Hotel Proposals for YWCA Building Prosper with City

The City of Pasadena received 10 proposals from developers looking to make something new of the Civic Center’s YWCA Julia Morgan building site, and City staff has chosen four hotel-based proposals and one that could go as a hotel or as “creative office space” to continue through the selection process.

That there were 10 responses to the City’s June 20 Request for Proposals was known. What was not known was their content. No longer.

The details of each proposal are outlined in a City staff report, along with the reasons five of them were excluded. Procedurally, the City Council will receive the report at its Monday meeting tonight and is expected to direct City staff as to the next steps.

Based on evaluation criteria in the RFP, City staff said it chose five proposals “as most advantageous to the City and most responsive to the goals established by the City.”

Three of the five offered housing options on the adjacent Pasadena Water & Power site at market rate, or affordable, prices.

Among them are Boston-based real estate developer Carpenter & Company, whose idea it is to reuse and restore the building and combine it with a 125- to 150-room Four Seasons Hotel and a 100- to 125-car underground parking structure. The YWCA and adjacent Pasadena Water & Power (PWP) building would be renovated into luxury residences.

Arcadia-based private realtor Continental Assets Management wants to repurpose the YWCA building as a hotel. A five-story market-rate unit building, or a six-story affordable housing building with 139 units, are proposed for the PWP site.

Edgewood Realty Partners of South Pasadena proposed a 164-room boutique hotel for the YWCA building renovated into a new, “L-shaped” structure, A five-story building with a 250-car subterranean parking structure is envisioned for the PWP site, though its purpose is not disclosed in City staff’s report.

Out of New Orleans comes HRI Properties with a proposal to develop the YWCA, “as closely as possible to the original building” into a 179-room hotel, while building an adjacent structure for a 166 hotel rooms. Hotel parking would be valet only.

The Ratkovich Company of Los Angeles has proposed two alternatives, sort of.

Alternative one comes with two options: first, historically rehabilitate the YWCA building as creative office space with surface parking; second, add a 59,000 square-foot office building to the same complex. Alternative two entails rehabilitation of the YWCA and construction of a 142-room hotel with an 80-pace subterranean garage.

The PWP site would become either 94 low-income units, 46 of which would be permanent housing for at-risk households, or governmental office space with an 87-space two-level subterranean parking garage.

Among those that didn’t make “the cut” was Belmont Senior Village, which proposed a senior assisted living community with memory care that required demolishing the YWCA building, reconstructing a portion of it, and adding a building with 175 units of residential care.

City staff highlighted the demolishing of the prized structure as the reason for its elimination.

The Dieden-Acevedo Development Partnership would have rehabilitated the YWCA building as a museum honoring its architect, Julia Morgan, “along with other high-achieving women.”

That would have been part of a larger mixed-used affair including a building with 100 affordable housing units, tech office space, and a cafe/restaurant aimed at becoming an economic and civic hub for Pasadena.

Staff said the proposal was “interesting but offered very little to illustrate its economic viability.”

Pasadena-based Genton Cocrum Partners wanted to renovate and preserve the YWCA building as creative office space including construction of a four-story office building, with 199 parking spaces underground, which is envisioned for City use. The same purpose would be ascribed to the PWP site which would have a 30,000 square-foot building and an adjacent five-story, above ground parking structure.

The two above-ground parking structures were deemed by staff as, “not the best for the Civic Center.”

Beverly Hills-based Green Bridge Investment Partners would like to redevelop the YWCA building into a three-story, 150-room hotel along the lines of the ACE hotel brand with its sports club membership. The PWP parcel would become tennis courts.

The proposal, staff said, “did not address the overall Development Plan criteria as written in the RFP.”

Orton Development, which is based in Emeryville, Calif., would redevelop the YWCA, to National Park Service standards for commercial/retail/residential use, but not get involved with redeveloping the PWP site.

While the proposal offered “a comprehensive response to the RFP, other proposals offered a more definitive approach in terms of use for the YWCA building,” according to staff.

If the name “Kimpton” strikes a chord of dèjá vu in certain Pasadenans, that would be because a project similar to those put up on the board by City staff raised a lot of hue and cry before finally being rejected.

“Given the high cost of rehabilitating the YWCA Building,” staff said, “it is not surprising that the majority of proposers focused on a revenue-generating project i.e., hotel, that takes full advantage of the building envelope established by the City Council and the existing entitlements.”

A pre-RFP consultant’s report by Kosmont submitted to the City Council in April predicted as much, the staff report noted.

Staff expressed a preference for further review of the surviving proposals, with the help of outside consultants, but said it was ready to proceed in whatever manner the City Council deems fit.

The City anticipates a period of public input and summary of the same before it returns to the Council with its analysis of each proposal.