Santa Monica City Council is expected to vote tonight on whether to allow The Shore Hotel to upscale its offerings and compete with other resort-like hotels in the city.
Owners of the Shore Hotel — located at 1515 Ocean Avenue across from the pier — have been lobbying for years to add restaurants, bars and amenities for use by the general public.
The property is currently permitted to sell food and beverages to guests only.
Shore Hotel is positioning itself (pre-vote) as a struggling, family-owned advocate for affordable hospitality, local job creation and Covid recovery.
“Help our small business better serve our coastal community through affordable rooms, Santa Monica jobs, dining options and youth programs,” operators pleaded in a series of email messages to the community over the past few weeks.
But opponents of the upgrades are quick to argue that developers are attempting to get around permit restrictions placed on the hotel after it was built.
Back in 2019, Sunshine Enterprises Ltd. was fined $15.5 million after it “replaced two of the only low-cost motels in Santa Monica with a luxury boutique hotel, without a permit,” according to the California Coastal Commission.
The CCC has a vested interest in ensuring that access to coastline is available to everyone — not just those who can afford $600-a-night luxury hotel rates.
Up until 2018, the site of Shore Hotel was occupied by a Travelodge and the Pacific Sands motel. Together, they accounted for about 35% of the city’s discount accommodations.
In 2009, Sunshine was granted a permit to demolish the older properties and replace them with one larger Travelodge — a national chain where “no frills” rooms would likely have started around $150.
The permit eventually expired but Sunshine moved forward with construction, instead creating a mini resort hotel.
As part of an overall settlement (which included additional cash payouts) Shore Hotel was permitted to open but amenities were limited and restricted only to hotel guests.
The Planning Commission recently approved a CUP (Conditional Use Permit) for a 14 room micro-hotel. But it denied permits for the proposed cafe and spa services.
The owners have now appealed to City Council.
To succeed they will have to overcome opposition from many — including United Here Local 11, a powerful union representing some 32,000 hospitality industry professionals.
In their own plea to the public, the group posts:
“This proposal runs afoul of the Shore Hotel’s original conditions of approval, which limited food and beverage offerings to keep the hotel from being offered overall as a luxury hotel. To quote the conditions of approval from 2008, Shore Hotel “does not include a restaurant, bar, conferencing facilities, spa, florist, lounge or similar amenities typically found in more upscale or luxury hotels. Now, Shore Hotel seeks to add exactly those type of amenities. The purpose of the Coastal Commission settlement was to bring the hotel into compliance with the Coastal Act’s requirements that the hotel provide affordable access to the coast, not to allow them to expand their hotel and make it more luxurious with a smattering of affordable rooms. Santa Monica businesses and residents should reject Shore Hotel’s latest attempt to upscale the property and restrict access to the coast.”
You can watch tonight’s City Council meeting live on zoom at 5:30 PM.
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