ABC-7 Xtra: West Side Tower

>>> live where news comes first, this is “abc-7 xtra. >>> it’s sunday, april 24th, welcome to “abc-7 xtra. good evening, maria garcia’s off this week. i’m eric huseby. for the next half-hour, we’ll be discussing the prospecof a 22-story luxury hotel, apartment complex, and retail development coming to west el paso on shadow mountain drive. it would be built on property adjacent to the coronado tower and burlington coat factory. it’s a $100-plus million development that would bring jobs, increase the tax base, and inject some real flair into the community. the price of that, some altered views in west el paso, and the potential of aggravating an already congested traffic situation. joing me tonight, robert ardovino, the vice chair of the city plan commission which recommended approving the project this week, and dr. kristyn ingram who lives in the neighborhood and put together a petion asking to scale it down. you can e-mail us your comments and questions now to erich@kvia.com. you can also reach us at 915-496-1775. and on twitter, use the hashtag #abc7xtra. let’s take a closer look at exactly what we’re talking about. >> this is an incredible opportunity that should not be missed. >> the announcement caught many el pasoans by surprise: a 22-story luxury hotel and apartment complex near shadow mountain drive and mesa street, more than three quarters of a million square feet, with retail, open spaces and a 715 space parking garage. it almost seems like a little bit of scottsdale here in el paso. >> this project will do wonders for adding to the vitality we are seeing in our community. >> the design brought before the city plan commission this week calls for a 219-room luxury hotel on the lower levels. no brand yet. the meyers group says it’s in discussions with several national chains. on the upper levels, there would be 228 apartments. down below, 42,000 square feet of retail space and 55,000 feet of landscaping. but not everyone’s happy. several residents in the neighborhood wrote letters of opposition and a petition was filed asking for a height reduction. >> it affects our quality of life, it is a quiet, beautiful neighborhood that we have sacrificed to live there. >> city development director carlos gallinar said there’s a lot to like, but… >> but for the height, we would have said this is 100% good for el paso. i think we’re at about 95%. >> his recommendation, approval, while asking the developer to reduce the height. >> any time you have vertical development, you are going to have some concerns just because of different elements that come into play. residents have some concerns. so when we made our recommendation, we wanted to make sure it was a recommendation for approval. >> he said the density of the development is desirable, considering the city’s investment in the mesa street brio line, but residents aren’t just concerned about the height. they wanted a postponement. >> to find out what is the impact of traffic in that area. we already have a lot of traffic. >> but speaker after speaker supported the project. >> if you want to knock floors down, i think you’re crazy. >> the plan commission recommended approval without seeking a height reduction. >> the proposed zoning change from commercial to general mixed-use next goes to city council for a final decision. >> it’s a stunning structure in this artistic rendering, more like something you would find in las vegas or miami beach. and it would be right at the edge of a residential neighborhood, on shadow mountain, just up the block from mesa street. joing us now are robert ardovino, who serves as vice chair on the city plan commission. and dr. krystin ingram, who’s galvanizing opposition to the scope and, i gather, the fast track approval process it appears to be on. thank you very much for joining us this evening. i’ll start with you mr. ardovino. at this week’s city plan commission meeting you said it looks like a wonderful project, what’s the summary of benefits that you see? >> well, like you said in the earlier package it’s quite a project. for someone to come into town and spend $100 million plus on development, i think i was told that the development on the freeway wasn’t even $100 million. so it’s quite an injection of money into the community and it’s nice to have more scale, it’s nice to have more upscale, it would help the area i believe the west side could use something like this. >> okay. and dr. ingram, your petition stated that the 75 signatures or so that you gathered were all collected in a 24-hour span after learning about the project. what’s happened in the neighborhood since then? >> well, since then, we haven’t done anything specific in the neighborhood. i’m actually just waiting to see — i was going to start contacting my neighbors and evaluating their opinion. most of the signatures i got were actually from just my day-to-day activity, work, where my children go to school, where they do after-school activities. and just from that, i was able to get that many signatures. our neighborhood is mostly just concerned about the scale of the project and how quickly it’s coming about. none of us know that this was happening prior to two days before the meeting. >> had you seen the signs in the neighborhood saying zoning change being contemplated? >> so i hadn’t noticed, my husband after we saw this article about the building said oh, i