Planning and Zoning Commission OK Rezoning for Aloft Hotel

The fate of an in now lies in the hands of City Council. At Thursday's meeting, members made a recommendation for council to approve rezoning the six acres for hotel and restaurant use.

The owner of the property, Goldberg Companies, agreed to a restricted deed and have allowed Beachwood to be a benefiting party to the land conversion. If council agrees to rezone the parcels, Councilman and commission member Mark Wachter said the property deed would include restrictions to allow only the hotel and two restaurants Goldberg has presented to Council.

City Planner George Smerigan said city code requires that hotels have 1,300 square feet of land per guest room and the six acres does not meet the requirement, so Goldberg must ask council for a variance.

He also stated that rezoning the property to allow the hotel and two stand-alone restaurants would have a lesser impact on traffic than an office building.

"An office building has more traffic than a hotel and we've got the numbers to show it," Smerigan said. "Traffic for an office building would occur at the same peak times as traffic occurs on Richmond and Chagrin roads now. Restaurant and hotel hours are counter flow."

There will be a public hearing about the zoning change at 7:15 p.m. on Nov. 7 at City Council's next meeting.

In other news:

• The commission gave the final approval for the building of a on Harvard Road. The two-story, 54,700-square-foot building will be for inpatient use only. The main entrance will be off Harvard Road, but there are plans to construct a second access road off of Green Road. There will be 50 beds, and a typical patient stay is 13 days, according to University Hospital officials at the meeting.

If the plan passes council, officials hope to begin construction this year, and the first patient would be seen in December 2012.

• The commission approved the addition of 14 parking spaces to lot.