Los Gatos Weekly-Times Editorial Hotel project worthwhile, but so is sense of history After years of meetings, redesigns and major changes in use, Eva Ogilvie's proposed hotel on E. Main Street looks like it could be a slam dunk when it comes to the Planning Commission on Sept. 23--that is, if the commissioners vote to allow demolition of a historic structure. As anyone who has watched the Toll House Hotel struggle to get its expansion approved must know, local businesses are hungry for more out-of-towners (and their wallets) to come strolling into shops and restaurants. And a large part of the town's budget surplus last year came from the hotel tax. Business owners on E. Main Street--which has been slowly blossoming since it was almost destroyed in the 1989 Loma Prieta quake--are eager to have an anchor on their side of the bridge that will help expand the downtown area their way. After proposing, at different times, a hotel that included retail shops, condos, townhomes and a nightclub, Ogilvie has taken the Planning Commission's advice and focused her project so that it is simply a hotel and a restaurant. She also incorporated the commission's recommendations on scaling back the mass and height of the two buildings, providing more parking and removing the clock tower, which some commissioners feared could turn into another fiasco like the dome on top of the Hollywood Video building at Blossom Hill Road and Los Gatos Boulevard. She also included more meeting rooms for corporate customers, which the Conceptual Development Advisement Committee said the town was sorely lacking, and pushed the building back 40 feet from the curb. A report on parking and traffic says that the hotel isn't likely to cause problems in the area, and neighborhood opposition appears to be limited. But the Historical Preservation Committee has recommended saving the Kerful Cleaners building, which dates from sometime in the early 1930s and sits on the lot where Ogilvie wants to put her hotel. Former Town Treasurer Jim Stoops owned the building for over two decades and performed the treasurer's role from the building. The committee held three meetings over the summer to review demolition of the building. An outside architectural consultant said the building was an example "of façade architecture at its worst." The committee didn't say much about architecture in its final recommendation, but it did favor saving the building because it is unique, adds to local history and has character-defining features. Ogilvie has spent a great deal of time and money making sure her hotel project was the best possible fit for the town's economic development. It is. But at the same time, it would mean one more tear-down to make way for a development that caters primarily to nonresidents. This project will help fill the town's coffers, and that's good. But its benefits aren't without cost. Even those who support the hotel should take a moment to think about that price: losing another bit of the town's past, when Los Gatos was a simpler, smaller place. [ Back to Contents Page | Los Gatos Weekly-Times Home Page | Archives ] This article appeared in the Los Gatos Weekly-Times, September 23, 1998. ©1998 Metro Publishing, Inc. All rights reserved.