had seen possible zoning change signs on the lot. i never noticed so… >> and mr. ardovino, what would you recommend they do? >> i see these signs all over the place as well and it’s a busy life everyone has so it’s hard to second guess what’s going on. it’s an interesting place for infill. i think building out on some of these lots as far as i can remember, that thing has been vacant. so but i understand. there’s those signs all the time and sometimes, you don’t pay attention to that. >> so what is the process here? a developer comes and they say we’ve got a project here, we think it’s going to be good defor the city. we’re going to need a zoning change to get this done. they go to the development office, and then it comes to you? are what kind of things are going on? >> they meet with city staff for many, many months prior to us even seeing this type of proposal, again the city plan commission recommends — it’s seven to nine people up there that recommend to city council whether a project is worthwhile. of course, the city staff has been involved with them for quite a long time and, you know, they actually can’t talk about the project until a certain amount of time so they have to keep it under wraps. >> the development office can’t. >> no, because the people that are coming into town, they have to do all their due diligence. a project of this size has to go through some pretty major financial and well just hoops of all kinds, financial hoops and they have to do a lot of imaging what’s going to make sense for them. it’s a big deal, $100 million, very few people come into el paso to spend that kind of money. >> dr. ingram, have you looked out at the area and tried to figure out what it’s going to do to your view, your neighbors’ views, what do you have an idea of what that’s going to look like? >> it’s all imagination at this point but especially given the renderings, when i look out in my backyard, i can see the coronado tower and i can only imagine this is double the size of that tower. so it would be a huge just thing to see. i am less concerned about my view, although of course, i love having a view of the mountains and the city. i feel like the views would be much more adversely affected in those apartments and condos on shadow mountain. all they’re going to see is this building. i’m much more concerned about the traffic issues and, you know, things of that nature and the fact that in that area there are multiple apartments which aren’t full. so i’m a little concerned they’re going to make this $100 million building, and then it’s going to be empty. so… >> okay. well, we’ve got to take a quick break. you’re watching “abc-7 xtra. we’ll be right back. and if you would like to share your comments or you have questions for one of our guests, you can call our comment line at 496-1775. if you’re online right now, you can e-mail me now at erich@kvia.com. that’s e-r-i-c h at kvia.com. tweet me at @erichuseby, where you can use the hashtag, #abc7xtra. you’re where news comes first. >>> welcome back to “abc- xtra.” i’m eric huseby, in for maria garcia. tonight we’re discussing a 22-story, $100 plus million luxury hotel and apartment complex planned for west el paso. it would be el paso’s second highest building, but by far the highest in suburban west el paso, next to the burlington coat factory, behind coronado tower on shadow mountain drive, just off of mesa street. with us tonight are robert ardovino, who serves as vice chair on the city plan commission and dr. krystin ingram, who led a petion drive asking the city to take a second look. dr. ingram, this kind of snuck up on the neighborhood here, do you have concerns about the process? >> well, from what mr. ardovino said, this is how the process is normally done. i’ve never been involved in anything like this before so everything is new to me but it sounds like this is the normal way that this happens. to me, it felt a little bit like they were just trying to sneak it in and so that no one could voice their opposition. >> okay and is it now basically a political process? it’s before the council and they’ll listen to their constituents and we’ll see? >> we can’t guarantee they’ll listen to their constituents but at least you can talk to them about your issues and people come to meetings all the time with the concern because, you know, as a resident it would be my concern as well so the cpc meeting is kind of the first public forum that anyone has to talk about this. it does still go to council in the next month and talking to your counselors between now and then is the best and really only way to talk. >> okay. your petition doesn’t ask to kill the project okay. no what result would make you happy? >> well, i think for me ideally something more in the scale of the coronado tower, you know, 11 to maybe 15 stories compared to the 22 would be much more reasonable to me. i like the idea of more retail space in the neighborhood and more walkable neighborhood, i’m not in any way opposed to that. it’s just it seems very overwhelming, this building. >> you know, i tend to associate luxury hotels with beaches and golf courses or hotels in general with freeway exits or airports, downtowns and this is up on the hill by itself. it strikes me as odd and i was trying to think of something like it in another town that i’ve been to and i’m not, coming up with anything. have you had much interaction