At their March 26, 2024, the City of Fortuna’s Planning Commission approved a new hotel for the Riverwalk Drive section of Fortuna. The new “Tru by Hilton” hotel will have 105 rooms in a 4-story building of about 46,000 square-feet There are currently four other hotels in the Riverwalk Drive area. This would be the fifth.

If a hotel like this were to be constructed near downtown Arcata, a likely location might be in the Barrel District of the Gateway area, west of K Street and close to Samoa Boulevard. The Fortuna hotel is on a 3.17 acre lot.

At close to 46,000 square feet in size, a hotel such as was approved by the Planning Commission in Fortuna would also have to come before the Planning Commission in Arcata.

But if the hotel for Arcata were to be a little smaller — say, 85 rooms and 40,000 square feet in size, and still four stories tall — the project could, by the standards of the Gateway Code, never be seen by the Arcata Planning Commission. Instead, it would be approved by a single person, Arcata’s Zoning Administrator, or a person designated by the Zoning Administrator. In Arcata, the Zoning Administrator is the Community Development Director, David Loya.

There would be a public notice of the administrative hearing, and the public could watch it. But the hearing would more or less be a formality. If the design of the hotel met the Gateway design standards, it would be required to be approved.

The site for the proposed 105-room Fortuna hotel is 3.17 acres. An 88-room hotel can be built on 1.6 acres. A 66-room hotel can be built on 1.2 acres. Most hotel chains do want a larger parcel, for flexibility on siting the hotel building, the parking lot, and landscaping.

An Arcata city block is 1.44 acres. The three “underutilized” parcels in Arcata on the south side of 10th Street between N and O Streets plus the adjoining parcel on the west side  of N Street between what would be 8th and 9th Streets together add up to 2.18 acres. This is across N Street from “The Back Porch” and one block west of the Creamery Building, in the heart of the Creamery arts district.

That location could be site of an 85-room, 4-story hotel — and the Planning Commission would never see the project, unless Arcata’s Community Development Director wanted them to.

Below is the table for Gateway Ministerial review, from Page 5 (PDF page 7) of the January 2024 draft Gateway Code — here on Arcata1.com.

The Gateway Area Plan, the Gateway Form-Based Code, and Zoning Administrator approval of buildings as high as four stories are all an experiment. We don’t know how developers are going to utilize the provisions of the Gateway Code, and we don’t know what kinds of projects are going to be presented.

We have already seen glaring errors of approval and arbitrary enforcement of building codes come out of the Planning Department and Community Development Director. We do not need to see mistakes on building codes happen again. 

It is my view that all projects (other than for a single-family home) to be built in the new Gateway area should go through the Planning Commission — for the first five years and, say, for the first five (or ten) projects of 20,000 square feet or more. There is no detriment to having projects appear before the Planning Commission. If the project is a good project and meets the requirements of the Gateway Code, if it meets the objective standards then it will be approved. Projects including apartment buildings can be approved by the Planning Commission in a half-hour, as we have seen.

There is no need for single-person Zoning Administrator approval. The premise that it was intended for — to provide certainty and speed for project approvals — is no longer necessary. It is far better for the future of Arcata to insist on the opportunity for the seven pairs of watchful eyes of Arcata’s Planning Commission to review these projects.

Images of Tru Hotel by Hilton buildings, from around the country.

Apparently they are using one design for every hotel, with just slight modifications on parking and landscaping as required for the site. The blue-and-yellow color scheme for the hotels’ entrances and vertical trip is similar to the hues used in the flag of Ukraine.

Artist’s rendering of the generic design.

Tru Hotel, Greensboro, South Carolina

Tru Hotel, Lathrop, California

Tru Hotel, Norfolk, Virgina

Tru Hotel, Denver, Colorado. This looks to be a larger version of the pattern.

Tru Hotel, Eugene, Oregon. Five stories.