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Hotel eyed for Hanna Ranch
Restaurants, shops and office also proposed
By Tim Omarzu
Marinscope Newspapers
At a meeting on the night of Wednesday, Nov. 4, developers will unveil plans to build a 116-room, midscale hotel, two restaurants, a retail building and a retail building with office space upstairs on the 19-acre Hanna Ranch property just south of the Vintage Oaks shopping mall.
The city of Novato’s Design Review Commission will hold a workshop at 7:30 p.m. in the Novato Police Department training room at 909 Machin Ave. to receive public comment and suggestions.
There was plenty of public comment the last time the site was eyed for development; a storm of protest erupted over the idea of building a Home Depot home-improvement store there.
That drew opposition partly because of the impact it could have had on Pini Hardware, a Novato institution, and partly because opponents didn’t want to see the knolls on the site levelled to make way for the big-box store.
Louise Patterson, Senior Planner for the city, wrote in a report that the three knolls on the property wouldn’t be graded, except possibly for some grading at the base of the southernmost knoll.
Dennis Allen, a partner in the Urban One, a Los Angeles-based development management firm, is the spokesman for the project.
Allen said that development was designed “to make sure we don’t put a Home Depot on this site and incur the wrath that they had.
“We’re not taking down the hills at all,” he said.
If the project wins approval, Allen said it would be two or three years before it opened. It would take about a year just to get through the environmental impact report, or EIR, stage.
In the meantime, Allen hopes the economy improves.
“It’s a tough time to do development,” he said.
Allen declined to state the names of the L.A.-area investors who own the property, but he said they would attend tonight’s meeting.
The name of the limited-liability corporation that owns the property is Hanna Ranch L.L.C.
The city of Novato’s Design Review Commission will hold a workshop at 7:30 p.m. in the Novato Police Department training room at 909 Machin Ave. to receive public comment and suggestions.
There was plenty of public comment the last time the site was eyed for development; a storm of protest erupted over the idea of building a Home Depot home-improvement store there.
That drew opposition partly because of the impact it could have had on Pini Hardware, a Novato institution, and partly because opponents didn’t want to see the knolls on the site levelled to make way for the big-box store.
Louise Patterson, Senior Planner for the city, wrote in a report that the three knolls on the property wouldn’t be graded, except possibly for some grading at the base of the southernmost knoll.
Dennis Allen, a partner in the Urban One, a Los Angeles-based development management firm, is the spokesman for the project.
Allen said that development was designed “to make sure we don’t put a Home Depot on this site and incur the wrath that they had.
“We’re not taking down the hills at all,” he said.
If the project wins approval, Allen said it would be two or three years before it opened. It would take about a year just to get through the environmental impact report, or EIR, stage.
In the meantime, Allen hopes the economy improves.
“It’s a tough time to do development,” he said.
Allen declined to state the names of the L.A.-area investors who own the property, but he said they would attend tonight’s meeting.
The name of the limited-liability corporation that owns the property is Hanna Ranch L.L.C.
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