Stillwater's Water Street Inn plans three-story addition

A three-story addition to the Water Street Inn in downtown Stillwater is being proposed by the building's owner. (Image courtesy of the Water Street Inn)

The Water Street Inn in downtown Stillwater is planning a major expansion.

Owner Chuck Dougherty wants to build a three-story addition that would include a rooftop patio and a new primary entrance and lobby. It also would have a tower element, a nod to the clock tower that graced the old Union Depot train station that formerly stood on the site.

The 21,000-square-foot addition, designed by ARCHNET in Stillwater, would add about 20 rooms to the 41-room hotel. The hotel lobby in the southwest corner would be moved to the building's north side, and the existing lobby would become the main dining area.

Plans for the addition were considered in 2008, but the economic downturn "put it on the back burner," Dougherty said Monday.

He said the time is right to make a major investment in downtown Stillwater.

"I think with all the improvements, with the new bridge, with the bike trails -- both the Loop Trail and Brown's Creek State Trail -- coming into town, we're at a renaissance," he said. "In talking to the business owners, everybody is really seeing these as great, positive moves. The city rebuilding Lowell Park and the parking lots and the public restrooms and the amphitheater are all very positive moves, and we feel ... that the future looks very bright."

The project would require a variance to the front-yard setback and a special-use permit for the rooftop patio, said Bill Turnblad, the city's community development director. The matter is expected to go before the planning commission March 10 and the city council on March 18.

The proposed addition, at the corner of Water and Myrtle streets, would be in the "view corridor" of people who looked down Myrtle Street to the Lowell Park gazebo and the St. Croix River, Turnblad said.

"It's more or less exactly where the original tower was, but it's closer than our ordinance allows to the street now, so that becomes the public balancing act," he said.

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Stillwater's Water Street Inn plans three-story addition