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Florence caucus reviews rezoning request to allow four-story, 99-room hotel on Merchant Street
Summary
City planning staff described a request to rezone an approximately 5.3-acre Merchant Street site from C-2 to O-2 plan development to accommodate a proposed 62,000-square-foot, four-story hotel; the Boone County Planning Commission recommended approval with five conditions, including additional evergreen plantings and lighting controls.
Todd Morgan presented details of a rezoning request that would reconfigure about 5.3 acres on Merchant Street in Florence to allow construction of a four-story hotel.
Morgan said the applicant, Merchant Square 2, LLC, asked to rezone the site from Commercial-2 (C-2) with the Houston-Donaldson study overlay to Office-2 (O-2) plan development with the same overlay. The change is intended to permit a hotel on the currently vacant parcel adjacent to the Kemba Credit Union lot.
The planning presenter said Kemba’s lot would be reduced and the hotel lot enlarged to about 2.24 acres, a net increase of roughly two‑tenths of an acre for the hotel parcel. Morgan said the submitted concept plan shows a 62,000-square-foot hotel, about 56 feet tall (four stories) with 99 guest rooms, an indoor pool and a rear patio. Access is shown from two curb cuts on Merchant Street.
Morgan summarized the zoning differences the request would create: under C-2 the site is limited to about 15,000 square feet of building per acre and a 50-foot height limit; O-2 allows about 30,000 square feet per acre and a 70-foot height limit. He said the maximum intensity stated in the staff presentation was 67,200 square feet and that the proposed Hilton-affiliated design is about 62,000 square feet.
Morgan also reviewed design and site details contained in the concept materials and planning commission record. He said an agreement dating to 1988 for the area requires full-height masonry veneer on out-lot buildings and that, if roofing is exposed, standing seam metal roofing is specified; the submitted elevations show three shades of brick and some fiber-cement siding (hardy plank). Morgan said the planning commission approved the submitted elevations.
The plan calls for a 40-foot buffer yard adjacent to the residential area behind the site; Morgan said the concept places no parking to the rear and proposes evergreen plantings in front of the existing tree line to help maintain screening in fall and winter. He said the required new trees are specified at 6 feet tall at planting.
Council member Angie asked whether larger or taller trees could be required because she and neighbors were concerned about lighting and visual impacts once deciduous trees lose leaves. Morgan said the standard tree height is 6 feet and that the council could opt to require taller specimens if it so chooses. He also said residents had been notified and that a few spoke at the planning commission hearing, raising lighting and visual concerns; the planning commission added conditions addressing landscaping, decorative site elements and lighting, and later adjusted wording on the lighting condition after additional information.
Morgan said the planning commission voted unanimously to recommend approval with five conditions tied to the concept plan, landscaping, lighting and related detail work.
No formal council vote on the rezoning occurred during the caucus; the item was presented for discussion and questions.
