CUPERTINO — Although it’ll rise across the street from Apple Park if approved, a 185-room boutique hotel would contain specially textured windows to prevent “prying eyes” from photographing the doings inside the iPhone maker’s landmark spaceship campus.

“It’ll be the nicest hotel in Cupertino,” Michael Stroh, senior director of development for New York-based Kimco Realty, told the Cupertino Planning Commission on Tuesday. The commission voted to recommend City Council approval of the project.

Kimco Realty, which owns the Cupertino Village shopping center, plans to build a five-story hotel next to two existing hotels and the busy shopping center that features an Asian grocery store and restaurants.

The upscale hotel project, which includes a restaurant, rooftop bar and 206-space underground parking garage, would cater to travelers doing business with the 185-acre Apple campus, right across North Wolfe Road.

Stroh said original plans for the hotel were modified based on Apple’s privacy concerns, noting that the special textured windows would make photography more difficult, as would the existing row of 70-foot ash trees already blocking a view of Apple Park.

“They were concerned about prying eyes … Our plan was to remove those trees…[but] our friends at Apple convinced us they should be retained to give the trees at Apple Park a chance to grow nice and tall,” Stroh said.

As for the textured windows, “that could impair the ability for photography should somebody come up there. … The actual building, Apple building, is 900 feet from our building … so it’s not like we were very close, but we wanted to respect their privacy.”

The Planning Commission, with Alan Takahashi absent, unanimously recommended that the council approve needed permits as well as a development agreement requiring the hotel to provide an airport shuttle for guests and conference rooms for nonprofit and city use, and to offer internships to local students.

Once built, the hotel is estimated to generate up to $1.7 million a year in room taxes.

An operator for the hotel and restaurant has not been identified yet. Construction is expected to take 24 to 30 months, Stroh said.

The project would require relocating the Duke of Edinburgh pub to a different suite in the shopping center and demolishing two buildings.

Contact Thy Vo at tvo@bayareanewsgroup.com.