Los Gatos Weekly-Times

Toll House Hotel coming back with revised plans for 27-room expansion

Supporters cite increased tax base, neighbors say it's too big

Hotel wants 24 new rooms

By Jeff Kearns

After several attempts to come up with an acceptable expansion plan, the Toll House Hotel has hired a local architectural firm and redrawn its plans, and will go before the Planning Commission for the first time on May 27.

Hotel owner Wayne Levenfeld and the new architect have scaled back plans to construct another building at the back edge of the hotel property, lowering the height of the structure from four to three stories after Broadway and Los Gatos Meadows residents voiced strong objections to an earlier version of the project, which they said would tower over their houses and create additional noise. Now, Levenfeld plans to put another story on top of the existing hotel.

The addition has been kicking around for a while. The newest iteration would add 24 luxury rooms to the current 97 and bring the hotel's square footage up to 78,500 from 60,000. A scaffolding that illustrates the size of the addition has been erected in the rear parking lot of the Toll House. The town recently began requiring these illustrations, called story poles, to give town officials a better idea of what proposed projects would look like when finished. Levenfeld originally proposed building an accompanying structure across S. Santa Cruz Avenue, which would connect to the rest of the hotel via an aerial walkway 36 feet above the street. The Conceptual Design Advisory Committee, which looks at designs while they are still in the early stages, told Levenfeld the idea probably didn't have much of a chance of winning approval from the town.

Levenfeld returned with another one for a new four-story building at the rear of the hotel property, with three levels of rooms above one level of parking. After neighbors cited their fears about the size of the new building and increased noise levels, Levenfeld hired a new architect, Stowers Associates of Los Gatos.

The street outside the hotel and in front of the Los Gatos post office in the new plans would get new planter boxes similar to those on N. Santa Cruz Avenue, and diagonal parking would add about 10 new spaces near the hotel--almost the same number of spaces that would be lost if the new building at the rear of the property is built--leaving the hotel with about 150 spaces.

The hotel currently meets town requirements for parking but with the new rooms will no longer be in compliance with town code.

"We don't have a parking problem," Levenfeld said, "and we won't if we're allowed to do what we're [planning]."

The Development Review Committee, which checks plans for completeness and compliance with town regulations and design policies, passed this most recent iteration on to the Planning Commission on May 5.

John Richardson, who lives on Broadway directly behind the hotel, says that he and other neighbors have gathered more than 160 signatures of residents opposed to the expansion. Peter and Dennise Carter, whose home on Broadway backs up to the hotel, put the petition out at their house when it was on the St. Luke's Garden Tour recently, with the story poles clearly visible from their back yard.

The Toll House, on the other hand, invited neighbors, downtown business owners and other residents--including those who had signed the petition--for several different discussion and input sessions on the new plans over cocktails and hors d'oeuvres at the hotel.

Although some neighbors have expressed their opposition, particularly those on Broadway whose yards back up to the hotel, more than a dozen letters in support of the project have been sent to planning commissioners.

Supporters say that the town would benefit from the additional tax base the project would create, as well as the increased business for downtown shops and restaurants.

In a letter to the town, the Toll House says that the new rooms would create more than $1 million in revenues, based on conservative estimates of a 70 percent occupancy rate. The town's transient occupancy tax takes 10 percent of hotel revenues for the town. This year, the hotel estimates that occupancy has been running in excess of 85 percent.

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