Move over Hotel Avante, because the Land of Google is about to get a shiny and brand new hotel. The Mountain View, CA, City Council selected The Robert Green Co. of Encinitas, CA to exclusively negotiate to build a 225-room hotel with restaurant and conference center right next to Google Inc.’s headquarters at the Shoreline district.

San Jose Business Journal reports that The Robert Green Co. was selected from amongst 10 developers. The company is also the developer for Kimpton Hotels and the 200-room Four Seasons Hotel Silicon Valley. Photo by secretlondon123 via flick (creative commons).

In spite of being the HQ for Google Inc., Mountain View has felt the lack of a really big and luxurious upscale property. There’s plenty of cheap Mountain View motels, though, if you want to ‘do’ Google on the cheap.

(Update 1: April 9, 2009 - Mercury News adds that the hotel will be operated by Kimpton, and that the city has tried to put a hotel on the 9.4-acre “Charleston East” site at Charleston Road and Shoreline Boulevard for years. Negotiations to have Google build the hotel fell through last summer, and talks with Hyatt failed in 2001.)

The project is estimated to cost about $79 million and the City could end up investing over $30 million. Work on the project is expected to start around 2011, and it could take until 2013 for the Robert Green hotel to grace Mountain View’s skyline.

Speaking of green skylines, Forbes has a report which outlines the results of a new EPA study of America’s Greenest Skylines, which lists the top 10 cities which have the most number of energy efficient buildings. According to the study, Los Angeles - smog and all -comes in first, with 262 Energy Star buildings. San Francisco comes in 2nd, with 192 energy-efficient buildings, and Houston is 3rd with 145 buildings. 

But the interesting part is near the end of the Forbes article, which says that hotels are having trouble going green because guests are just not interested. San Francisco W general manager Michael Pace is quoted as saying “We’re not trying to be a green hotel. We’re trying to be a W, stay on brand and do the right thing for the environment at the same time.”

I don’t know what kind of green building consultants the W has hired, but they better hire some new ones, because if W thinks that being green and energy-efficient means having to give up some pre-concieved notions of luxury or convinience, then they’re being grossly misled. 

Travel News Roundup:-

In-flight bathroom emergency leads to felony charge - Atlanta-Journal Constitution 

Hotelicopter hoax site re-launches as a hotel search engine - Techcrunch

Miami Beach hotel Mondrian South Beach installs car vending machine  - Miami Herald

Former NBA star Marvin Webster found dead in bathtub in Ambassador Hotel, Tulsa - USA Today

President Obama’s Wanderlust - Washington Post

Posted on April 9th, 2009 by PLing
Filed under: Travel News