Council continues Mohave Crossing hotel/medical project after resident concerns on access, grading and screening

The St. George City Council continued a zoning and site-plan decision on the Mohave Crossing project — a proposed PDC amendment for roughly 5.06 acres near the Atkinville interchange that would include a 107‑room hotel, a 20,000‑square‑foot medical office and 8,431 square feet of retail — to Feb. 6 to give staff and the applicant time to test whether a north-side (Nighthawk) access can be engineered.

Why it matters: Residents from the adjacent Sunriver neighborhood raised concerns about grading, privacy, trash location, exterior lighting, overnight parking, and potential overflow onto Sandpiper. Council members and staff said the applicant had modified the plan (rotating the hotel and reducing rooms from earlier versions) but engineering questions about existing fill and grades remain.

Planning staff representative Carol presented the project history and changes requested by the planning commission, including rotating the hotel 90 degrees (now 107 rooms) and providing a 10‑foot landscape buffer and six‑foot wall between the commercial site and nearby residences. Multiple council members said they appreciated design changes but wanted assurances about access, grading and trash/recycling locations.

Developer representatives described prior grading and “masquerade” fills on the property and said bringing an access directly to Nighthawk would require changes to the site that could reduce parking and trigger larger retaining walls. Civil engineer Colby Anderson gave existing elevation figures: the top of asphalt on Nighthawk is about elevation 60, and proposed finished floors were described near elevation 74 — roughly a 14‑foot difference that complicates a new Nighthawk access.

Council direction and conditions: Council asked staff and the applicant to work through one clear option: evaluate whether an access from Nighthawk can be engineered without unacceptable impacts. If that cannot be done, council indicated it will expect mitigation measures for Sandpiper — for example, right‑turn‑only egress, no overnight parking and a continuous block wall along the Sandpiper edge. Staff was directed to return with engineering results and recommended conditions at the Feb. 6 meeting.

Quotations from the record (attributed to speakers in this article): "If you don't do a better job, we're done with you," Mayor said about the city’s expectations for private shared mobility contractors (context: separate pre‑agenda scooter discussion). Carol, planning staff, described site revisions: "the hotel has been changed... it's been moved 90 degrees." Colby Anderson, civil engineer, summarized the grade challenge: "If we were to bring an access off Nighthawk about the middle of the block, that would be around elevation 60... Right now, we're at finish floor 74. So that's 14 feet."

Next steps: The applicant agreed to meet with staff to refine grading and access plans and to return Feb. 6. If an Nighthawk access proves infeasible, the council signaled it would require measures to minimize residential impacts.