with the developers, why they think that this is going to work? >> you know, i haven’t. being on the commission we hear 10 cases every two weeks and this was just another case that we saw and that’s the way we look at them as well is we get presented the packet, we give it a good thought and we move on with the recommendation or without one. i, too, you know — i see that and understand that every place i’ve been, hotels typically are on freeway exits, luxury or not, they have some traffic. so it’s an interesting process to me as well that they would pick that area to do this. >> okay and, you know, i guess mixed use is kind of the key to it, that it’s luxury apartments as well as the hotel and as you look at it from the city’s standpoint where they’ve got the brio line and they’re talking about wanting something to service that density or to have that density to use that and bring things to businesses, are there other factors that you consider as you look at a project like this? what do you consider? >> well, i think we try to consider a little bit of everything. you know, infill is for us on the commission is a big deal. the sprawl that el paso has doesn’t help el paso. as everyone knows sprawl takes all the amenities out to the outskirts and it requires a lot of money by the city just to keep it going. so when you think about it, infill is a good investment for the city and that’s where my mind is at least and when you look at a process like this and someone coming in from out of town that well a lot of money coming in from out of town frankly, it’s nice that they think el paso is a worthy place to invest and i absolutely mirror the concerns. i’m very concerned with traffic, i have to drive in it as well and it’s an interesting spot to have picked and, you know, we have — i have a restaurant along with my sister in the middle of nowhere so i see the challenge with that every day. and at least there’s a lot of residential traffic going by there on the west side. we’ll see it from everywhere. it’s a big structure. >> okay and as people evaluate if this is going to be good for them, it may be good for the community at large. i guess i come back to the recommendation from the development department to approve it at a lower height and that recommendation didn’t happen. what was the thought behind that? >> i can’t speak for the rest of the commission. i think the way i looked at it, i just — i kind of think about the way chicago’s built, new york city was built, all the big cities were built. they had to build higher, that’s the way it was. it’s hard to tell someone who’s trying to spend that kind of money that you need to go back and do all your paperwork again to try to figure out if four or five more flights down makes sense for you. i don’t know what i would do in that situation, either. but, you know, i looked at it, i drove around the site and i understand people’s views might be obstructed. i like the views of the mountain and luckily, people live kind of east of there and they’ll still see their mountains and that’s the most important view for me. so i put that eight — with a little bit of perspective myself. >> you’ve heard the acronym nimby, not in my backyard. if this is the place the developers want to put it, is that something you can live with? >> i love the neighborhood that i love in. i’m not going to move just because this building is there. i will adjust to it the same way i’ve adjusted to anything. the coronado tower stands out as a huge building in the area and i grew up here, i’ve always seen it and i’m sure that we’ll get to this point with this building should it be built. >> one thing i think people have seen with downtown, you put something big there and other things spring up. you’re looking at an area there with some older retail and things like that. and is there any way to calculate or estimate or guess at what might come on the heels of something like this? >> well, i would imagine more development, typically that’s the typical answer on something like that. you know, this is still many, many years away i would imagine that, as well. and like monticello down there, it has spurred development in that area, mainly for themselves but they have spurred development there. so you would hope it would help the area — i mean, walkable communities are a good thing and we all can agree with that. so you know, if i was anywhere close to that community i would be happy to walk to more amenities. so… hopefully, that comes into play. i think it will. we’re many years away. >> okay well, here’s a reminder. we are live and you can join this discussion by calling 496-1775, or e-mailing me at erich@kvia.com. you’re >>> when i checked out the meyers group website, one of the things that struck me was that this tower appears to be of a magnitude a lot larger than the other projects they’ve worked on. there are two projects on the site, one of which has since been sold, which appear to be tasteful, but relatively conventional apartment complexes. the el paso project appears to be quite a bit bigger undertaking. of course, the meyers group is a relatively recent entity. the principals have been involved in other commercial real estate ventures for many years. we have some callers? rick from the west side. >> i really wish that people would stop whining. this is probably the greatest thing that’s going to happen to the west side. we