William Morris Tower

This enormous, high density project creates significant parking and traffic congestion issues.

The William Morris tower (on the southwest corner of North Beverly and Dayton Drive directly behind the Bank of America building and across from the Montage Hotel) will be 208,100 s.f. This will include 177,225 of office space on floors 2-6,  and 30,875 s.f. of retail on the ground level. The total building is larger than Neiman Marcus.

At present, there is a parking structure on the site that has covenanted parking for 262 spaces for the Bank of America building. The developer wants to reduce the 262 parking space covenant for the Bank of America building.

The key problem with the William Morris Tower project is the lack of parking and the accompanying traffic congestion. The developer is proposing only 665 total parking spaces for both the Bank of America building and the new William Morris Tower. William Morris currently needs approximately 450 spaces at their existing headquarters. The proposed retail at the William Morris building requires 65 spaces and the restaurant requires 40 spaces. There also remains a need for 238 spaces to serve the Bank of America building.

Therefore, the William Morris building needs 1,055 spaces, but William Morris is proposing 665 spaces. How can only 655 spaces be adequate for the new William Morris Tower, the Bank of America Tower, plus approximately 31,000 s.f. of retail?

Also, where will all of these people park during the two or three years of construction when the existing parking structure is torn down? William Morris’ guests will take the path of least resistance by parking across the street at the City parking lot at the Montage Hotel.

The ingress and egress for the William Morris Tower and for the Bank of America tower will all be off of Dayton, which as you know is a narrow, two-lane, one way street. At present, Dayton receives the outbound traffic from the Williams-Sonoma building and the inbound and outbound traffic for Rodeo.

Finally, the model used in the draft Environmental Impact Report to evaluate traffic flow assumed a 1% per year increase in traffic, and did not take into consideration the huge increase there will be when the Montage Hotel opens.

Despite the massive traffic generation and the parking shortages, it appears that City Hall is prepared to green light this project.

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