SCOTTS VALLEY — Imagine a four-story 180-room hotel, a four-story building with 74 luxury apartments, 100 senior apartments, a restaurant and 500 parking spaces — 489,000 square feet in all — on the 17.7-acre vacant parcel next to the Scotts Valley Hilton on La Madrona Drive.
Most of the 70 people who heard Brent Lee’s team on Wednesday night talk about the project could not.
A formal application has yet to be submitted to the city, but a preliminary plan calls for building on 10.8 acres, with the steeply sloped land left as open space.
“We’re pretty good at fighting,” said Kathleen Waidhofer, who lives in Monte Fiore, a gated community on Silverwood Drive next to the proposed development site. “We fought against Target and we won. Come back with an alternative.”
Lee, a nuclear engineer from San Jose, told the standing-room only crowd at the Scotts Valley Water District community room that he had talked to Mayor Jim Reed and received good advice.
“We don’t want a fight” he said. “We want what’s good for the community.”
Residents were skeptical.
Scotts Valley resident Chris Duarte, who works in health care, said the development would be comparable in size to Kaiser Permanente’s hospital in San Jose.
“I don’t think they did their homework,” she said of the development team.
How big?
A 180-room hotel would be larger than Hotel Paradox, 170 rooms, and the Dream Inn, 165 rooms, both in Santa Cruz, but smaller than Seascape Resort, with 285 suites and villas in Aptos.
Kathy Thibodeaux, a land-use consultant from Mountain View, led the community input session, with Jeff Fleming of Amazing Hospitality in Portland, Oregon, Anthony Ho of LPMD Architects in Sunnyvale and landscape architect Jay Isaacson of Fremont in attendance.
Thibodeaux said the city’s environmental impact report consultant was in the room taking notes.
She wrote down dozens of concerns, which she said would be considered as the team discusses how to move forward.
She said the plans were not fully developed, acknowledging a site layout posted at the meeting did not represent current thinking.
One woman attending said the buildings as designed “look like they are in Mountain View,” to which Thibodeaux said, “Don’t knock my city.”
Some suggested the team visit 1440 Multiversity, a $50 million retreat center in Scotts Valley, to see suitable architecture. Ho and Lee have seen it but Thibodeaux, Fleming and Isaacson have not.
The developer needs the City Council to amend the general plan and approve a zone change to allow housing and four-story buildings. Vice mayor Jack Dilles attended the input session but did not comment.
How tall?
The Scotts Valley Fire District does not have a ladder truck needed to fight a fire at a four-story building, an issue that arose this year during discussions of the proposed Town Center-Town Green project on Mount Hermon Road.
Fleming said he knew Scotts Valley because in 2011-2012 he worked on a proposal to turn the former Borland headquarters off Highway 17 into a rehab center for professional athletes.
That did not come to fruition, but he contended Scotts Valley is a prime spot for a four-star branded hotel with Scotts Valley Hilton’s occupancy at 83 percent, and mentioning Marriott, Starwood and InterContinental,
Fleming expected a 180-room hotel after three years would generate room tax revenue for the city of $1.35 million annually.
“I love your community,” he said. “You have great potential.”
Asked if he could guarantee a quality hotel, Fleming said, “If we spend $40 million, we have a responsibility to our lender to pay our note. Motel 6 won’t repay that note.”
Traffic issue
Residents in Monte Fiore and on Miraflores Road next to the Hilton worried they could be trapped in case of a fire evacuation with residential streets clogged by cars exiting the new development and that heavy traffic would damage local roads.
They asked about traffic counts — a required study has not been done yet — and water use, for which information was not available, and if trees to be cut would be marked with netting.
Asked how many redwoods would be cut down, Isaacson said, “Eight,” adding that oaks with sudden oak disease and the acacias also would be removed but two circles of redwoods would remain.
“Remove those damn acacias,” one attendee said. “They’re invasive species.”
Another attendee said he didn’t want exterior lights making it impossible to see the Milky Way at night.
Asked about if the apartments would bring students to Scotts Valley schools, Thibodeaux said she had asked the school district and learned administrators would welcome a boost in enrollment.
“True statement,” said Michael Shulman, who is on the school board.
“We’re not anti-everything — it feels way too dense,” one woman said.
“Why does it have to be so big?” one man asked. “Why not a 100-room hotel and 50 apartments?”
