Two four-story hotels, a fast-food joint, a sit-down restaurant
and a four-level parking garage will be built at Forest Street and
Leavesley Road if the planning commission has its way. The
commission last week unanimously recommended approvals to make way
for the 5.75-acre project, which is being touted as the largest
hotel complex in Gilroy’s history.
Two four-story hotels, a fast-food joint, a sit-down restaurant and a four-level parking garage will be built at Forest Street and Leavesley Road if the planning commission has its way. The commission last week unanimously recommended approvals to make way for the 5.75-acre project, which is being touted as the largest hotel complex in Gilroy’s history.
“This is going to jump-start construction in Gilroy,” project manager James Suner said Thursday. “This is a massive construction project.”
The Fresh Group, a Los Angeles-based group backed by Chinese investors, hopes to build the project at the northeast corner of Leavesley Road and Forest Street. The planning commission recommended the City Council change city zoning to pave the way for the project. The planning commission also recommended the project’s architectural plans and said that it was environmentally sound.
The proposed Holiday Inn would have about 180 rooms and would be about 113,000 square feet. The project would include a 72-room Candlewood Suites extended-stay hotel that would be about 40,300 square feet. A 10,000-square-foot sit-down restaurant would stand between the two hotels, and a 3,000-square-foot fast-food restaurant would sit along Leavesley Road. A three-story, four-level parking garage also would accompany the project, which would cost about $60 million to develop, and it could be completed about 18 to 24 months after council approval, Suner said.
The project has undergone staff review for more than a year, enduring delays after city staff initially urged for a center median to be placed along Forest Street just east of Leavesley Road, Suner said. The city has asked that Forest Street serve as a thoroughfare for trucks as a way to alleviate truck traffic from Murray Avenue. However, project developers have said a median at the intersection would prevent trucks on Forest Street from being able to make a left-hand turn. The commission recommended last week against requiring a four-foot-minimum median at the intersection, instead saying the developer and city staff should come up with a mutual solution.
Suner said he started working with The Fresh Group to help come up with compromises and streamline the process with city staff. He has taken issue with city staff’s desire for the developer to pay to underground more than 900 feet of power lines that extend from one of the poles on the development’s property.
The $1.4 million it would cost to underground those lines, which would connect to a power pole on the development property, would kill the project, Suner said. However, he the Fresh Group have no problem with underground lines that are on the property itself, he said.
Commission Chairman Jim Gailey agreed with that assessment last week, calling on staff to justify making the developer pay those costs.
Such requirements can stall projects and prevent economic development from occurring in a time when it is desperately needed, Suner said. He predicts the project would provide 80 full-time jobs and generate at least $600,000 per year in transient occupancy tax.
The Fresh Group already has full funding for the project, Suner said.
Richard Spitler, CEO of the Gilroy Economic Development Corporation, has said in the past he believes the hospitality industry is a potential growth area for Gilroy. He said this week that the new hotel project would be a wonderful addition.
“It’s a great project,” Spitler said. “It’s the largest private commercial development that’s happened in the past couple of years.”
Similarly, planning commissioners last week expressed enthusiasm about the proposed development.
“I like the project,” Gailey said. “I think it’s something that I’d like to see in town.”
The project is slated to go before the City Council at an undetermined date for final approval. Councilman Craig Gartman said he was encouraged to see a project of this magnitude moving forward.
“We need something like this right now,” he said.
