In the coming weeks, Boulder’s City Council is expected to review the controversial St. Julien hotel expansion project and hold a public hearing on it.

The expansion of the St. Julien, located at 900 Walnut St., will mark the end of a years-long quest to develop the “civic use pad” area that sits just east of the hotel.

The hotel plans to add a 55-foot tall building there, with extended-stay hotel rooms and a new event space for community groups.

The St. Julien owns the civic use pad, which currently consists of an open concrete deck. But the city’s Ninth and Canyon Urban Renewal Plan requires private development projects in that part of Boulder to reserve at least 20% of their building space for “civic uses” such as recreation centers, museums, cultural centers, city office space and transit facilities.

The St. Julien wants to allow local civic groups and not-for-profit organizations to rent the event space at a discounted rate to meet the civic use requirement.

The development has been criticized by many community members, including residents at the Arête luxury condo complex next to the civic use pad, who have raised concerns about parking, traffic and the size and height of the building, which might block their mountain view.

Opponents also dispute that the St. Julien’s proposed expansion truly qualifies as “civic use” space since it’s essentially an expansion of a private, for-profit hotel.However, the civic use pad has sat empty for roughly two decades. Past attempts to develop it failed, in part because the site requirements have created obstacles for developers. The size of the site made building there unaffordable for many would-be developers. In 2019, the city decided to loosen some requirements of the urban renewal plan and forge a public-private partnership with the St. Julien to get the site developed.

At a meeting Thursday night, council members voted 7-2 to “call up,” or review, the hotel expansion. Mayor Pro Tem Nicole Speer and Councilmember Ryan Schuchard voted against calling up the project.

Some council members, like Mark Wallach and Tara Winer, said they want to hold a public hearing because the project has stirred so much public interest and debate.

“I think there are many, many questions surrounding the project that would be best dealt with at a public hearing,” said Wallach. “Also, I consider a call-up, when there is such a controversial project, as simply part of our job — giving voice to the community and letting them express their views and their concerns, and not simply riding roughshod over them.”

On the other side, Speer said she was not inclined to review the proposed expansion, in part because she believed the council would likely come to the same conclusion as the boards who have already reviewed the project.

The Planning Board and the Boulder Urban Renewal Authority have both held public hearings on the St. Julien project within the past couple of months, and both boards determined that it meets the city’s site review criteria, although Planning Board members asked for some modifications to the project.

Some Planning Board members also expressed dissatisfaction with the 2019 deal between the city and the hotel, suggesting the city may have sacrificed too many of its own objectives.

It was not immediately clear when council members might vote on the St. Julien project, but when they do vote, their task will be to review the project against the city’s site review criteria, just as the city boards did. City staffers said Thursday night that although the council may have some discretion on approving aspects of the project, other elements have to be approved as long as they meet the criteria that apply to them.

Importantly, council members cannot weigh in on the “civic use” aspect of the project at this point because the time for that discussion has passed.