Discussion on the Fairmont Miramar hotel project is set to resume Wednesday at 5:30 p.m. when the Santa Monica Planning Commission continues its meeting from last week.
The Planning Commission’s special meeting is a continuation of a meeting last week that featured hours of discussion relating to the prospective Fairmont Miramar Hotel project, which has been in the works for nearly a decade as developers look to revitalize the century-old building into a new 500,000-square-foot mixed-use project.
Dustin Peterson of The Athens Group, the real estate company in charge of the redevelopment, said during the meeting he hopes the project will include 312 luxury hotel rooms, a publicly accessible open space at the corner of Wilshire Boulevard and Ocean Avenue, and land that will be used to build a minimum of 42 affordable housing units, which will be located in a five-story apartment building across 2nd Street and would be developed by Community Corporation, the City’s affordable housing provider, according to the commission’s staff report.
However, some Santa Monica residents and local stakeholders have adamantly opposed the renovation, citing concerns that the new development will block their ocean view or create additional pollution throughout the area. And dozens brought forth their opinions to the commission last week when hours of public comment forced commissioners to continue the meeting at a later date.
Despite the objections from some locals, Peterson was adamant to describe the affordable apartments as an unprecedented offering for a private development in Santa Monica. He and his peers also said thousands of new construction jobs and more than 100 new permanent jobs could come available if the project were to receive approval from city council.
It’s expected commissioners will recommend a number of actions to Santa Monica City Council during Wednesday’s meeting so the hotel project could into the next phase of the approval process. And since the Commission completed a portion of the scheduled hearing last week, this week’s agenda states commissioners will be allowed to ask the applicant questions and then they will be expected to deliberate and make their recommendations.
