The owners of the Palihouse hotel are seeking permission to expand its restaurant into the lobby and onto the roof of the four-story building on the corner of Holloway Drive at Hacienda Place.
The request includes permission to offer alcoholic beverages on the rooftop and allow a DJ to perform on the first floor, where the existing restaurant and lobby are located. The rooftop would be open to hotel patrons and local residents.
The request will go before the West Hollywood Planning Commission on Thursday night. The city must grant Palihouse special permits to make the changes, which aren’t allowed under the hotel’s current permits. The current permits, for example, permit serving alcohol on the roof and in the lobby but don’t allow serving food in those areas.
Under Palihouse’s proposal, the rooftop would be open from noon to 10 p.m. Mondays through Thursdays and from noon to 11 p.m. on weekends and holidays. The restaurant would be open an additional hour each day — until one a.m. Sundays through Thursdays and until two a.m. on Fridays and Saturdays. Palihouse asked that the hours the DJ is allowed to perform be extended by one hour to 1 a.m. Sundays through Thursdays and to 2 a.m. on Fridays and Saturdays. However the city’s Community Development Department is recommending that the DJ hours be extended by only a half hour.
The Community Development staff is asking that Palihouse agree to install a seven-foot high glass wall around the rooftop dining area as a condition of approval of its request. A report by the staff saw no significant impact on parking in the area, given that Palihouse has a valet system and parking garage.
The Palihouse changes are the latest proposed for the small stretch of Holloway Avenue that runs from Santa Monica Boulevard to La Cienega. A joint venture between the owner of Barney’s Beanery and VE Equities is hopes to build a 113-room hotel on the site of Barney’s Beanery and Niko Niko restaurant, across Hacienda Place from Palihouse. The project would require the demolition of Barney’s Beanery, which the developer proposes to reconstruct as part of the hotel. A community meeting about the project is scheduled at Palihouse from 6 to 7 p.m. on Sept. 21.
Also on the Commission agenda is a proposal to reduce the size of the lot on which the old Coast Playhouse sits. The city recently bought the property, which includes an easement providing access to and from Flores Avenue and parking for Marix restaurant. By shrinking the easement width by one foot, the connection to the Marix parking lot can be preserved.
The Planning Commission will meet at 6:30 p.m. Thursday at the City Council Chambers, 625 N. San Vicente Blvd., south of Santa Monica. Parking is free in the four-story structure behind the building with tickets validated at the meeting.
Sound walls, not glass walls.
Ironically, I thought that this was about the Pali Hotel on the corner of Melrose opposite the Jewish Activity center, one block west of Fairfax. The comment fits for both properties, and, with my typo that should read ‘thrive on it’s plot of’ instead of ‘thrive on is plot…’
NO!!! REALLY????? I AM SHOCKED AND SPEECHLESS. HOW COULD THEY? AND I thought that a teeny-tiny boutique hotel could just thrive on is plot of some of the most expensive dirt in the city. I just wonder when that ‘rooftop restaurant’ will suddenly and without predisposition metamorphose like a caterpillar into a butterfly into a 4 story addition of rooms.
Sheldon – THAT is Sarcasm.
Here we go folks. Let’s have a huge bonfire and burn the city code literally since it has been burned figuratively.