Title
2900 Harbor Bay Parkway - PLN18-0381 - Study Session - Applicant: Harbor Bay Hospitality, LLC. The Planning Board will hold a study session to review and comment on a proposal to construct an approximately 113,000-square-foot five-story hotel and 7,000-square-foot two-story restaurant and cafe located within the Esplanade office park adjacent to the Harbor Bay Ferry Terminal. The site is located within the C-M-PD (Commercial Manufacturing - Planned Development) zoning district
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EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
Staff requests that the Planning Board hold a study session to review the design for a new five-story hotel and two-story restaurant and cafe located at 2900 Harbor Bay Parkway. The new hotel building will contain approximately 172 rooms, dining room with a lounge, meeting room, swimming pool, and outdoor patio areas. Comments received at the study session will assist the applicant in preparing plans for a future public hearing at which the Planning Board will be able to take final action on the Design Review and Final Development Plan Amendment required for the project. No final action is being requested at this time.
The proposed plans are attached as Exhibit 1.
BACKGROUND
The project is located on the vacant 5.5 acre portion of the Esplanade development site within the Harbor Bay Business Park. The site is approximately 600 feet west of the corner of Harbor Bay Parkway and Bay Edge Road, immediately east of the adjacent to the Harbor Bay Ferry Terminal. The original Development Plan for the Esplanade project was approved in 2008. The first phases of the Esplanade Project include the Stacey & Witbeck and the McGuire and Hester office buildings to the east of the site. A lagoon and residential neighborhood border the site to the north. The property fronts onto Shoreline Park and the San Francisco Bay to the south. The property is zoned Commercial Manufacturing (CM) with a Planned Development (PD) overlay.
On February 25, 2008, the Planning Board approved the original Esplanade Development Plan (PLN07-0061) to allow construction of ten office buildings totaling 109,000 square feet on the 9.22 acre Esplanade site. In 2012, the first of the ten buildings was completed for the Stacy & Witbeck Company.
In May of 2015, the Planning Board approved a Development Plan Amendment and Design Review (PLN15-0092) to allow the construction of a 22,868-square-foot office building in lieu of two 10,400-square-foot office buildings originally approved in 2008 (Exhibit 2).
On August 28, 2018, Harbor Bay Hospitality, LLC (applicant) submitted an application for a Development Plan Amendment and Design Review to allow the construction of the hotel and restaurant/cafe on the remaining 5.5 acres of the Esplanade site immediately adjacent to the Ferry Terminal parking lot.
DISCUSSION
Architectural Design: As shown below and in Exhibit 1, the proposed five-story hotel proposes a modern architectural style. A portion of the ground floor utilizes tall storefront windows shaded by decorative metal canopies. The design breaks up the building mass on the north elevation with two projecting towers, and implements a single tower façade on the south elevation. Variations of façade protrusions, roof line articulation, and material changes are used to break the massing of the structure. The two-story restaurant utilizes similar architectural features and materials.
Hotel Front Elevation
Staff is working with the applicant and their architects to provide a pleasing and attractive architectural design for the hotel building. At this time, staff is focusing its design comments on changes that would better relate the proposed hotel to the architecture of the first two buildings in the development.
The City’s objective for the Esplanade project has always been to create a waterfront development with a “family” of buildings that have a consistent waterfront setback and compatible architectural designs. Although the other two buildings previously constructed in the Esplanade project (the McGuire and Hester building and the Stacie Witbeck building) are considerably shorter in height at approximately 38 feet tall, staff is looking to these neighboring buildings for design guidance. As shown in the illustration below of the McGuire and Hester building, its design is characterized by the following design strategies:
Simple but Elegant: As illustrated below, the design of the McGuire and Hester building is simple, but elegant. The McGuire and Hester design exhibits distinct, repeating lines with consistent proportions and features, to create a simple, but clean design.
Staff believes the hotel design could be improved by simplifying the design. The hotel elevation shown above includes at least three or four different vertical elements of varying proportions and a variety of different sized and colored horizontal elements. Although interesting as individual elements, the overall design seems to be a collection of parts, as opposed to a cohesive design for a single building.
McGuire and Hester Front Elevation
Emphasis on Horizontality. The McGuire and Hester design, and most of the buildings in the business park, emphasize horizontal lines. In staff’s opinion, the horizontal proportions of the building design is compatible with the sweeping views of the waterfront and Bay setting. The horizontal lines are accented by single, prominent three-story high, glass vertical entry element. The single vertical element, not only balances the horizontality nicely, it also clearly indicates entry into the building.
The hotel design is a complex composition of multiple, vertical elements. Each vertical element is a little different from the other, which, in staff’s opinion, detracts from the benefits of having a single, dominate vertical element to balance a primarily horizontal design composition. The emphasis on verticality accentuates the difference in height between the 63-foot tall hotel and the adjacent 30-foot tall McGuire and Hester building.
Staff believes the hotel design would be improved by a larger emphasis on horizontal lines, and less reliance on vertical lines and elements.
Materials and Color. The McGuire and Hester building utilizes a pleasing, but relatively simple combination of colors and materials, which are used to accent and reinforce the clean horizontal design.
In contrast, the hotel design utilizes a much larger range of colors in a more complex composition. From staff’s perspective, the color scheme would be improved by simplifying the scheme and using color to emphasize horizontal lines at the base of the building and the roof of the building.
