Crocker Park requests changes in remaining development Revised building plan moves hotel site, adds Cleveland Clinic building
By Kevin Kelley
Westlake
Published July 26, 2006

Crocker Park officials are requesting significant changes to the development plan Westlake City Council approved in the summer of 2000.

The changes include:

• Building a hotel at the corner of Detroit and Crocker roads, just east of The Promenade Shopping Center.

• Adding a freestanding medical office building at the south end of the retail/residential district. The building would contain doctor offices and other medical facilities associated with the Cleveland Clinic, according to Robert Parry, the city’s director of planning and economic development.

• Extending Main Street south an additional block. But instead of first floor retail stores with apartments above, the new block would have townhouses on the ground level. The townhouses represent residential space previously slotted for the medical office building site.

Robert Stark, chief executive officer of Stark Enterprises, the developer of Crocker Park, said in an e-mail that extending Main Street with townhouses will locate more residents in the heart of the community.

"Crocker Park is a community that is evolving and redefining itself all the time, as do all great communities," Stark said. "Extending Main Street will connect the entire property in a new urbanism way. This will position the new residents in the best places on the site near the center, and provide space for the most fundamental community uses; health and wellness, higher education, civic arts, fitness and lodging."

Crocker Park filed an amendment to its development plan July 10. While the original development plan allowed for minor changes, this revised plan will require the approval of the city’s planning commission and council, Parry said.

“It’s a big change,” he said.

Council is under no obligation to approve the requested changes to the development plan, Parry said, although Crocker Park has the right to ask.

Why are changes being requested now? Parry said he was told by Crocker Park officials that they want to add the Cleveland Clinic offices. The Cleveland Clinic wants to be in a seperate section, he was told.

A spokesperson with the Cleveland Clinic confirmed the hospital was considering a facility at Crocker Park.

"Cleveland Clinic has been committed to the Westlake community for years," Eileen Sheil, executive director of media relations for the Clinic, said in an e-mail statement. "The success of our Family Health Center (at 30033 Clemens Road) is exceeding the capacity of our existing facility and we are exploring options for a replacement. Crocker Park is one option under consideration."

Crocker Park officials have requested time at an upcoming work session of the planning commission but have not yet been scheduled, Parry said.

With council on summer recess through August, approval of the amended plan, if it’s given, would not come until September or October at the earliest, Parry said.

Parry described the new plan as “very hypothetical.”

“We’ve got a lot of questions about it,” he  added.

One big question involves the four-story medical office building. Parry expressed concern that the freestanding structure that Crocker Park intends to locate in an area previously set aside for residential units may look too similar to the other office buildings on the east side of Crocker Road.

Because the new block of Main Street would contain townhouses instead of retail stores, the new plan would not increase the total amount of retail space at Crocker Park.

“Their revised plan does not increase retail,” Parry said. “It actually increases office by a lot.”

The new plan apparently means Crocker Park will not go through on a proposal to locate a boutique hotel just west of Trader Joe’s grocery store. Last fall, the planning commission and council approved the plan to build a property for the Texas-based Valencia Group.

Parry said as far as the city is concerned, the approved hotel development plan is still valid.

Most of the land Crocker Park is now proposing for the hotel — a lot just east of Border’s Bookstore — is on a parcel legally separate from both Crocker Park and The Promenade, Parry said. The land is owned by other investors, Parry added.

Because that land is currently zoned for office use, it would have to be rezoned to either the hotel/motel or planned unit development category before the proposed hotel could be built there, Parry said.