JACKSON, Wyo. — The family behind Hotel Jackson has their sights set on another hotel development in the Town of Jackson, Glenwood Hotel.
On Monday, May 6, the Jackson Town Council unanimously approved the sketch plan for the new 38,000-square-foot hotel located at the corner of N. Glenwood Street and Gill Avenue.
The hotel will be three stories built across two lots with parking spaces on the ground floor and basement. Thirty rooms will be built across the second and third floors and guests will have access to a private rooftop. The ground floor will be designed to include a cafe and lounge.
The two-lot property is located at 210 and 230 N. Glenwood Street. The existing storage units and a two-story cabin, built in 1923, which housed a chiropractor’s office, will be demolished.
Sadek Darwiche, whose family owns Hotel Jackson, and several other properties in town, is listed as the principal officer of the property, under Pine Tree Corporation.
The project location is within the town’s CR-2 zone, which is commercial residential. According to the staff report, developers of the Glenwood Hotel increased the scale of the project by purchasing 8,000 square feet through a Transfer of Development Rights from the property at 81 S. King Street — known as the Ellen Walker Smart Shoppe. The owner of the King Street property was then required to record a historic preservation easement and deed restriction, limiting future redevelopment.
Transfer of Development Rights is a historic preservation incentive program that allows properties with a registered historic resource to transfer or sell unused floor area to another property. Transferred floor area can be used for non-residential floor area and toward workforce housing mitigation credits.
During the meeting, Michael Stern, President of the Teton County Historic Preservation Board and a member of the Teton Trust for Historic Places, made the only public comment.
“I just want to say how exciting it is to see the transfer of development rights program that we instituted a few years ago,” Stern said. “This is the first instance where it has happened, and it’s contingent on permanent, in-perpetuity historic preservation easements on the Coe Cabin and the Ellen Walker house. I know that the owner of those properties has been working even before the preservation LDRs were enacted to see this happen, so I just want to say we really appreciate that and are happy to see it happen.”
Councilmember Arne Jorgensen moved to approve the motion, and said, “I think this is a good example of where [The Transfer of Development Rights program] has worked and preserved some very special buildings along Cache and King.”
The sketch plan was approved with two conditions; the council is asking the developer to create a bulb-out at the northeast corner of the property, to increase pedestrian safety. The second condition is revising the housing mitigation plan to include a two-bedroom unit and a rationale for why the developer would like the unit to be located off-site.
With the approval of the sketch plan, Glenwood Hotel developers can now submit a development plan for review.
