A revised eight-story dual-brand luxury hotel received unanimous preliminary approval from the Naples Design Review Board after the developer removed a rooftop restaurant following opposition from neighbors.
The 278-room hotel, on 4.45 acres at 870 Goodlette-Frank Road. in The Commons Professional Park, already received unanimous preliminary approval in January, when two nearby residents opposed it, but after meeting with the Lake Park Neighborhood Association and receiving emails of opposition, the project team removed the restaurant and sunset terrace.
DRB members, three of whom live in the nearby Lake Park community, said the restaurant and sunset terrace, which would have been open to the public, would have drawn business professionals from The Commons and residents citywide — and it’s far enough away that noise wouldn’t be heard.
“I’m really, really disappointed that the sunset lounge is gone,” DRB member Chae duPont said. “It’s a big thing for the entire Commons to lose that because … we see with the future of The Commons, the direction it’s going in and there’s going to be a lot of residents back there that would love to just mosey on up to the hotel and have a drink and watch the sunset.
“You’re not going to be rolling out heavy metal music from that place. It’s going to be like a lounge,” she added.
She pointed out the “incredible distance” between the lounge and homes. Plans show the hotel is located 225 feet from the property line, with a parking lot, a landscaped buffer and another 5 feet to six-lane Goodlette-Frank Road, and a linear park on the west side of Goodlette all buffering homes in Lake Park.
DRB member Doug Haughey, president of Lake Park Neighborhood Association, also supported the rooftop restaurant, noting that of 40 to 50 residents at their meeting, only eight were concerned about noise and lights coming off the roof. “I don’t think anybody was asking for the restaurant to go away,” Haughey added.
DRB Vice Chair Luke Fredrickson, who lives in Lake Park, called the complaints unfounded, saying it was unfortunate and a shame the community would lose the restaurant. And DRB Chair Steve Hruby, another Lake Park resident, said he was looking forward to bicycling to the lounge at night to enjoy a cocktail or two during sunsets.
“I agree it would have been nice to have that, but you have to respond to the will of the community, and I respect the fact that you took the effort, and you went through the proper process of holding committee meetings,” Hruby said. “That’s what this is all about, to be able early on to expose these designs and be very transparent about it — and if there is concern, you roll up your sleeves and you sit down with people and work out a win-win situation.
“Not everybody gets everything they want, but everybody gets something,” he added.
Mark McLean, of MHK Architecture, said there would be music on the rooftop and added: “We felt it was a battle not worth fighting through this public approval process.”
The 252,612-square-foot hotel will sit atop two stories of parking, McLean said, with guest rooms, a lobby, hotel operations, fitness center, business center and outdoor courtyard restaurant for guests only on the third floor. Hotel rooms will be distributed between the fourth through eighth floors and there will be parking for 285 vehicles within the building and on-site.
“By removing the restaurant, it freed up a substantial amount of parking that we no longer have to do,” McLean said of a reduction from 355 spaces.
The restaurant took up half the eighth floor, he said, and removing it provides more space for oversized units, combined units and penthouse suites with “really great views out to the Gulf.”
City staff noted removing the restaurant decreased parking demand, allowing parking that previously lined the western boundary abutting Goodlette-Frank Road to be removed and replaced with green space and buffers that will surround the hotel. Mature trees along Goodlette-Frank Road will remain untouched and will help shield noise. The site will be fully landscaped by landscape architect Christian Andrea, of Landscape Design Inc.
The 94-foot-high hotel can exceed the city’s 42-foot height limit because it sits on 52 acres of former Collier County property, The Commons, which the city annexed in 1989. Naples accepted the county’s 1980 zoning conditions and they were affirmed in 2001, when a Collier Circuit Court judge agreed Commonage Corp. had vested rights to add new buildings as originally approved.
The petitioner is AAM Naples Hotel Owner LLC, which is managed by David R. Masse, of Burlington, Massachusetts, founder and CEO of AAM15 Management, which focuses on investments in hospitality, apartments and student housing.
McLean has said they’re working on the dual branding of the hotel with Hilton and Marriott but haven’t settled on the brand.
The planned development has been developed to the south. The hotel would be built just south of the former castle building that once housed Fifth Third Bank, and north of a six-story medical office building that includes Advance Medical primary and urgent care. Guests will enter the hotel through the intersection of Seventh Avenue North, where there’s a traffic light, drive around The Commons roundabout to a rear access road that leads to a porte cochere, where guests can park and check in.
The hotel plans now head to the Planning Advisory Board and City Council for approvals before returning to the DRB for a final design review, the last step before building permits can be issued.
