Hawthorne Press Tribune The Weekly Newspaper of Hawthorne Herald Publications - Inglewood, Hawthorne, Lawndale, El Segundo, Torrance & Manhattan Beach Community Newspapers Since 1911 - Circulation 30,000 - Readership 60,000 (310) 322-1830 - June 23, 2016 Inside This Issue Certified & Licensed Professionals.......................5 Classifieds............................2 Legals................................ 6-7 Film Review..........................2 Finance..................................4 Food.......................................4 Hawthorne Happenings....3 Looking Up...........................3 Pets........................................8 Police Reports.....................3 Seniors..................................4 Sports....................................5 Weekend Forecast Friday Sunny 75˚/63˚ Saturday Sunny 79˚/64˚ Sunday Sunny 81˚/64˚ Our Eagles Soar to New Heights! A school-wide mural was unveiled at Juan de Anza Elementary on June 10. Photo shows artist Tiffany Graham with Sabrina Nitsos, one of the 600+ students who created the mural with Ms. Graham. They are seated in front of one of four panels of the mural quartet just minutes after it was unveiled. Sabrina is the daughter of the school Principal, Sarah Nitsos. Photo by Monica Aguilar Civic Center Hotel Development Proposal Could Bring Much Needed Annual Funding For City By Derrick Deane A pair of Marriott brand hotels may be coming to the Hawthorne Civic Center adjacent to City Hall and the city library and bring in much needed tax dollars for the city. The City Council heard a proposal from Brad Wagstaff of Mogul Capital who presented a vision of a Courtyard and a Towne Place Suites Inn at the Civic Center site during a special meeting on June 15. The development would include 300 rooms – 200 would be in the proposed Courtyard while the other 100 would be in the Towne Place Suites which would be co-branded together. “That provides a good efficiency in operations,” Wagstaff said. “The Courtyard is targeted to business travelers while the Towne Place Suites is targeted for extended stay. The mix we feel is very appropriate for this location.” The Courtyard would also include a conference space, outdoor seating areas, a fitness center, and a pool while the Towne Place Suites would include a small kitchen in each room. Part of the development would also include a full service bar and restaurant. “Part of the Courtyard brand includes a full service restaurant,” Wagstaff said who then went on to mention the Courtyard in Long Beach as a good example as to what this addition might look like. “It services the hotel guests, but I would say 80 percent of the clients that were in the restaurant were actually coming in from the city.” Wagstaff says that hotel restaurants in general aren’t really good areas to attract the public, but with a separate entrance, it makes it more conducive for patrons to want to eat there. “They feel like they’re intruding, you have the walk through the lobby to get to the restaurant, so it has to be developed with a separate entrance and it has to feel like you’re walking into a restaurant and not that you’re going to a hotel on your way to the restaurant,” Wagstaff said. All that foot traffic certainly raises questions about parking and traffic in the area. “Parking today as we see it is scarce,” Mayor Pro Tem Angie Reyes English said. “Every chance to make it that much easier to get in and out is something that we recognize.” Parking has been an on-going concern among Council members and residents and Wagstaff was quick to ease any questions that might come up. He says that the site will be able to accommodate a “one to one parking ratio” for the hotels while still maintaining the minimum of 45 spaces mandated by the city for the library. “We would look to optimize parking and look at cross parking opportunities where during the day when we have fewer guests in the hotel, it seems like a very natural fit to provide more public parking during the day,” Wagstaff said when asked about the parking issue. Wagstaff began the meeting by touting a pair of hotels that were built in Redondo Beach (a third one is currently under construction and due to open in December), a project he says the city council there touted as one of the key accomplishments in their State of the City address as the sites bring in annual funding through Transient Occupancy Tax (TOT). Redondo Beach will see an estimated $4 million in TOT funding for the city this year. “While this campus that we’re proposing here in Hawthorne is smaller, we anticipate it to be a significant revenue driver for the city,” Wagstaff said. “Part of our interest of us exploring this space is that one of our top ten clients drives past this site every single day, as those clients go from Tesla and Space X and travel to our campus.” English asked Wagstaff to clarify why this was a good investment for the city for longtime residents who might have some concerns about the development. “With regards to the potential hotels and what not, how could a project such as this be beneficial not just to the city but the community at large and those that have lived here for a long period of time,” English said. “This is in a sense, very new to Hawthorne.” Wagstaff said that hotels were probably a city’s best use of land especially in an area that has a high TOT requirement. “There are a few things that come to mind,” Wagstaff said in terms of community benefits. “Obviously you now have hotels where your friends and families can come and stay very convenient and close to your home. In addition to that, in what we’ve seen in projects we’ve done all over the country is a significant investment into an area becomes a catalyst for additional development.” Wagstaff said that he understood that there might be some resistance to development, but he believes that bringing in a new project will, “only raise the bar of everything around it.” Referring to the Redondo Beach projects, Wagstaff said that, “we took a blighted spot that had been vacated by a prior family entertainment center and was being used as a homeless tent site; we redeveloped and turned it into a beautiful accommodation for the city. “That’s what we envision doing here. We envision doing something similar where this becomes a catalyst to other developments including the [Hawthorne] Mall,” Wagstaff said. “We’re very excited about that. We believe that our project will help that one go forward.” •
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