Two more big new hotels on Planning Commission agenda

The Best Western on Wayne Mills Place in Valencia would be torn down and replaced by two new hotels under a plan still being fine-tuned over pedestrian-safety issues. Dan Watson/The Signal
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With the long-pending Oliver Hotel now approved and set to break ground at McBean Parkway and Valencia Boulevard, another big hotel project is taking the Santa Clarita stage – and this one is even bigger.

The Planning Commission is set to hear a proposal to demolish the existing 120-room Best Western hotel near Magic Mountain Parkway and Tourney Road, and replace it with two new hotels.

One of the new hotels would be a 182-room, 75-foot-tall Residence Inn/Springhill Suites hotel. The other would be a 108-room, 65-foot Holiday Inn Express hotel, according to the city planning department’s report to the commissioners.

An existing Holiday Inn Express adjacent to the site of the proposed project would be rechristened as a Best Western, creating four hotel brands in the area, said Jason Crawford, Santa Clarita’s economic development manager.

The two new hotels would add 290 rooms to the city. The actual address of the project is 27413 Wayne Mills Place, near Magic Mountain Parkway and Tourney Road.

The project requires, among other things, a so-called conditional-use permit to exceed 35 feet in height. Developers also are seeking a reduction in the number of parking spaces required, from 290 (one per hotel room) to 274.

The mission-style Residence Inn/Springhill Suites would have five stories, one for parking only, while the contemporary-designed Holiday Inn would have four stories.

The new hotels would be significantly more high-end than the current Best Western, built in 1970. Excel Hotel Group is the developer.

The Planning Commission is set hear the matter on Tuesday at 6 p.m., when it meets in the Council Chambers of City Hall.

City associate planner Patrick Leclair, in his report to the commissioners, recommended that the plan be adopted.

“The site is currently underutilized and the proposed project will take advantage of the site and build a project that will better fit the site, as well as the topography on the site,’’ Leclair said in his report.

If the project get a thumbs-up from the Planning Commission, it would mark the second big hotel project approved in the city in a month.

On Nov. 15, the commissioners approved the Oliver Hotel project, a five-story, 134-room facility on the site of the old Greens miniature golf course.

The Oliver project – to which developer Hunter Oliver is hoping attach a high-end brand such as “Element by Westin” – took a bumpy road to approval.

It finally got the OK eight years after a previous project, by another developer, stirred opposition from nearby residents and eventually died.

Oliver’s original design also was deemed too plain by the Planning Commission, and he was forced to fancy it up before the commissioners finally signed off on it.

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