Downtown pedway scrapped
Hotel plan reverts to no-pedway plan
Ahotel
development proposed for Duckworth Street in Downtown St. John’s has been re-jigged, removing a skywalk and adding height.
Under the original plan, the Courtyard by Marriott at 131 Duckworth St. was to be paired with a new building across the street, providing more hotel space overall, with the buildings connected by a cross-street pedway.
The new proposal is “just a change of configuration,” according to St. John’s city Coun. Tom Hann, chairman of the city’s planning and housing committee.
Under the new plan, Hann said, the developer is offering to drop the pedway, use above-standard materials and provide much-desired parking. Some changes are also proposed for the back of the new building, pro- viding green space.
In return, two storeys are to be added to the existing hotel, making it 4.2 metres above the 15-metre height guideline for the area.
Hann said the height is being requested by the developer in order to make the project economically viable.
“What they’ve said is we will not connect (the new building) to the main. We’ll make it a standalone small hotel, but we need two more storeys to make it work and we will provide all the necessary parking and everything else,” the councillor said.
“They went back and looked at their parking and so on, so they’re providing, I think, two floors of parking, which is more than adequate for a new standalone building or an existing hotel.”
Hann said the skywalk, previously approved in principal by council — though not unanimously — was not a problem for the development.
“The original proposal came in and we approved it in principle. So the pedway was approved and they could have gone and built their building and connected it to the main hotel and that would have been it,” he said.
“But they changed their minds and said let’s make it a stand-alone and it will still be a Marriott brand hotel, but it will be a stand-alone.”
A view plane analysis of the development — showing how it will look from a variety of different angles — is being required by the city.
“Once that’s done, then the planning committee will advance the application to council,” Hann said, adding city council will then move for a public hearing on the new plans.