Clear Lake City Council holds workshop session on Oaks Hotel, 7th Avenue North

CLEAR LAKE — The Clear Lake City Council held a workshop session last night on the Surf District area, including hearing about options on constructing the proposed Oaks Hotel and a traffic study that shows there would not be any negative operational impacts to the traffic network if 7th Avenue North was removed.

One of the options of the proposed development was removing 7th Avenue North between North Shore Drive and Buddy Holly Place to create a plaza between the Oaks Hotel, which would be located on the old Hilltop Motel property, and the Surf Ballroom’s  Music Enrichment Center.

Veenstra & Kimm was hired by the city to conduct a traffic study, and their Leland Belding says there would not be a significant impact to traffic in that area.   “The average speed through the model is 18 miles per hour. So you do the math there and you come up with just an increase in travel time I think it was about 19 seconds. So really you could eliminate that whole thing, move all the traffic, and you’d still operate just fine.”

Belding says even with the addition of a 60-plus room hotel, there wouldn’t be that great of an impact to traffic in that area.  He says it should generate about 32 trips, split 50-50 with exiting and entering, so that’s only 16 trips going each way in and out. I threw that into the model real quick. The Beach Drive/North Shore connection, the southbound trip, is a Service B in its existing form, and would continue that way with the hotel, with there being plenty of capacity.”

With the hotel, the big question is whether to construct a 68-room hotel with a plaza connecting it to the Music Enrichment Center, or keeping 7th Avenue North and constructing a 63-room hotel. Project developer George Janssen says while the two options keeping 7th Avenue North would still have some greenspace, the plaza would be a seamless connection.  “The primary differences are what we’re going to do with 7th Avenue North. On option #1, it terminates in a cul-de-sac, it allows us to create a plaza that supports the both MEC and the hotel, relying heavily on green space and landscaping to create things in here that’s again fallout again with the history of the Surf District.”

Janssen says there are several pros going with the 68-room hotel with plaza concept when compared to the 63-room with no plaza options.  “Safety — this option doesn’t have people crossing a street to move from the MEC or the ballroom to the hotel. If you were to have a wedding in the MEC, at the end of the night, people would be able to walk across the plaza without having to cross the road. Hotel and MEC guests would look down on a scenic park rather than a road is included in option #2 and #3. Minimized traffic sounds — you’ll see the other two options has a road that runs in between the two buildings and creates traffic sounds for the hotel and for people at the MEC.”

Since the meeting was a workshop session, no formal action took place, with the council indicating they possibly could make decisions about the Oaks Hotel project and 7th Avenue North at their October 6th meeting.