Architectural Details. Although rather simple, the McGuire and Hester building design includes a variety of important architectural details that provide visual interest to the building, such as the repeating window awnings, wide windows with deep inset, and the vertical drain pipes. These details provide visual interest, but they also serve important functions for the building.
The hotel design primarily relies on changes in surface materials and colors to create architectural interest. Instead, staff would recommend window insets, porch railings, window canopies or shade awnings (similar to McGuire and Hester) as design accents.
Hotel Waterfront Elevation
Architectural Design Conclusions. Despite staff’s concerns with the current architectural design, staff is convinced that with help from the Planning Board and community, the applicant will be able to produce an excellent building design that will be compatible with the adjacent buildings in the development and contribute to the success of the Harbor Bay Business Park.
Hotel Parking and Ferry Parking:
Since the project and its parking lot is located directly adjacent to the Harbor Bay Ferry Terminal, the project is proposing to provide more parking than is required by the Zoning Code. The Zoning Code requires 1.25 spaces per room or 215 spaces for a 172 room hotel, and 50 spaces for the restaurant/coffee shop, for a total of 265 spaces. The project is proposing 294 parking spaces.
Based upon the research conducted for prior hotels proposed in Alameda, hotels with good transit access and private shuttle services require approximately 0.82 parking spaces per room. This ratio calculates to approximately 141 parking spaces for the proposed hotel. The proposed restaurant and café, which primarily serves riders of the ferry and customers of the hotel, is anticipated to require considerably less parking spaces than the 50 spaces required by the Zoning Ordinance. Staff believes that the 172 room hotel combined with the small restaurant and café would require about 150 total parking spaces. Therefore, in staff’s opinion, the project is providing about 140 spaces more than necessary.
In this case, the applicant is proposing to build a bigger parking lot that can be made available during the day to ferry riders. The applicant has been working with the Water Emergency Transportation Agency (WETA) to establish a shared parking agreement that will allow ferry riders to utilize the hotel parking lot. Additionally, the applicant has been working with the Bay Conservation Development Commission (BCDC) to provide public parking access for the adjacent Shoreline Park.
As envisioned, access to the parking area would be regulated with a gate. Ferry riders would be able to access the parking lot and pay a reduced rate to park their car during normal daytime hours. In the evening, the parking area would be reserved for hotel and restaurant patrons. Ferry riders who choose to leave their car in the parking lot during evening hours will pay a higher rate than they would have paid if they removed their car from the lot after daytime hours.
Public Access & Paths: The Esplanade development plan provided several corridors through the site for pedestrian paths and trails. Staff is working with the applicant to include public paths on each side of the development. The existing shoreline park in front of the hotel is in need of landscaping and Bay Trail improvements. Staff is recommending that the applicant provide these upgrades to the City-owned shoreline park in front of the site.
The proposed building location provides a 35-foot setback from Shoreline Park that is consistent with the building line established by the previously approved buildings in the office park. BCDC has completed a preliminary review of the project and has expressed its support for the design.
Development Standards:
The proposed hotel use is consistent with the General Plan, Zoning Ordinance, and the Harbor Bay Business Park Development Plan approved by the Planning Board Resolution No. 1203 and amendment by Resolution No. 1533. Condition No. 46 of the development plan indicates that uses located in this area shall include restaurants and hotels. Additionally, the site is located in the C-M-PD, Commercial Manufacturing - Planned Development zoning district. Hotels are a permitted use in this zoning district and have been approved by the Board at other locations in the Business Park.
Table 1 below summarizes project compliance with development standards Esplanade Development Plan:
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Table 1: Project Complies with C-M/PD District Development Standards. |
|
|
Requirement: |
Proposed: |
Compliance: |
|
Maximum Building Height |
100 ft. |
63 ft. |
Complies |
|
Maximum FAR (0.5) |
0.5. |
0.5. |
Complies |
|
Lot coverage |
40% |
13.6% |
Complies |
|
Landscaping coverage |
30% |
30.2% |
Complies |
|
Front Yard Setback (lagoon) |
25 ft. |
180 ft. |
Complies |
|
Minimum Side Yard Setback |
20 ft. |
25 ft. (west) 285 ft. (east) |
Complies |
|
Minimum Rear Yard Setback adjacent to Shoreline Park. |
35 ft. |
35 ft. |
Complies |
|
Vehicle Parking |
265 spaces |
294 spaces |
Complies |
|
Bicycle Parking |
11 short term 11 long term |
12 short term 12 long term |
Complies |
Department and other agency review
The applicant is working concurrently with City staff, the Airport Land Use Commission, and the Port of Oakland on its compliance review.
Public Comments
Staff has received comment letters for the project from the Alameda Chamber of Commerce, the Harbor Bay Business Park Association, Federal Aviation Administration, and the Bay Conservation Development Commission. Comments letters are attached as Exhibit 3.
ENVIRONMENTAL REVIEW
Pursuant to CEQA Guidelines Section 15162, there have been no significant changes in circumstances that require revisions to the previously certified Harbor Bay Isle Environmental Impact Report. The proposed project is not likely to cause substantial environmental damage or substantially and avoidably injure endangered, rare, or threatened fish or wildlife or their habitat
RECOMMENDATION
Hold a Planning Board study session to review and comment on the proposed architectural and site design.
Respectfully submitted,
Andrew Thomas
Acting Director of Planning and Building Department
By: Henry Dong
Planner II
Exhibits:
1. Proposed Plans
2. 2015 Development Plan
3. Public Comment Letters