Tim Love must address concerns over shipping container cabins, Fort Worth council says
Fort Worth chef Tim Love will have to take two more months to hash out concerns over his latest endeavor — a hotel.
Love has cooked up Hotel Otto to supplement his Gemelle, the Italian restaurant off White Settlement Road by the West Fork of the Trinity River. It’s not a full-scale hotel like the boutique Bowie House, another new hotel the council approved zoning for Tuesday. Love wants to use nine shipping containers as luxury cabin rentals along the river to the east of the restaurant.
Parking, traffic and partying remain the concerns for residents near Gemelle, though Love said he had gained widespread approval from nearby businesses and neighborhoods.
He tried to expedite the project through a process where developers can pay extra for the council to hear the case sooner, but the zoning commission told Love to communicate with more neighborhoods. On Tuesday, Councilman Carlos Flores continued the needed zoning change for 60 days, again telling Love to work with city staff and neighbors to resolve ongoing concerns about parking.
About 60 spaces would be needed for the hotel and restaurant, but Gemelle has only 32, 18 of which are on city property.
Ivey Ramsey, who lives in Crestwood across the river from Gemelle, told the council she drove by the restaurant on a recent evening and counted dozens of cars in the parking lot, in a lot nearby, along the street and at a Trinity Trail trailhead. That crowded parking was without the proposed hotel rooms, she noted, wondering what parking would be like with overnight guests.
“It was kind of alarming,” she said.
Love told the zoning commission last week he had leased the right to park about 25 vehicles on vacant lot across the street, but those parking spaces are not included in the zoning plan and the agreement is not binding in perpetuity.
Gayle Davis read a letter in opposition to the project. She said the Brookside area to the north of Gemelle no longer has a neighborhood association, which may mean they were not informed formally of Love’s plan.
Gordon Ramsey (like the British chef but spelled differently), a longtime home builder, told the council he thought Love’s site plan was sorely “lacking in many ways.” It doesn’t account for safety at a proposed pool or whether the cabins are accessible to those who have trouble walking, he said.
Ramsey doubted the cabins would attract “sophisticated urban travelers.”
“More likely, in my opinion, the guests who rent these units will be partiers,” he said.
Hotel Otto
The 160-square-foot cabins fit a queen size bed, custom tile walk-in shower and refrigerator. Each unit has a full glass door and a rooftop deck that offers views of the river. They’ll be styled similar to the Gemelle building, according to Love’s presentation. Guests can rent kayaks and bikes to use along the river.
He’ll rent them for about $200 a night.
Over at the restaurant, Love wants to sink two more shipping containers into the ground to use as a long pool.
He plans to hire at least two people to staff Gemelle 24 hours a day to operate as the hotel office, he said, though the restaurant’s hours won’t change. Before the COVID-19 outbreak, the outdoor stage offered live music three nights a week, which he said he also won’t change.
The containers sit in a floodplain, but Love said he’s working with an engineer to assess whether they would be at risk. An alternative concept would raise the containers about four feet. They are assembled off site and trucked in, Love said, so there would be minimal construction.
Flores called the concept “very innovative and entrepreneurial.”
This story was originally published September 16, 2020 at 5:30 AM.
