Memorandum

City of Lawrence

City Manager’s Office

TO:	Mayor and City Commission
FROM:	City Manager David L. Corliss
DATE:	January 15, 2015
RE:	Incentives Request for Eldridge Hotel

The City Commission is scheduled to receive a request for incentives for the proposed expansion of the Eldridge Hotel at the meeting of January 20, 2015.   City Commission action would be to refer the request to the Public Incentives Committee (PIRC) for review.    City staff has not determined a recommendation to make to PIRC on the request at this time.

Staff believes that it would be appropriate to condition any incentive on the complete compliance with all land use requirements for the property, including the City’s historic and downtown design guidelines.   Failure to comply with these requirements would nullify any incentives which might be approved. 

The Planning and Development Services Department has provided the following status for the land use requirements for the expansion of the Eldridge: 

“A site plan for expanding the hotel was originally submitted in July of 2010.  It was not approved as there were continual changes to the plan including the building elevations and the owner did not pursue completion of that site plan.  Even if the site plan had been approved, the plan would have expired in 24 months (September of 2012) because there were no extension requests and no building permit issued. The property is now under a different ownership.  At staff’s meeting in January 2014 with the Development Group, it was identified that a new site plan application would be required.

Design Review (historic). Originally submitted in 2010 and approved with conditions.  The conditions were not met.  A new application was submitted in April of 2014.  It was heard by the HRC in May of 2014 and approved with conditions.  To date, the conditions have not been met, presumably because the project was not being pursued until recently.  Final work with the ARC is required for the building elevations.

Timeframe for Planning Process

The timeframe is dependent on the submittals by the applicant.

· Site Plan review time is typically 4-6 weeks.  In this case, because it is downtown infill and we have worked through some of the comments with the previous site plan, it may be closer to the 4 week timeframe if the same site plan is used. 

· HRC review time will depend on when the applicant determines the final building elevations and material selections.  Once this has been submitted to Planning staff, the ARC meeting will be scheduled.  The ARC has scheduled meeting dates for the first and third Thursday of the month. (In March of this year the 2nd meeting will be on the 26th due to Spring Break.)”