Winooski hotel stalled by critics
WINOOSKI - The developer of a stalled hotel project is privately negotiating this week with a group of downtown businesses to resolve concerns over parking, traffic and loss of parkland.
Winooski Hotel Group LLC also faces a legal challenge that threatens plans for a 7-story, 95-room hotel and restaurant proposed for the south end of the traffic circle.
In January the Winooski Downtown Redevelopment Association filed a lawsuit against the developer in Chittenden Superior Court, asserting the hotel would illegally subvert several key goals for downtown.
The association’s attorney, Carl Lisman, confirmed Wednesday that developer Adam Dubroff's legal team has been in touch with him to explore an out-of-court settlement.
But the project’s reliance on off-site valet parking — and the diminishment of adjacent Mill Park by one-fifth — remain sticking points, association president Diane Finnigan said Tuesday.
“It needs to be a better plan,” Finnigan added.
The City of Winooski, which in April approved Dubroff's designs, is also named in the association’s lawsuit.
A review of the project by the state’s Act 250 Commission has been postponed until the case is decided.
State and regional planners, meanwhile, have said the hotel would minimally affect traffic.
“We applaud the use of available satellite parking to lots to accommodate the project’s parking needs,” Charlie Baker, executive director of Winooski-based Chittenden County Regional Planning Commission, wrote in testimony to the Act 250 Commission.
In keeping with “smart-growth” goals to reduce urban traffic congestion, Baker added, the project would likely decrease the use of personal vehicles and increase bus and pedestrian trips.
Vermont Agency of Transportation engineer Christopher Clow wrote to the Act 250 Commission that his agency “has no concerns relative to the impact of the project on local traffic congestion, safety, or access for pedestrians, cyclists and transit.”
Local businesses paint a very different picture.
Matthew Byrne, attorney for MyWebGrocer, owner of Champlain Mill — the project’s closest neighbor — told the Act 250 Commission that the hotel’s presence would be “disastrous” to the area.
“MWG has been unable to lease portions of its own building due to the lack of available parking, a situation that will get worse with the Project,” Byrne wrote.
The hotel’s designs are “too plain” and would detract from the historic mill’s stately aesthetic, he added: “It threatens to obscure this landmark behind a building that is too tall and too wide for its location.”
Many of MyWebGrocer’s objections were echoed by other members of the redevelopment association, most prominently Spinner Place, the Cascades and The Woolen Mill.
Nathan Dagesse, who co-owns the City Lights building, now under construction around the corner from the proposed hotel, is among those who differ.
The new building “continues the vision of a true urban walkable downtown,” Dagesse wrote in an email. “It also supports sustainable growth and will add to the vibrancy and diversity of the City.”
Aesthetically, the hotel would "naturally fill the current void that sits within the designated downtown area," Dagesse added — and noted that hotels have stood at the site, off and on, since 1869.
Diversity of opinion gives Bob Roesler, attorney for developer Dubroff, reason enough to pursue the matter out of court.
“Unless I’m mistaken, there’s not a philosophical opposition to the hotel by the association,” Roesler said. “We think there are some common issues between us that we can hopefully resolve.”
“But you don’t know that until the ink is dry on a settlement,” Roesler added.
Contact Joel Banner Baird at 802-660-1843 or joelbaird@freepressmedia.com, and on Twitter at @vtgoingup.
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