riverfront.  I believe most developers would say just tell us the rules up front, however strict they may be, and don't leave us guessing as to which ones will be applied to our project and which ones won't vs. our competitors' projects .  As long as the "competition" is held to the same standards of enforcement, the playing field is level - no one will have a competitive advantage over another.

[acme54321]

Like this is somehow worse than the Residence Inn they approved? I guess it's important to make sure the hobos at School 4 don't have to look at a surface lot.

[jcjohnpaint]

This is insane and will kill this project.

[Steve]

It went for conceptual and got it, contingent on fixing some things (I don't remember what it was).

I think this is likely the case of the staff reading the law in black and white. Technically, it DOESN'T comply. Now, in practice most people would agree it's fine and we need to interpret different streets with different importance. For example, if the Park Street side was parking it should be denied. Or if they wanted to build this in the core, that should also be denied. There's no current legal definition difference between any of the streets at this intersection.

Cooler heads need to recognize that all three streets need to be treated different.

- Park is clearly the most important street, and on it you have part of the restaurant, an entrance, the fitness center, and a meeting room. It's not bad and better than most of Park Street
- Rosselle is sort of a "secondary street", and the entire building frontage is a restaurant, then you have an outdoor courtyard, dumpster enclosure, and some greenspace at the corner of Chelsea. Totally fine.
- Chelsea is a service street. It's 2 blocks long and cut off on either end by things that aren't changing in our lifetime. It's not a pedestrian corridor and will never be.  Heck College Street behind it has a better shot given that it passes under 95.

Look, this is never going to be some marquee hotel for the city or anything and it isn't going to win architectural awards. But, especially for that location, it's FINE.

[Captain Zissou]

Like this is somehow worse than the Residence Inn they approved? I guess it's important to make sure the hobos at School 4 don't have to look at a surface lot.

It seems like they're trying to make up for past wrongs and taking things too far in the other direction.  They said if they didn't cave for the Gate and the Residence Inn then no one else would ever try to build anything there.  Now they are taking the opposite stance.  They should have had the stance all along that developers need to comply with design standards to preserve the character of the neighborhood, but that ship has sailed and this project is doing much more than most in the area.

[jaxjags]

I think this is fine for the area it is located as all have pointed out. Given hotel business is still struggling and this is not at the Landing Site, I would be careful not to cut off future hotel development. Times are different today than when Gate and Residence Inn were approved.

I'd rather River City change, as it did on river, versus this on Park Street. The Park street side is fine. As Captain stated this is an overreaction.

Does the DDRB report to DIA? Please help give me whom to contact to voice my opinion.

[Zac T]

The DDRB unanimously approved the hotel

The Downtown Development Review Board approved a resolution Thursday that will allow the construction of a proposed hotel in the Brooklyn neighborhood.

https://www.bizjournals.com/jacksonville/news/2021/05/13/downtown-board-allows-exemption-approves-brooklyn.html

[Charles Hunter]

Sanity!

[jaxjags]

I sent a message to the DDRB and Lori Boyer on Tuesday summarizing all of the comments given in The Jaxon for support of this project. Not sure it helped but really glad to see this get approved!

[marcuscnelson]

I don't know if I love this design vs the one before, but yeah, build it. Hopefully the DDRB takes this as a lesson in needing to reconsider street hierarchy and improving the rules.

[Steve]

I don't know if I love this design vs the one before, but yeah, build it. Hopefully the DDRB takes this as a lesson in needing to reconsider street hierarchy and improving the rules.

This was the obvious thing from the DDRB. They definitely got this one right. I had to drop towards the end of Board Comments, but all seemed to actually understand that Chelsea Street is always going to be more of a service type street. Further, they also disagreed with staff's report that the "site" wasn't unique. The Staff report focused on the fact that it was a square. To me, the shape is the entirely of making the "site" unique. Other adjacent property needs to be considered, both public ROW and private property which they did here.