The Campbell City Council voted 3-2 to deny a resident’s appeal that sought to thwart the expansion of a downtown property near—and literally above—Opa, Mo’s and Willard Hicks.

The project will see the construction of a three-story building behind the restaurants, which will house a commercial tenant on the first floor and office space on the two floors above. A portion of the office space will extend over top of Willard Hicks and will include an outdoor patio. The expansion will be 10,819 square feet in total.

The project was appealed by resident Susan Blake after a Feb. 28 planning commission hearing. Blake argued that the architectural design, height and request for a parking exemption were inconsistent with the downtown master plan, which guides development in the area. Blake said the building would obstruct the view of the Campbell Water Tower.

However, city planner Stephen Rose told the council the downtown plan does not include a specific policy in regard to the water tower’s visibility.

According to John Razumich, a partner with project developer Imwalle Properties, the building design was inspired from the use of brick in the downtown and the “raised barn roof” style some buildings sport.

“I think for us the most important part was context and character,” Razumich said. “For me I wanted to avoid doing the same architecture like Opa, Mo’s and Willard Hicks because I didn’t want it to feel like a super-block monolithic building.”

The council was not swayed by the appeal. Mayor Liz Gibbons and Councilwoman Susan Landry casting the dissenting votes, citing the parking exemption required since the project is short by 31 spaces.

To offset parking impacts, Imwalle Properties will pay the city $7,027.20 per parking space the project cannot provide, or $217,843.20 total, to help improve downtown parking facilities.

The impact fee is not required as the city has not had mandatory parking impact fees in several years.

“I know the city has talked about the LED signage for parking for a long time; they just didn’t have the funds for it,” Razumich told this newspaper. “So we thought, let’s voluntarily pay to help with this problem.”

Razumich said construction will begin next spring with a retrofit of Willard Hicks to make way for the second story. Construction on the three-story building will begin in June.

“We kind of envision the project taking approximately six to nine months to finish,” Razumich said. “For us it’s very critical to do construction as quickly as possible to have the minimal amount of an impact to the businesses.”

A trash enclosure behind Willard Hicks will be enlarged. The new building will take over a five-stall parking lot that has been used as storage and an informal break area for employees, according to city staff.