PROPOSED POWAY HOTEL’S HEIGHT REQUEST DRAWS CRITICS
Some community members expressed opposition to a proposed hotel in the South Poway Business Park during a virtual neighborhood meeting last week.
The hotel’s height and its visual impact was a point of contention for meeting attendees, as well as concerns about how allowing the variance could impact future developments.
Serendipity Hospitality is proposing to build a fivestory, 58-room boutique hotel at 14082 Stowe Drive in the business park. The 1.23-acre parcel is at the northeast corner of Scripps Poway Parkway and Stowe Drive. It is next to the Hampton Inn & Suites hotel. Building Serendipity’s hotel would require an amendment to the South Poway Specific Plan, which limits hotels to a maximum of three stores and 35 feet in height. The hotel is proposed to be 60 feet tall.
The Zoom meeting drew about 25 viewers. It featured a presentation by Scott Nespor, associate planner with the City of Poway’s Development Services Department; Eric Naslund, principal architect with Studio E Architecture; and Anil Patel, managing partner of Serendipity Hospitality.
Naslund spoke about the hotel, saying it would be run by a national chain and will appeal to travelers visiting the business park who currently book hotel rooms outside of Poway. Building the new hotel will also bring transient occupancy tax to Poway. A pre-pandemic estimate predicted a minimum of $224,700 in sales and TOT for its first year, increasing to a minimum of $291,400 by 2025. It will also create about 10 to 12 jobs.
The hotel must be five stories tall because it is on a small site with significant setbacks from the road, Naslund said. It also needs enough rooms to connect with a national chain in order to succeed. This is because it needs access to a national chain’s registration system for businesses to want to use it.
Naslund also spoke about viewshed studies his firm has done for the hotel and the visual impact on areas of Poway.
He said it would not be visible from Poway Road or the Garden Road area, but would be visible from areas south of the business park, like Sycamore Estates and Big Canyon Lane. Naslund added the hotel’s roof would most likely be visible to several houses located on a ridge near the business park, because he did not take them into account when doing the viewpoints.
Patel erected a 60-foot story pole on the hotel’s proposed site with an orange f lag at the top to gather feedback from community members on visibility. A story pole is a pole cut to the proposed clear height between a building’s finished floor and ceiling. It will remain up until Monday. Feedback on the pole’s visibility should be sent to Nespor at snespor@poway.org or (858) 668-4656.
Community members spoke at the meeting, expressing concern about the visual impact on Poway’s rural areas. Some also said they were worried that allowing the 60-foot hotel to have a height variance would create precedent for other businesses to want taller buildings. It might also open Poway to lawsuits from other developers.
Comments from the meeting and those submitted to Nespor will be gathered, Naslund said. Additional sites will also be incorporated to the hotel’s visual analysis. Serendipity Hospitality will have the opportunity to incorporate any changes into the hotel’s plan. If no changes are made, the proposal will be scheduled for discussion at a future Poway City Council meeting.