Design Commission Approves Final Design Review on Colorado-Hill Project

The Design Commission approved Final Design Review for the Colorado-Hill Project on Tuesday.

The project consists of two projects:  a new 375-room hotel on the north side of Colorado at Hill and a mixed-use smaller-scale building with 49 residential units on the south side of Colorado at Holliston.:

The approval was based on staff’s recommendations with one minor modification which allows the commission to periodically review mock-ups as construction progresses. A new condition was also added that the applicant study the use of stucco on the top floor of the hotel.

“The applicant team did an excellent job in listening to Commission and Staff comments.  The result is an elegantly detailed project of high architectural quality,” Commissioner Julianna Delgado told Pasadena Now. 

“The project with its Contemporary Art Deco style and nod to Pasadena City College’s aesthetic brings cohesion, much-needed publicly-accessible open space at the ground floor, and a lively streetscape to an area long marred by large asphalt surfaces, as well as the preservation, restoration, and adaptive reuse of a former auto showroom, a historic resource.  Overall, it is an excellent precedent for a city that is densifying.” 

The project proposes the construction of two new buildings. 

One is a five-story, 83,029 square-foot mixed-use building with 21,539 square feet of ground floor commercial space and 49 residential units above subterranean parking on the southerly parcel. 

The second building is an eight-story, 335,560 square-foot hotel with subterranean parking above ground floor commercial space on the northerly parcel.

The application for final design review was subject to environmental review in the Final Environmental Impact Report certified by the City Council for a previously approved application for the establishment of PD-35 for the same project on September 12, 2016. 

On April 26, 2022, and June 14, 2022, the Design Commission approved the application for Concept Design Review for this project. The upcoming meeting on February 14, 2023, will be the final step in the approval process for this new development.