A rendering of the proposed new hotel and conference space at 400 Trinity Drive. The Los Alamos County Planning and Zoning Commission approved the hotel’s site plan Jan. 8. Courtesy/LAC
By KIRSTEN LASKEY
Los Alamos Daily Post
kirsten@ladailypost.com
In 2022, plans for an extended stay hotel and conference center on 20th Street were terminated but the concept of offering these amenities in Los Alamos didn’t go away; in fact, they have reappeared in a new, separate project proposed for the entryway to downtown Los Alamos.
The Los Alamos Planning and Zoning Commission voted 8-0 to approve a site plan for a new extended-stay hotel and conference space during its meeting Jan. 8. Commissioner Benjamin Hill, who attended the meeting via Zoom, abstained, explaining he had been offline for most of the discussion due to technical difficulty.
The site plan calls for a three-story, 60-unit hotel with conference room space. The hotel, which would be a mix of overnight and extended stay hotel rooms, would be located at 400 Trinity Drive, which is where the Hilltop House Hotel once stood.
The hotel would be 40 feet tall and the building’s total square footage is 40,786 square feet. A little less than 1,000 square feet would be dedicated to the conference room. Will Gleason of Dekker Designs and Tucker Sharp of Ocean Rock Capital Partners and Grand Mesa Partners, LLC explained the conference space is not intended for large-scale regional events but more for local activities.
Regarding the rooms, Sharp said that some rooms would have kitchenettes and there would be kitchens in common areas. An extended stay, he said, would be defined as anything longer than a week. It could be for two weeks, a month or longer but not for a year.
For parking, it was reported that the Development Code requires 76 spaces. However, the applicant took advantage of parking reductions allowed by the Code for developments within the Downtown Los Alamos Zone District. This lowers the required number of parking spaces by 20 percent. Senior Planner Desirae Lujan said there are plans for 69 parking spaces and 10 bicycle spaces, which exceeds the parking requirements and includes EV charging stations.
County Engineer Eric Ulibarri pointed out that there would be two entries into the hotel – one from Trinity Drive and another from Central Avenue. He noted that to do any modifications to either entry will require approvals from the County, which owns Central Avenue, and New Mexico Department of Transportation (NMDOT), which owns Trinity Drive.
“There is some kind of work that needs to take place for approvals from both the County and NMDOT prior to actually breaking ground … but I don’t see any of those to be major hurdles …,” he said.
Another issue that will need to be addressed is the drainage ponds on the site because they encroach on County-owned land, Ulibarri said.
The former Hilltop House Hotel featured a gas station and Commissioner Stephanie Nakhleh asked about the site’s remediation and if the underground fuel tanks were removed.
Sharp said all the underground storage tanks were removed and soil testing was conducted; and he is waiting to receive notice that no further action is necessary.
Nakhleh reported that support for the proposed hotel and conference space isn’t universal. She read an excerpt from a letter written by Councilor David Reagor: “Then you have a back-channels communications where projects like a conference center that keep coming back even when they appear to be done. A conference center killed the Marriott project and now it appears to be part of the Mari-Mac project (Nakhleh said she thinks Reagor was referring to this hotel project). At the same time we have a big conference center at Buffalo Thunder and a small one at SALA – we can’t even host a national conference without many new hotel rooms, but the conference center is like a zombie in a science fiction movie, it keeps coming back from the dead and causing new problems. In an ironic twist the conference center has interfered with hotel projects that could actually allow us to host conferences someday.”
Nakhleh said she interpreted Reagor’s letter to mean he thought the County has a referendum that it could never pursue a conference space and wondered if that was correct.
Sharp said he was not aware of any moratorium for the development of a conference center.
While some may have skepticism, Sharp and Gleason explained how the proposed hotel could benefit Los Alamos.
Sharp said the groundwork has been done to lead the way for constructing a new hotel.
He explained his company took over ownership of the property from Los Alamos Innovation Village, the previous owners.
“We have done some heavy lifting,” Sharp said. “Resolving outstanding issues and investing capital into the property and into this community in the form of carrying the County’s liens incurred by the previous owner, which were in excess of $1 million. We resolved the previous owners’ defaulted loan, also with Enterprise Bank, also approximately $1 million, and we have put in hard work preparing the site for development. Our team is a seasoned real estate development group with four generations of real estate and hospitality ownership and development experience behind us. We assembled a top quality group of local consultants, architects and engineers who will be instrumental in delivering this project to a high standard. This is an important and prominent site in the community deserving of improvement. We are glad to be here with you and to be part of this community.”
Getting to the point to have site plan approved was a long time coming, Gleason said, but, given his past involvement in developing the County’s downtown master plans, Gleason said he felt this hotel could help achieve the master plans’ goals for revitalizing the downtown area.
“I think this is a great way to give a new face to the gateway to Los Alamos downtown,” he said.
Having the hotel could also assist with the County’s housing issues, Gleason said.
“It does help to address the housing crisis that has been part of the dynamic of Los Alamos here for the last few years,” he said, explaining the hotel would alleviate demand for Airbnb’s and bring more people into the downtown.
Housing and economic vitality are not the only boxes the project ticks off. Gleason said the plan is to have the building certified Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) gold, LEED’s second highest rating, and feature draught tolerant landscaping.
All in all, he said this project brings a lot to improving the downtown area.
“You improve downtown one building at a time and I think that this building, this project, really helps to further the goals of the downtown and comp (comprehensive) plan and complies with the downtown master plan to the greatest extent … and it will create a great new gateway to Los Alamos,” Gleason said.
For information on the project, visit https://losalamos.legistar.com/Calendar.aspx.
