Brookline —
A proposal for a 130-room hotel that has received little push back from abutters will go before the Zoning Board of Appeals Thursday, Oct. 24.
A Homewood Suites Hotel is being proposed for the long-vacant former Red Cab site on Boylston Street, and the petitioners have already met with the Design Advisory Team, as well as the Planning Board and the Transportation Board.
Little has changed from the proposal since it was first proposed, and it still includes a five-story building at 111 Boylston St. with a “sky plane” technique, which employs a terrace-like slope. The slope creates a façade that is five stores tall on Boylston Street, but only two or three stories on the side facing White Place.
Such a building type was requested by the town’s Davis Path Special District Zoning Committee back in 2011, in order to mitigate the amount of shadow a previous development proposal would have cast on White Place homes.
The zoning created by the Davis Path committee was also created to encourage certain uses, such as a hotel.
Elias Patoucheas, the developer for the hotel, said little has changed from the original proposal.
“As we continue to meet with the various boards within the town of Brookline, the plan continues to be modified and improved, consistent with the feedback provided by the town,” he said. “The overall feedback has been positive.”
Andy Martineau, economic development planner for the town, said the review process so far has been “extremely positive.”
He said some of the suggestions to the developers include changing the massing on the Boylston Street side to make the building more attractive, and reprogramming the interior to create more activity space, such as meeting rooms on the Boylston Street side in order to give the front more vibrancy.
The rear façade, conversely, is designed to have more of a residential feel to fit in with the surrounding neighbors.
The last developer interested in building at the site was GLC Development Resources, which planned a mixed-use building. The plan was heralded as a major improvement over the previous bid to build a four-story structure at the location. GLC eventually got permission from the town to construct a medical building on the site, but those plans fell through in December 2012 because of economic reasons.
The Red Cab lot is owned by Carol Parks, whose family owned the taxi company. Parks also developed the W Hotel in Boston.
The new building proposed by Homewood Suites would result in the demolition of a corner house near the MBTA tracks and the former Red Cab building.
Martineau said the developers hope to get the permits to construct the hotel from the ZBA and start work in spring of next year.
