Experience Hotels Suites In Virginia Beach|"It Takes Two: Downtown Greensboro Gets Another Hotel"

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By                   :   Local News
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Experience Hotels Suites In Virginia Beach

One new hotel on the north end of downtown Greensboro — as announced last Friday — could dramatically change the landscape and the character of a city yearning for new life. But news Monday that a second developer, Randall Kaplan, is working with Wyndham Hotels and Resorts on a roughly $40 million, 180-room conference hotel farther south makes the impact resonate even deeper. It also signals to city leaders and hotel experts that local, regional and national factors are causing an economic turnaround in center city Greensboro. They point to a better economy and more money to borrow as examples. And something else: the local effort to raise $60.5 million for a proposed performing arts center. Last Friday, developer Roy Carroll said that he plans to build a hotel on property he owns east of NewBridge Bank Park. Chief among his reasons: progress being made on the arts center.

“It’s a vote of confidence on the overall climate downtown,” said Keith Debbage, an urban geographer at UNCG. “You’ve got two projects backed by substantive folks.” Kaplan, a longtime local businessman who owns the Elm Street Center meeting rooms at the corner of South Elm and February One Place, said Monday that he’s been working with a development partner for about nine months 9-10 months to put the plan together. “With the improvement in the economy and the brightened prospects for downtown, we have been working diligently on our project,” Kaplan said. If it works out, the luxury hotel would extend from South Elm along February One to Davie Street.

Construction would begin in spring 2014 and the hotel could open in late 2015, Kaplan said. He believes downtown has needed a full-service hotel with meeting space for some time. Kaplan began working with development partners in 2008 to build one. But the economy tanked and the project stalled. With financing available and a brighter outlook for downtown development, Kaplan said, it’s time to get back to work. “I absolutely think that all of the economic development downtown together will enhance the desire for people to stay downtown,” Kaplan said. City Councilman Zack Matheny said one major downtown hotel, the 270-room Marriott, is not enough. “There’s room for another one and I would say an upscale one,” he said. Still, Kaplan and Carroll can’t get caught up in economic excitement, Debbage said. “It’s a double-edged sword,” he said. “There is a very finite and limited market for rooms in downtown Greensboro.” Those who study the hotel industry say that investors are looking at small markets like Greensboro because larger ones may be too crowded. One hotel expert said Monday that developers like Kaplan and Carroll were likely doing homework long before other community projects gained speed. “I must give the benefit of the doubt to the hotel property owners,” said E. Sirakaya-Turk, professor at the University of South Carolina’s School of Hotel, Restaurant and Tourism Management. “I am sure they are depending on other statistics which we do not have access to right now.” 

Source : news-record.com/news/local_news/article_3077f524-0379-11e3-b05e-001a4bcf6878.html