You could argue that the Covid pandemic is drawing to a close as we approach herd immunity and with it we will see a return to business and leisure travel. With that a return of the hotel TOT that has been one of the Golden Geese keeping B'game flush would be in the cards. Or not. Maybe Zoom and work at home will take a serious dent out of travel. For now though at least one erstwhile hotel developer on the Bayfront wants the freedom to build differently to attract life sciences tenants. As this piece in the DJ notes, the Planning Commission is somewhat amenable as are some city councilors.
With the pandemic interrupting the travel and hospitality industries, Burlingame officials are considering introducing the life sciences industry into an area historically preserved for hotels and light industry. But they balanced those perspectives against an expectation that developers proposing life science buildings would be obligated to supplement their plans with an attractive package of community benefits.
Under the proposal, buildings reserved for tenants in the life sciences industries could be allowed to build a floor-area ratio up to 3.0 — a significant spike from the current standard of 0.75 floor-area ratio for every building in the area other than hotels.
And while support for the vision was broad during a challenging time in the travel and hospitality industry, officials also made clear they continued to prefer development of hotels along the Bayshore.
Noting that hotel tax has been one of the city’s primary sources of income when the economy was thriving, Councilman Michael Brownrigg said he favored preserving incentives for future hotel construction.
TOT has traditionally been about 38% of total city revenues in normal times as noted here back in 2016. Nobody is suggesting tearing down existing hotels to change the usage, meaning that revenue stream should rebound, but may not reach the percentages of the past. But the most interesting aspect of the proposal didn't make it into the DJ article. I have it on good authority that life sciences companies need…..wait for it…..natural gas for their labs. One source at Genentech called it a "deal killer". Can the green councilors put aside their one-year old ban and grant a variance? If one gets it, then the next one is entitled as well. And if a company can get a variance for a big installation, will you be able to get one for a small installation?
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