Prescott Preservation Commission denies design for Prescott Plaza hotel, 3-2

The Prescott Preservation Commission voted 3-2 on Oct. 20, 2025, to deny design review of HP25-006, a proposed 47-room Prescott Plaza hotel at 136-140 South Montezuma Street in downtown Prescott's Courthouse Plaza/Whiskey Row area. The commission's decision followed about an hour of staff presentation, review by an outside architectural-historian consultant, a voluntary State Historic Preservation Office review, and roughly a dozen public comments both for and against the project.

The project team, represented at the hearing by applicant Doug Stroh and attorney Tim Sandefer of the Goldwater Institute, had proposed a four-story building with an open-air fourth-floor terrace with a retractable roof, Juliet and full balconies with wrought-iron railings on the street and alley facades, a red-brick veneer above a natural-stone wainscoting and wood-frame windows. Planning manager Alex Bramlett told the commission the property lies in the downtown business zoning district (the transcript called it the "Purple area") and within the Courthouse Plaza local historic district; hotels are an allowed use in the zoning district, but projects in the local historic district require design review under the Courthouse Plaza ordinance and the city's 1998 Historic Preservation…