Developer to demolish building in downtown Santa Rosa to move forward with Hotel E project

A prominent but drab building on Old Courthouse Square that’s part of a hotel redevelopment project in downtown Santa Rosa will be destroyed in the coming days, making way for a larger replacement that will allow developers to add more rooms than initially planned.

Developers have decided to demolish what remains of the two-story building at 19 Old Courthouse Square, located next to the historic Empire Building that now houses Hotel E, said Hugh Futrell, who’s leading the hotel development project. The foundation, beams and walls of the building are all at least partially “inadequate” and would need to be reinforced if developers wanted to work with the existing building, he said.

“Those things all are quite costly as opposed to rebuilding from the ground up,” Futrell said Monday.

Hotel E opened last year in the Empire Building as a boutique inn with plans to add more rooms next door. The second planned component of the hotel will feature a Perry’s restaurant and a Starbucks on the ground floor as well as a rooftop cafe and bar.

Demolition is expected to begin in the next few days and take about three weeks. Construction of a new building will take about a year, Futrell said.

As was the case with the first phase in the old Empire Building, problems with the smaller building’s structural integrity became apparent after initial redevelopment work began, Futrell said. The demolition gives developers an opportunity to build the second phase as they would have chosen to build it, he said, in addition to avoiding structural concerns that have become evident since work began and could cause “severe problems down the road.”

Documents filed with the city last month indicate the decision to tear down the old building and erect a new one in its place could push the building’s height up to five stories and increase the hotel’s total number of rooms from 71 to 110. Futrell noted that the Empire Building’s clock tower would remain the tallest and most dominant architectural feature on the west side of the square.

“This isn’t a gigantic building by any means,” he said.

You can reach Staff Writer Will Schmitt at 707-521-5207 or will.schmitt@pressdemocrat.com.