New Hartland hotel proposal now calls for three stories, not four

A hotel and mixed-used space is back on the table in the village of Hartland.

The proposal for the lot located at 221 Cottonwood Ave. sparked outrage from community members who adamantly spoke against the project at the Oct. 17 plan commission meeting. There, concerns were brought up about the height of the then-proposed four-story project as well as inadequate parking. It was denied by the plan commission via a 3-2 vote.

After some revisions were made by James Kupfer, a real estate investor with Kupfer Investments LLC, Chris Miller, owner of Miller Marriott Construction, and their team, they presented the new concept to the village board Nov. 14.

The biggest change to the plan is the elimination of apartments on the third and fourth floors. Instead, the new plans eliminate the fourth floor entirely, which neighbors and plan commission members had spoken against.

A boutique hotel would have rooms on the second and third floors.

The hotel would include 48 rooms. Two would be 800-square-foot executive suites, four would be accessible rooms, and 42 units would be regular rooms with around 450 square feet each.

"Not only did we cut the fourth floor, we cut the gables off of there," Kupfer told the village board. "This leaves our roofline about 22- to 23-feet high. That is lower than every house going up the street. Every house going up the street is a two-story with gables that are in the 25-foot range. We wanted to pull the building down so it wasn’t any taller than any of the neighbors’ houses.”

On the ground floor would be a 5,000-square-foot events space, space for a hotel lobby and a 3,000-square-foot commercial space that Kupfer hopes will be filled by a restaurant. An outdoor events space is also proposed.

Noise from an events space was also a concern raised by neighbors and plan commission members at the Oct. 17 meeting. Kupfer said that would not be an issue.

"As far as noise, all events are over by 11 p.m.," he said. "There is no music, there are no speakers and nothing in the outside space. Anytime there will be music playing, it will only be on the inside space with the doors closed."

Parking was also a concern. Fifty-eight spots were initially proposed for an underground parking lot. Now, that number is 32 underground and 16 on the edge of the property along Park Avenue which would be open to the public.

The underground spots would be for hotel guests and not events, Kupfer said. Event guests would park on the street or in the municipal lot.

Although the village board was only voting whether to move it to the plan commission again, Trustee Ann Wallschlager raised similar concerns to the ones she had during the plan commission meeting last month when she voted to deny the project. In particular, Wallschlager said that the plans lacked the necessary parking the building needed to provide.

"I love the idea of this, I really do, but this is not the property for that," Wallschlager said. "The footprint of this, I feel, is still not right for that lot and again, that’s without going into the details that I’ve spent four days going through. You have to come up with a way to find more parking."

With no other comments, the village board voted to send the concept to the plan commission for consideration. Wallschlager was the lone nay vote. The concept is expected to be presented at the Nov. 21 plan commission meeting.

Drew Dawson can be reached at ddawson@jrn.com or 262-289-1324.