need to be progressive. that’s why the east side has great restaurants and we don’t. so i hope the project goes through and i think it’s the greatest thing for the west side of el paso. >> any thoughts? >> i think the west side has some great restaurants, as well. >> i agree. >> but i agree. we have to think a little bit more progressively in el paso and maybe go visit some of those, rick. >> okay. and now, we have elaine from the west side. >> yes, i think that that building is nice but it should be built farther down mason street behind monticello’s development off the freeway as opposed to a neighborhood and it would fit in there perfectly and it would be out of the way and nobody would complain about it. >> and i’m told that was scott, not elaine. let’s try elaine now. well, i do have an e-mail here from silvano. the city of el paso needs to consider all the empty houses we currently have before accepting a new apartment building. why do we need more hotels? i would like to know how the city approves or disapproves new projects. we are having projects shoved down our throats, says silvano. this kind of gets back to your initial criticism of the fact that there are vacancies in the area already. does the planning commission look at that? >> we don’t have a scale to look at something like that. i think if it was an apparent problem that the city would bring it to our attention. but again, it’s someone’s money and someone’s thinking about spending it. it’s like if your neighbor decides to knock down two houses and put up one, it’s really his choice if he’s within the law. >> and you can get the zoning. >> right. >> make it all happen the way you want it. >> okay. i’m told we do now have elaine. >> yes, my concern and i was wondering what your opinions are on the daily commute if this building and all these people that would occupy this building are added to that location because i know in the mornings and the afternoons, traffic is already backed up. how do you think that’s going to affect it and what can the city does to correct that? >> that broke up in my ear piece. did you catch that? >> i agree with the traffic concerns. i mean, the traffic right this moment is probably the worst it’s ever been in most of our existence here in the city. obviously, these — hopefully, these freeways will actually take care of — alleviate some of these issues. i sure hope so because my commute is crazy right now. it looks like they have a good network of connected streets up there. i drive them and i know they’re busy. and something like this tends to add obviously, a lot of traffic but you would hope with the bus line and with mesa being there it would help alleviate some of that, and then possibly people riding their bikes more and getting out of the cars more. maybe that will help. >> yeah, one of the reasons i moved here from los angeles was to get away from traffic and i’m having flashbacks the last few months here. i’m hoping that the labor pains will come to an end and we’ll have a beautiful baby. is it your job on the planning commission — let me back track here. do they bring to you traffic mitigation things when they pitch a project or is that streets department? >> traffic is a concern for all the commissioners and typically depending on the project, depends on whether they do traffic studies. this one was a traffic study that was done. they talked a little bit about it in the planning commission meeting and talked about mitigation with the inner connectivity of the streets. so you know what, i’m hoping they’re doing their job well. i do obviously have concerns because, you know, we’re all driving through it right now and that’s texas. we’ve got two major projects happening, and then a trolley on top of that for the west side and yeah, every day. so we hope the traffic department knows what they’re talking about. >> a lot going on for sure. i hear we have armando in the northeast. >> good evening, if the west siders don’t want this opportunity in their backyard, we’ll gladly take it in the northeast. we have a nice district off 54 and if you need to shoot over to the west side we’ll gladly take it in the northeast. thank you. >> you know i wish fld turn the stadium into an amphitheater. our last caller is claudia on the west side. >> this is claudia from the west side and i just want to say that i think this is a good addition for those people that got disengaged when sprouts moved. they walk over to the grocery store and they need it. >> okay. well, i’ve asked mr. ardovino for a lot of technical thing, i’ll leave you with the last word here, dr. ingram. is there something you would like to tell city council? >> i would like city council to listen to the people on the west side and take our concerns into account. like i said, i think that bringing more projects like this to the west side is a positive thing, making it more walkable is a positive thing. but i still stand by my concerns that it’s much larger than anything else in the area and that i see when i read through their paperwork, i didn’t see anything about really mitigating any of the traffic issues and that intersection right there is already overstressed. so those would be my biggest concerns. and i hope everybody can work something out. >> okay. well, thank you so much, dr. kristyn ingram, robert ardovino, thank you so much for joing us. this has been “abc-7 xtra. maria