Making a Grand Entrance… Literally

This week has already been quite eventful, and it’s only Wednesday! I’m ready for a good nap after a week of ghostly encounters! Haha! And on top of that, on Monday night we presented a plan to the Princeton City Council for the hotel entrance. Now that it’s out there, we wanted to use this week’s blog to share the details with all of you. Hopefully you can see our vision for just how beautiful the entrance to the Knox Hotel could be one day! 

Planning the Hotel Lobby

Looking back a year ago, before planning an entrance, we first had to decide where to put the lobby. Dane and I have had many marital “discussions” about which space would be best suited for the lobby and finally agreed (it’s a miracle! haha!) on using a smaller space near the middle of the north side of the building, facing Long Street. That space is the perfect size for what we need, it preserves the other three retail spaces, and using it will help illuminate the north side of the building and brighten up the street. No offense to Long St, but it can be kind of dark and creepy at night…

So, once we decided where we wanted the lobby to be, then we had to make the entrance accessible. You may be surprised to learn this, but four steps is not considered handicap accessible. We definitely want anyone to be able to enjoy our hotel and ballroom, so we had to find a solution to this problem. If we were to leave the entrance as is, handicapped guests would have to go to one of the Main Street stores and walk through to get to the lobby. We just don’t feel that is a good enough option, especially after hours.

Making the Lobby Accessible

We took some time to research what other historic buildings used, and sketched out a few ideas of our own. Then we turned it over to studioK. And boy did they deliver! They analyzed the area and the grade of the road, sidewalk, etc., and sent back a rendering that blew our minds. I actually shed a tear over how beautiful the plan was! They took what was in my head (although I couldn’t describe it well, haha) and made it even better! As you can see here, the plan includes putting a canopy out over Long Street so that cars can pull up underneath to drop off guests and luggage. From there, they can use the new steps, or go around to the ramp along the side of the building. 

Not only does this plan solve the accessibility problem, but it keeps our guests dry in the rain and snow, and it compliments the historic aesthetic of the building. We are so excited about this possibility and the vibrance it can add to the hotel and the overall north end of Princeton! And in case you were wondering, we will probably do a maroon canopy with gold accents.

A Solution for Parking

Of course, this plan does come with one major drawback. To make the drive-under canopy work, we would have to remove six parking spaces from the side of the Knox. These are important spaces for our neighboring businesses, and so our hope is that those spaces can be recouped elsewhere. In fact, by removing the angled parking on our side, we believe it makes room on the other side of Long Street to change the parallel parking to angled parking. That could easily make up for the six spaces lost. 

There is still a lot to consider, which is why we wanted to present this to the City Council now. If the plan is approved, we’re still about a year out from doing anything. Our hope is that the timing would coincide with the other exciting changes happening to the depot parking lot and Rotary Park area!

It will probably be at least a month before the city makes a final decision on our proposal. In the meantime, please feel free to reach out to us with your own ideas or concerns! We want to do this right, so we are all ears!