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New hotel at convention center


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The Wilmington city council has received six proposals for hotels to be connected to the new convention center. Which hotel do you like or do you think would benefit downtown Wilmington the most?

MHI Hospitality Group; Proposes a 270 Sheraton. this group owns the Hilton downtown.

John Hammond's Hotels and Resorts; They propose a 300 room Embassy Suites.

Wilmington Riverfront Hotels; This group is developing the marina north of PPD and propose a 240 room Sheraton next to the convention center and a 240 room Embassy Suites on the marina site in conjunctions with the condos and shops under construction there now.

The Amici Group; Propose a 260 room Lexington Hotel.

Windsor/Aughtry Group; their proposal calls for a 250 hotel in the Hilton family. They developed the hotel connected with the Columbia, SC convention center.

The Beltline Group; They propose a 250-300 room Crowne Plaza.

I like the idea of an Embassy Suites/ Sheraton combo.

Which do you think would benefit downtown Wilmington most?

City council will vote on which proposal they will accept August 7th.

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It was supposed to be a Marriott, but the developer I believe backed out. The Convention Center is still being built so the city is looking for Conv. HQ hotels. I do like the idea of the Sheraton/Embassy Suites proposal. It adds more to an already hot area for development.

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UPDATE: The city staff has narrowed the pool to two proposals. The city staff will recommend one of the final two choices for the convention center hotel to the city council at the Sept 4 city council meeting.

The two finalist are:

The John Q Hammons group that proposes a 250 to 300 room Embassy Suites Hotel.

They manage or own several hotels in North Carolina. They are based in Missouri.

The second choice is a local developer who proposes a 240 room Sheraton at the convention center and a Embassy Suites on their property just north of the PPD building. A block north of the Convention Center. They are also building a Marina and 216 condos plus retail and office space on the same property as the proposed Embassy Suites.

The first choice has the experience, the second the initiative. the second group was recently featured in the Star News for there creative ways, and determination to get things accomplished.

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With some controversy, the Wilmington City council voted to go ahead with the construction of the convention center. The parking deck structure will be the first thing built, with construction starting by years end. Mayor Saffo and a couple of other council members feel that the city will have no problem getting a first class hotel in the next few weeks. The city is in negotiations with a couple of potential hotels and receiving calls of interest from others. The mayor seems to think that starting construction will show the potential prospects that the city is serious about building the convention center.

On the positive side the near by Best Western is adding 150 rooms and upgrading all their rooms to "boutique" status, whatever that means and the Marina now being built next door to the north, also has plans a first class hotel.

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This project should get final approval Wednesday night, Nov. 21. Groundbreaking will be late December. All though the hotel is still not a done deal, word on the street from some good sources say that a deal with a developer for an Embassy Suites is almost a done deal and should finalized by January.

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:yahoo: The new Wilmington Convention Center finally had a groundbreaking today. There has also been a development with a hotel developer. An article in the Sunday Wilmington Star News reports that the owners of the 45 acres just to the north of the property have proposed to build a first class hotel ( reported earlier in the year to be an Embassy Suites) just to the north of the convention center possibly as close as 30 feet from center itself. The owners also want to build 500,000 square of retail space, about the same size as Mayfaire, office space, and about 1,000 townhouses and condos. The proposal will come to the city council as soon as this month. If the proposal doesn't work out, there are still other proposals in the works for a convention center hotel that could be approved and built in plenty of time for the opening of the convention center. If the hotel could be built off property, but still close by, this would five the convention center more area for future expansion onto the old proposed hotel footprint that was to be connected to the convention center.
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Well, after dumping all the first proposals for a hotel at the convention center, the city council will finally vote Tuesday night on one of two proposals that have made it through all the scrutiny, and passed all the test of the lawsuit, planning committee, and city council.

The final two are an Indigo Hotel, of about 150 rooms, or an Aloft Hotel of about 240 rooms. The city manager likes the Indigo Hotel, while the mayor likes the Aloft Hotel. The final vote will come Tuesday night.

Indigo Hotels are by IHG group, owners of Crowne Plaza chain among others. Nice hotels, fairly new chain, but a bit smaller than what council wants to build. The Company planning to build this hotel, are very experienced at building hotels, they are currently building three other hotels in the Wilmington Metro Area.

Aloft Hotels are by Starwood Hotels, the Sheraton group. The hotels are also quite nice, but the company planning to build this hotel is not very experienced with building hotels, but have built a large condo building downtown, and are working on a second.

On a side note, plans are still being made to build a Embassy Suites just to the north of the convention center.

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