BRUNSWICK – The Planning Commission voted unanimously this week to reject new plans for the hotel proposed for the second phase of the Brunswick Town Center project.

In addition to changing the name of the Wallhouse Hotel to the branded Comfort Inn line of hotels, the revised plans for the project presented to the commission also call for the elimination of a conference center – a move city officials say is a deal-breaker.

“We are very disappointed in what was submitted as a detailed site plan,” Planning Commission Chairman Joseph Shirilla said during the Nov. 17 meeting.

Shirilla pointed to the fact that the commission, City Council and the administration spent a significant amount of time over the past two years developing hotel guidelines for the project in order to ensure the city would garner a quality hotel with all of the amenities the community desired.

“We were very explicit as to what we wanted to see in that area,” he said, noting that the developer of the Wallhouse Hotel worked very closely with city officials to make sure the hotel was designed according to those guidelines. “It’s disappointing to see that they’ve taken steps backward. This is a major setback to what (was first proposed) and falls far short of the guidelines for hotels in this SPD.”

In addition to eliminating the conference center, which was one of the amenities specified in the SPD stipulations, Consulting City Engineer Matt Jones listed several other discrepancies with the proposed plans.

Not only do the plans fail to align driveways with existing streets, but the plans do not show any grading for the site or where utilities will be located – two features that are relatively standard when it comes to detailed site plans, he said.

“In essence, what has been submitted is very incomplete,” Jones said.

A handful of homeowners who reside in the SouthLake neighborhood, located just south of Brunswick Town Center, were in attendance at the meeting to voice their concerns about the project – especially with regard to what the city was promised in comparison to what is now being proposed.

“The developer made the city a whole lot of promises about what the hotel would be,” Brunswick Lake Parkway resident Maryann Chandler said, noting that the hotel concept was first broached with the city two years ago. “At that time, this was being pushed through at breakneck speed and City Council was initially set to approve an amendment that made hotels an approved use for the development, but it had no guidelines for the developer to follow.”

It was at that time that the residents living in the neighborhood pushed council and the administration to draft legislation making hotels a conditional use, which would ultimately allow the city’s planning commission more discretion with regard to the buildings at Brunswick Town Center.

“The only council members who supported (the legislation recommending hotels as a conditional use) were Alex Johnson and Mike Abella,” Chandler said, expressing her disappointment in the way the project has turned out so far and the fact that the developer for the hotel failed to make an appearance at the hearing. “Stop allowing this to continue.”

Chandler asked the Planning Commission to reject the proposal and send the developer back to the drawing board. She also requested that the commission make sure that any new plans for the hotel that are presented in the future call for the hotel to face Brunswick Lake.

“If people are going to stay at a hotel near a lake, they are going to want a lake view,” Chandler said, noting that under the current proposal, only a handful of guest rooms would have been afforded a lake view.

Shrilla said he believes Chandler made several good points, noting that Brunswick Town Center is a prime city property and that none of the projects at the center have lived up to the city’s expectations.

“We can throw our hands up and write it off, saying anything we put there will be a failure, but it’s not fair to the residents of this city to try and fill in the grass with anything we can find,” he said. “We have a second chance to try and make this right.”

Because the commission rejected detailed site plans as the developer failed to be in attendance at the meeting to request that the matter be tabled, the developer is unable to resubmit the same plans to the city for a one-year period.

“If they come up with different plans and make the necessary corrections, such as the addition of the conference room, they will be able to resubmit,” Incorvaia said.