Hotel plans move forward
Orlando planning board approves Ambassador’s conversion amid concerns
A developer’s plan to convert the beleaguered Ambassador Hotel along West Colonial Drive into 150 workforce apartments got the thumbs up from Orlando’s planning board Tuesday, even as some neighbors had concerns it wouldn’t clean up crime.
One-Stop Housing is under contract to buy the hotel pending rezoning the land and approval of the development. The property was the city’s first Holiday Inn and later became the Ambassador. It’s planning to rename the site “Palm Gardens.”
City officials, neighbors and Mark Vengroff, the CEO of One-Stop Housing, have said the hotel has been crime-ridden, and frequently battled code enforcement over the year.
Amid community concerns — one neighbor said the Ambassador “is ridiculous” while another complained “it’s absurd” — Vengroff said the hotel would be the eighth conversion by his company, and his company has found success in drastically reducing crime. One-Stop Housing’s plan includes around-the-clock security, security cameras, lighting, on-site management and other measures.
“I completely agree that the property and the immediate area is a mess,” he said. “Each time over those years we’ve been very successful in being able to work with local police officers and our own security detail to clean up the property.”
Gerald Smith said his daughter lives behind the Ambassador, and said he welcomes any development that would clean up the property. He asked Vengroff to construct an 8-foot solid wall along sections of the property backing up to homes.
“We’ve had lots of instances where people will go behind the hotel to escape [crime],” he said.
Don Brown, who lives a few blocks away, said he hoped the city would take further action to reduce crime in the area.
“I have no objection to low-cost housing. I do have an issue with bringing low-cost housing into a high-crime area,” Brown said. “I implore you to do whatever you can as a board to ask the city to fulfill its responsibility… to reduce the crime in that area.”
Along with several people who
addressed concerns with the proposal in person, the city received seven emailed complaints as well. Six of those lodged their opposition with Commissioner Robert Stuart’s office. The hotel sits in Stuart’s District 3 and borders District 5, represented by Commissioner Regina Hill.
“Adding 150 families squeezed into single hotel size units would very much detract from our neighborhood,” wrote Martha Jennings, who lives nearby in College Park. “How does a family of 3 people actually live in a hotel sized room? This would have to be a very transient population that would not have any care for our College Park neighborhood.”
Jim Burnett, the city planner assigned to the conversion, said the city views it as a “win-win” in that it cleans up the property while adding affordable apartments where they’re sorely lacking.
“We found that the proposed apartment use will be compatible... and less transient,” he said.
Vengroff said previously that renovations of the property would be elaborate, including gutting rooms down to the cinderblocks and installing new plumbing, electrical, kitchens and a new roof.
The result will be mostly studio apartments with a few one- and two-bedroom units, with rents averaging $750 per room, including utilities. This makes the units ideal for working-class people who make too much for traditional affordable housing and too little to afford larger units in a region where rental prices are exploding, Vengroff said.
Following the approval from the Municipal Planning Board, the city council is scheduled to vote on approving the minutes of the meeting on its regular July 18 agenda.
From there, an ordinance will be drafted for the Growth Management Plan amendment and the rezoning, which requires two votes of the City Council. Both could come in August, according to the staff report.