The proposed project involves renovation and reopening of an existing, unoccupied 72-room hotel (formerly the Regency Inn & Suites) on a 1.23-acre site at 14624 Dalewood Street, enlarging guest rooms by enclosing existing balconies, adding a hotel lobby and passenger drop-off canopy, demolishing the existing pool, and reconfiguring the parking lot to add 18 spaces. The project also includes a Zoning Code Amendment to allow hotels under 100 rooms in the Freeway Commercial zone, along with a parking variance and conditional use permit.
Ganddini Group prepared a focused traffic analysis, a vehicle miles traveled (VMT) impact analysis, and a parking study in support of the project’s review with the City of Baldwin Park. The traffic study evaluated intersection levels of service under existing and near-term conditions, project trip generation and distribution, site access design, and a left-turn lane warrant analysis. The VMT analysis screened the project against the City’s transit-priority-area and low-VMT-area criteria, and — since the hotel didn’t qualify for either screen — evaluated it qualitatively as a non-destination, local-serving hotel with no meeting or banquet facilities, concluding it would not induce new regional travel demand. The parking study evaluated the project’s compliance with the City’s parking code, benchmarked demand using ITE data and surveys of six comparable extended-stay and business hotels in the region, and recommended parking management measures including a dedicated passenger drop-off, shared parking between the hotel and an adjacent future coffee shop, and dual-purpose loading/staff parking spaces.
The traffic study found the project would operate within acceptable levels of service with no substantial deficiencies and no off-site roadway improvements were identified as necessary; a dedicated left-turn lane at the project driveway was found not to be warranted. The VMT analysis concluded the project’s impact would be less than significant. The parking study found the proposed 62-space supply would exceed the project’s forecast peak parking demand of 60 spaces (accounting for both the hotel and a future coffee shop use), even though it falls short of the City’s strict code requirement of 76 spaces — supporting the parking variance.
The project was approved by the Baldwin Park Planning Commission on November 8, 2023, with a Mitigated Negative Declaration adopted under CEQA.