SLO hotel plan too big for downtown

Déjà vu! Andrew Firestone wants to redefine SLO with a 75-foot tall hotel/retail center on Santa Rosa and Monterey streets, obscuring our landscape and small-town ambience. Similar problems arose when he decided to build a concrete box “boutique” hotel creekside, towering over the neighborhood beneath. Prior to approval by the City Council, I voiced similar concerns about that project as Rachel Cohen, associate city planner, does over this one: Do we really want this project to be SLO’s welcoming committee? Firestone’s proposal is too big (80 rooms), too tall and ignores our culture. It creates traffic, parking and other problems. Like the Monterey hotel, it requires variances to ordinances and codes, thus becoming precedent for subsequent projects.

SLO is one of the few remaining places in California not crowded with chain stores and restaurants that look like everywhere else.

Small businesses and people who live here need assurance that their quality of life will be preserved. People who visit need to decompress from stressful, hurried, commercialized cities.

Mr. Firestone wants to put his stamp on SLO, stomping us in the process.

Would Andrew Firestone build this project in Santa Ynez, where he comfortably lives in rural ambience? I think not.

This story was originally published December 10, 2015 at 4:20 PM with the headline "SLO hotel plan too big for downtown."