New Exit 30 hotel proposal before Board of Adjustment on Monday

As speculated previously, the public hearing signs on the corner of Peninsula/Gateway Drives are for a new hotel project. Per the Town Planning department, the documentation was put up last week.  However, it was put up under the Board of Adjustment page rather than the Development Projects page because the project is seeking a variance for parking.

The documentation can be found here after scrolling to the bottom of the page.  

The highlights of the project are as follows:

• A six story, 135 room hotel by Wyndham
• A pair of 2 story 5500 sqft offices buildings similar to the live-work buildings in the area along Gateway Dr.

The developer is seeking a parking variance to reduce parking to 119 parking spots, versus the 217 Davidson's ordinance would require.  This is similar to the variance granted the controversial Griffith Street Hotel.  However, there are some factors to this Wyndham proposal that should make this aspect less of an issue.

• The street parking included in the Wyndham proposal is slightly less than the Griffith proposal with significantly more being on-site.  The street parking used is also more available because there aren't existing uses in that area that already consume street parking like there is with CSD next to the Griffith site.  Also, the street parking for the Wyndham proposal is accessible.  The Griffith site includes several new spots along Griffith Street itself that will be all but useless for hotel guests.
• Any "shared" parking at the Wyndham site made available to the hotel per Davidson's ordinance will come from the two new office buildings being built as part of the same overall project.  This makes a lot more sense in the Wyndham location.  Plus, any tenants of these office buildings would know going into a lease or purchase that a hotel would be next door. That's far different than the situation with the Griffith Street Hotel where Woodies had this sprung on them by the Town changing the plan and approving a hotel as conditional on that site with the hotel suddenly including half of Woodies parking in its own plan.
• The location of the parking is also better relative to the neighboring properties.  The Wyndham proposal doesn't put a hotel and it's parking lot right in several residents' back yards like the Griffith Street proposal.  For that matter the front of the Griffith project also looks into back yards in Spinnaker Cove.

Will everyone be happy with this proposal?  Maybe not, but overall it seems to be a better plan in a better location - a plan much more worthy of approval than what the Town has approved previously on Griffith Street.

The Board of Adjustment hearing is this coming Monday, May 20th, after the regular Planning Board meeting which starts at 6pm in the Board Room at Davidson Town Hall.