Concord OKs Hampton hotel near downtown

CONCORD, CA—The City Council has approved plans for a new Hampton by Hilton just off the Highway 242 exit onto Clayton Road/Market Street.

The hotel will be built on an empty lot bordered by Clayton Road, Market Street, Willow Pass Road and Pine Street. The council approved a zoning change for the site, previously zoned for a car dealership.

Construction is expected to begin by the end of April on the four-story hotel, which will have 86 rooms in a 48,100 sq. ft. space. There will be 76 parking spaces, including four electric vehicle charging stations and four bicycle parking spots. The designers drew inspiration from the Salvio Pacheco building in Todos Santos Plaza for the building’s Spanish Colonial look.

Cars will enter/exit from Pine Street, between the All Star gas station and the VIP convenience store. The developer says the building’s position will beautify that entrance into Concord as a “gateway” into the city.

The hotel will cater to business travelers, bringing business into Concord. In addition, it will provide Transient Occupant Tax and Tourism Improvement Business District revenue.

Mitigating traffic issues

Because the lot rests between two busy commuter intersections, the council discussed potential traffic congestion in January. City planner Joan Ryan said that their studies show the impact on traffic could be “significant in the near term but is expected to lessen over time.”

The city is requiring the developer to pay for traffic signal upgrades, which include video monitoring equipment and right turn on red blank-out signs.

The council also debated the wisdom of a hotel with fewer parking spaces than rooms. To address this, the owner agreed to provide a free shuttle or fully subsidize ride-share service so that guests could utilize BART. The service would continue for a minimum of five years from occupancy, projected to start in late 2022.

Councilmember Laura Hoffmeister asked what mechanism would be available to make sure the parking impact was minimized before the agreement ended. “Should the consultants be wrong, which they sometimes are, then we’re stuck with the mess and people end up complaining.”

The council finetuned the plan, requiring the applicant to provide a subsequent study to confirm parking adequacy before being released from the shuttle/ride-share requirement.

Questions about viability

Even though hotels are currently facing huge losses due to COVID-19, there is an expectation that the economy will rebound by the time the Hampton opens.

“I am in support of this project, and I want to see it built,” said Councilmember Dominic Aliano. “I believe COVID will not be with us forever. And in the long term, this project is going to help our economic sustainability into the future.”

The future of the hotel brought up the biggest disagreement at the meeting. Although Hoffmeister expressed support for bringing a hotel like Hampton to the city, she wanted to add requirements that the property maintain certain standards. The issue centers on hotels becoming magnets for drug use and prostitution.

“We’ve had other hotels come in promising the moon which were later sold to a lesser standard facility and then become a burden on the community instead of an amenity,” Hoffmeister said.

Councilmember Edi Birsan called the request “elitist” and said putting too many requirements on the deal might scare off the developer.

George Fulmore of the Monument Democratic Club has said the council is out of touch with the needs of the neighborhood surrounding this property. In a recent letter, he stated that a hotel that caters to weekday travelers would not help the densely populated housing across Clayton Road, while increasing traffic and impacting parking.