Orlando’s Municipal Planning Board broke with its planning staff Tuesday by showing support for a pair of mixed-use high-rise towers in Parramore that would include both hotel uses and affordable housing.
Both tower projects would be located in an industrial area of the Parramore neighborhood and would seek to utilize the Live Local Act to fast-track the development approvals.
“This is a very, very important day for the Parramore Community,” Developer Timothy Green said.
The Live Local Act allows for residential or mixed-use development on land with industrial or commercial zoning as long as 40% of the housing units are affordable for at least 30 years. Orlando does not allow hotels in industrial areas without a Conditional Use Permit.
Green is seeking CUPs to include hotels in his Kelly Tower and the Parramore Tribute Towers on the Church Street corridor between Orange Blossom Trail and Westmoreland Drive. Staff had recommended denial for both cases, but the board opted to defer action until the June meeting so they could consider a motion to approve the hotel uses with certain conditions.
Green recently paid $3.2 million for a .8-acre warehouse at 1000 W Pine St., the site of his proposed 38-story Kelly Tower Hotel. The property has general industrial (I-G) zoning and is part of a historical Parramore overlay district. Green presented the Kelly Tower as part of a grandiose vision to create a new urban enclave in Parramore called the Green District with up to nine high-rise towers. He has already submitted a proposed master plan for a Live Local mixed-use project called the Green Tower at 1121 W. Church St. and has held pre-application meetings with city officials for two more towers on Central Boulevard with proposed heights of 35 and 36 stories.
Green argued that the hotels are needed to serve Camping World Stadium, which is slated to receive $400 million of dollars in improvements, and to support the affordable housing components in the mixed-use towers. The Kelly Tower hotel would be 120 rooms, while the Tribute Tower CUP is for a 280-room hotel.
“It is very critical,” he said. “In order to provide affordable housing when you look at the need of a 60% (area median income) applicant, or 70% or 80%, you’ve got to make the rents affordable. So the income from the hotel helps make the project financially feasible.”
Planning Director Elisabeth Dang said the reasons for denial would be that the city code doesn’t allow hotels in areas with I-G (industrial) zoning and because the area lacks the adequate transportation network and utilities to support a pair of 38-story towers.
“To be succinct, we’re very concerned about the height,” Dang said. “There are no other buildings of this height in this area. It’s pretty out of scale for other projects that have gone to this board.”
She said removing the hotels would reduce the building heights by at least seven stories.
Green’s attorney, Pedro Gassant from Holland & Knight, argued that the legislation preempts the city from denying Live Local projects based on height or floor-area ratio.
In the staff report, planner Nicole Palacios wrote that “the intent of Live Local is to allow for new opportunities to construct affordable housing. It was not intended as a means to approve other uses that are out of scale with the surrounding neighborhood.”
In addition to the hotel, the Kelly Tower development plan calls for 260 apartments, 10,000 square feet of meeting space and nearly 17,000 square feet of retail and accessory uses with a 9-level parking garage.
MPB member Trevor Hall Jr. agreed with staff about the scale of the project. “This just seems like way too much and way too tall for less than an acre,” he said.
But other members thought it could be the jolt in the arm for the area. MPB member Yasmin Moreno said she felt some angst going against the staff recommendation, but she would support the hotel CUPs and let the developer work out the details during permitting.
“But I think on the issue of use … a hotel use is compatible with this kind of development to infuse this area with this activity,” she said. “It’s very close to the Citrus Bowl, the Kia Center, all of the downtown areas. And if no one takes the opportunity to come in with a development like this one, you know to be the first one, then that area is going to remain an area that frankly …is going to be scary to the rest of the population.”
Board member Ryan Secrist agreed that the developer deserves the chance to bring the vision to reality and accelerate the development of more affordable housing.
“If it’s on the merits of a hotel use, and if I have to look at it based on a conditional use permit for a hotel, within an area that’s between three sports venues, it’s compatible. So on that note, I’m in support of it,” he said.
MPB Chair Blake Drury pointed out that a few people from the neighborhood came to the meeting to speak in favor of the towers, and no one spoke against them.
The board also deferred action on Green’s CUP for a separate project called the Parramore Tribute Tower Hotel, another mixed-use project with a 38-story residential tower and 29-story hotel tower on a shared parking podium. This project is slated for 2.5 acres at the southwest corner of Church and Westmoreland. The CUP would be for for a proposed 280-room hotel on property zoned for general industrial use. The total project would have a combined 620 residential units, of which 300 would be affordable, 120 would be extended-stay hotel suites and 200 would be market rate apartments.
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