Nov. 19–A hotel and 30 homes will be built next to Historic Town Center Park in downtown San Juan Capistrano after the City Council voted early Wednesday to buck the city attorney’s recommendation against it.
Kimpton Hotels & Restaurants, which has 61 boutique hotels that are tailored to their cities, will operate the hotel, which will include a restaurant, fitness center, pool and spa and 136 rooms.
“We envision this hotel to be a living room for San Juan Capistrano,” said Jesse Stein, Kimpton’s vice president for acquisitions and development.
Wednesday’s approval was the last action by the outgoing City Council, which will get two new members Dec. 2 who campaigned on anti-development platforms.
The meeting lasted about nine hours; the final vote for the hotel occurred at 3:05 a.m. Wednesday. It’s a major win for downtown business owners and residents who have long advocated for a hotel in the city’s downtown area. The city has two hotels, but both are located outside of downtown.
Mayor Sam Allevato said the project will benefit everyone.
“This hotel, I think, will put SJC on the map,” Allevato said.
Councilman Derek Reeve opposed the plan and questioned why the council was considering it after rejecting even allowing houses to be built downtown last summer.
“This whole night has been kind of surreal,” Reeve said.
The development will include 257 parking spots. Developers will pay to extend Forster Street from Camino Capistrano to Del Obispo Street.
Homes will range from 1,800 square feet to 3,300 square feet and will line the street and face the park; the hotel and restaurant will be located behind a building of shops.
The top height of the hotel has been reduced to 35 feet from 42 feet, and the shops building, which will be closest to the Egan House, is now 29 feet instead of 42 feet. Developers are working with the owners of the Egan House, which has been up for sale for more than a year and closed to the public for much longer.
The hotel and homes will be built on 3.17 acres currently home to movie producer Steve Oedekerk’s studios. Oedekerk is selling the land to Urban Village; he stopped renting space in the buildings last year to prepare.
Mark Bodenhamer, executive director of the San Juan Capistrano Chamber of Commerce, said local businesses need the additional customers a downtown hotel will bring to the city. He also noted the financial benefits of additional hotel taxes.
“It’s a huge revenue stream that will greatly benefit our community, and it doesn’t cost the residents a dime,” Bodenhamer said.
The City Council was to consider the proposal in August, but the city’s new development services director, Charlie View, discovered what he said was a fatal error to the city’s Historic Town Center Master Plan, which was approved in 2012 and called for houses to be built downtown. The Council tried to amend the General plan to allow the houses, but Reeve and Councilman Roy Byrnes voted against it.
Lawyers for Urban Village then sued in Orange County Superior Court, saying they’d been misled to believe the Historic Town Center Master Plan was final.
The lawsuit didn’t sway View or City Attorney Hans Van Ligten, who told the Council Tuesday they don’t believe the project can legally be approved until the General Plan is changed to reflect the housing outlined in the Historic Town Center Master Plan.
Lawyers for Urban Village said otherwise.
Lawyer Michael Shonafelt called View and Van Ligten’s recommendation “a perplexing, about-faced analysis” that essentially urges the Council to “completely ignore over four years of work on the Town Center Master Plan.”
Councilmen Larry Kramer and John Taylor voted with Allevato to approve the plan and buck the staff recommendation; Reeve and Byrnes opposed. Byrnes then supported the hotel and houses while Reeve opposed.
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