New 88 room hotel proposed for downtown Kelowna

A new hotel could soon be approved for the north end of Kelowna.

Proposed on the corner Clement Avenue and St. Paul Street, plans call for a five-storey building featuring 88 rooms.

The project has undergone a number of revisions since first being introduced in 2015, however, parking remains a concern for councilors.

Developers are proposing only 37 parking stalls, less than half the number of rooms, along with 10 bicycle stalls.

The City of Kelowna's current regulations call for 0.8 stalls per unit, meaning the project should require at least 70 stalls.

However, since the application was submitted prior to the city adopting new parking regulations in November of 2019, the applicant qualifies for being grandfathered into the old parking regulations and is only required to provide 37 stalls.

"We believe downtown user transportation patterns are demanding less parking per hotel suite over time," said the applicant in a statement to city staff.

"If there is ever a need for additional parking, we have made arrangements with Parking Services to allocate overflow hotel parking within nearby and available City parking lots including the library parkade if necessary. Further, both we and Parking Services believe there are complimentary synergies with parking facilities as the peak demand for hotel users tends to be at night when the demand from other parking sources is typically low.”

City council will consider the project during their meeting on Tuesday, Dec. 8 starting at 7 pm.