Los Gatos Weekly-Times

Opposition readies as the Toll House prepares new plan to increase rooms

Broadway neighbors lodge a complaint with Town Council

Noise, visual impact cited

By Clarence Cromwell

Owners of the Toll House Hotel have begun a second attempt at expanding their building this month, about a year after they first proposed the unpopular plan for twin hotel buildings connected by a footbridge over S. Santa Cruz Avenue.

This time most of the proposed expansion would be hidden behind the hotel--but that has residential neighbors to the west of the hotel alarmed. A resident of Broadway has already filed a petition against the project.

The hotel's owner, Los Gatos Ventures, plans to expand the hotel by constructing two additions for a total of 27 new rooms. The two-story portion of the hotel will grow to three stories upon completion of a 5,200-square-foot addition. A three-story, 11,000-square-foot wing would be constructed behind the hotel. Another 500 square feet, added by enclosing a patio, would bring the total size of the hotel to more than 78,000 square feet.

The 27 new rooms, 11 of them in the third-floor addition and 16 of them in the new wing, would cater to the higher end of the hotel market, Toll House managing partner Wayne Levenfeld said. Such amenities as fireplaces, cathedral ceilings and elegant furniture might cost $20 more than other rooms at the Toll House, he said. If completed, the project probably will be the end of expansion for the Toll House, because it will cover all the hotel's usable land. The Toll House can't grow taller; a Jan. 22 letter from the town's Conceptual Development Advisory Committee asked hotel investors to drop plans for a fourth story, saying 42.5 feet would be too high for Los Gatos.

Brian Hinman, a resident of Broadway, handed the town clerk a 40-signature petition opposing the Toll House's expansion at the Aug. 18 Town Council meeting.

"Those rooms that they're putting in are very close to a residential area," Hinman said to the Town Council. "We're concerned with the noise coming from that addition."

The three-story structure will eliminate a rear parking lot at the hotel, Levenfeld confirmed. "Right now, we have a lot more parking than we ever use. We can give up a little parking and add some rooms and be OK," he added.

The Toll House's plan for a 34-room annex, connected to the hotel by a footbridge across S. Santa Cruz Avenue, died for lack of town support. The attention-grabbing footbridge got a cool reception from the Conceptual Development Advisory Committee, and then the council decided not to sell the municipal land the hotel needed for that expansion plan.

Town Manager David Knapp cheered the earlier expansion effort, saying an expansion of the Toll House would be good for the town, bringing more hotel tax dollars to Town Hall and pumping up the downtown business climate as hotel visitors shop and dine. The town gets to keep 100 percent of its hotel tax, which amounts to about 10 percent of each patron's bill.

The Toll House was scheduled to appear before the Development Review Committee on Sept. 2.

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