Updated rendering of the planned hotel at Elm and Howe.
The latest stop on the Marriott Residence Inn’s neighborhood appeasement tour: downtown and Wooster Square.
Developer Douglas Cohen spoke to the neighborhoods’ community management team at City Hall Wednesday night to provide updates on the planning process and solicit feedback on how to proceed with the proposed six-story 115-room extended-stay inn he hopes to build on Elm and Howe streets. Two weeks earlier, he had made a similar stop at the Dwight Management Team, the first since formally withdrawing plans in the face of neighborhood opposition.
Aliyya Swaby Photo
“Nothing is set in stone,” Cohen, president of Newport Hotel Group, told the gathering Wednesday night about his evolving revised plans.
The original proposal had sought two zoning changes, to install 215 instead of 267 parking spaces and to build a larger structure than permitted. Now that he has heard from the community, Cohen said, he concluded he needs to ask for two more exceptions — one to keep a 10-foot gap between the proposed Residence Inn and a neighbor’s building on the north side, and another to back a trash truck out over the sidewalk.
The management team’s response was generally positive.
Hill Alder Dolores Colon asked Cohen if he had brought the newer proposal to Dwight neighbors, who had opposed the perceived lack of community involvement throughout the original process.
“I wanted to make sure you started at the source,” Colon said.
Cohen said he had and would probably have another conversation with them as the project continued to evolve.
Anstress Farwell, head of the Urban Design League, suggested the developers figure out a way to make sure cars enter and exit the parking lot on Howe Street without endangering pedestrians, “so the driver doesn’t just pop out onto the sidewalk.”
Cohen said he will take that into account. He said the proposed plan would eliminated all “curb cuts” on Elm Street, which means a net positive of on-street parking spaces.
Farwell said that besides a few design details, she was happy with the proposal, which “relates equally to the Dwight neighborhood and Broadway district.”
Cohen said he would ideally start construction by next spring — assuming this time around, with more public support, he gets approvals from city planners and zoners.
If they are going to get a waiver from having to replant street trees, can they at least be required to offset that stormwater impact through a green roof, grey water reuse, bioretentions, or other stormwater mitigation measures?