Plans to develop downtown lot revived

Notification meeting set for March 9 in the main library

Plans to develop the corner of Sandoval Street and West San Francisco Street, next to the iconic Lensic Performing Arts Center in downtown Santa Fe, are being revived.

On Wednesday, March 9, G.E. Senlic LLC will hold an early neighborhood notification meeting at 5:30 p.m. at the main library at 145 Washington Ave. to discuss a proposed 65-room hotel with underground parking.

The meeting is a required part of city government’s process before the project can go to the Planning Commission and the Historic Districts Review Board. Final approval would come from the City Council.

A floor plan included in an application filed at City Hall calls the project “The Inn at the Lensic.”

A previous project at the site won city approval in August 2008. The City Council gave the green light to a 46-foot-high, 47,691-square-foot building in a “Spanish Baroque” style. It was supposed to have retail space, condominiums and underground parking spaces.

Greer Enterprises, a family business that dates back to the 19th century in Santa Fe and former owners of the Lensic, had 30 months to start construction on the project, but work never started.

The city approval has since expired, so the developers have to go through the process again.

Local attorney Joseph Karnes, who is representing G.E. Senlic, said Thursday that the current project is just a hotel. He didn’t immediately answer questions about the new building’s height, square footage and design style.

The Lensic, an ornate, “pseudoMoorish”-style 1930s movie and vaudeville palace that was renovated and restored into a major performance venue starting in 2000, has been owned in recent years by the nonprofit Lensic Performing Arts Center Corp.

G.E. Senlic was incorporated in

2008 and listed Greer Enterprises vice-president Craig Young as its agent, according to Public Regulation Commission filings.

The Greer family has owned the proposed hotel site at least since the 1930s. The Greers have had plans to develop the space, currently a parking lot, since 1999, but didn’t get approval for what was dubbed Villas at the Lensic until 2008 after tweaking various proposals. That plan included 12 luxury time-share units.

Calls to Greer Enterprises Wednesday and Thursday were not returned.

This architectural drawing shows the design for a multi-use development that was approved in 2008 for a site next to the Lensic Performing Arts Center in downtown Santa Fe, but was never built. A new proposal for the location calls for a 65-room hotel.