Norwalk : Hotel Complex Approved

Brushing aside the recommendations of planning commissioners, the Norwalk City Council has approved plans for a hotel-restaurant complex on former manufacturing site at Firestone Boulevard and the 605 Freeway.

The 200-room hotel would be constructed by Seven Fortune Enterprise Inc., an Artesia company that also wants to build three restaurants on the five-acre parcel previously occupied by Peat Manufacturing, a metal foundry that closed several years ago.

Concerned that the project would worsen traffic congestion on Firestone Boulevard, the Planning Commission voted earlier this month to reject the proposal. But last week the council unanimously approved altering the city’s general plan to change the zoning of the land from light industrial to commercial.