Khanna Enterprises awaits approval from San Jose for its newly designed 24-story Tribute Hotel Tower. The Montgomery Hotel expansion project, designed by TCA Architects, will add a 200-room hotel adjacent to the historical hotel on 1st Street. The owners are awaiting approval from the historic preservation department and a site development permit from the planning department.

Khanna Enterprises bought the property in 2008 and wanted to use the 50-foot-wide space to increase its presence in the San Jose skyline and maximize long-term value. It brought on TCA Architects to help with a solution.

While the 50-foot lot was 10 feet shy of the minimum width for a modern hotel with a double-loaded corridor, TCA along with Arup found an innovative design to make this tower happen.

The new building will rise up next to the existing structure and then jut out, adding another 20 feet supported over the existing building. Diagonal support straps have been incorporated into the window lines every three floors to offset the cantilevered weight.

A glass wall will enclose the space in between the two structures and make up a new five-story atrium lobby. The upper floors are set back from the primary façade of The Montgomery.

The combined structures will operate as a single hotel under the Starwood Brand, Tribute. The Montgomery Hotel currently operates as a Four Points by Sheraton.

The Montgomery Hotel’s history itself is unique. It used to be at South 1st Street and Paseo de San Antonio, but when it fell into disrepair in 2000, it was moved 185 feet south to its current location to make way for a Fairmont hotel expansion. The Montgomery Hotel was the ninth-heaviest building ever moved. A $25.5M restoration of the hotel was completed by then-owners DivcoWest and Epicus Development in 2004.