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A developer can build an up to 60-foot-tall hotel in a zone that normally limits building heights to a maximum of 36 to 44 feet, Oro Valley's Town Council decided last week.

Developer NCH Corp./Transwest Properties plans to build a six-story, upscale hotel on the north side of Tangerine Road, between North Oracle Road and Innovation Park Drive.

The hotel, which building plans name as Hotel Plaza Embassy Suites, will be in Innovation Corporate Center, near Northwest Medical Center Oro Valley.

That neighborhood, known as Innovation Park, is the area planned to be Oro Valley's high-end employment center.

But putting a hotel there — especially a 60-foot one — required the Town Council to make zoning changes that only applied to that development.

That's because hotels are not normally permitted in that area's land use district and buildings in that area that are not on a slope are limited to a maximum height of 36 feet.

The developer originally wanted to build a six-story, 75-foot building there but then lowered the request to five stories and 60 feet after the town's Planning and Zoning Commission recommended denying the original request. The height approved by council is still 24 feet higher than what's normally allowed.

Hilton could not accept a four-story design, said Mary Beth Savel, the Lewis and Roca attorney who represented the developer at the Oct. 17 Oro Valley Town Council meeting. Embassy Suites is part of the Hilton Family of Hotels.

The town previously allowed the hospital, which would have otherwise also had to adhere to the 36-foot limit, to be 74 feet tall.

The hospital will be about 20-feet higher than the hotel, when factoring in differences in elevation — a point that has been raised repeatedly during public discussions of the hotel.

But others have said it's no comparison. "To compare a luxury hotel to a hospital is ludicrous," said town resident Art Segal at the council meeting. Segal is part of the citizen advocacy Web site www.letorovalleyexcel.com.

The Town Council voted 5-2 in favor of allowing the developer to build a 60-foot hotel, with Councilman Kenneth "KC" Carter and Councilwoman Paula Abbott dissenting.

Abbott said at the meeting that the height gave her "heartburn" and that approving so many things at once was too much, too soon, too fast.

The hotel's future location in Innovation Park factored heavily in public discussions of the proposal at the council meeting.

The hotel's prospective customers would be hospital patients, visitors and staff; people who are visiting Oro Valley residents; and people from out-of-town who are visiting Innovation Park businesses, Savel said.

One Innovation Park business, Ventana Medical Systems Inc., brings people from worldwide to the area and has visitors that spend more than 4,000 nights in hotels outside of Oro Valley, said Gregg Forszt, Ventana's facilities director.

Ventana would like to have an upscale hotel in Innovation Park, he said.

An upscale hotel would help attract high-end employers to the area, said David Welsh, Oro Valley's economic development administrator.

Oro Valley's Town Council recently approved a general plan amendment with the aim of helping Innovation Park developer Venture West attract that type of employer. Neil Simon, a partner in the company, also said that having an upscale hotel there would help his company in that way.

But many of the Oro Valley residents who spoke at the meeting opposed allowing a developer to build a higher building than what is normally allowed in the area.

One resident, Kathy Pastryk, said that she didn't think that such a tall building would look good on the site and said Oro Valley didn't need "another sore thumb."