Plans enroute for new hotel

The city of Milledgeville is making plans to restore the vacant Grapevine antique store on downtown West Hancock Street into an elegant boutique and hotel within the next year.

Recent water damage from storms caused the antique store to relocate to Wayne Street leaving the three-story historic building abandoned. The idea of filling the void with a hotel has been around for a while, but now that the building is actually empty, action is being taken to get the hotel established.

According to the Milledgeville Main Street office, the city of Milledgeville has already applied for three different loan programs and two tax credit programs. In addition to the financial details, other land ordinances and zoning factors must be worked out through the city council and the state of Georgia before any action is taken.

“We have applied for state funding for a grant to the city of Milledgeville, which we must have before we can go on,” said Russell Thompson, Milledgeville city planner.

“This project will cost around four to five million dollars. A million dollars has been applied for from various state programs like grants, but the term grant implies free money and in reality these are low interest (3 percent) loans. The rest of the money will come from more conventional means, like a bank,” said Frank Pendergast, owner of the vacant building.

Once the loans are approved and the zoning and land ordinance elements are settled, the groundbreaking will occur, and the renovations will begin.

“If all goes as planned, construction could start in January of 2009 and take about 12 to 14 months to complete,” said Pendergast.

According to Dr. Bob Wilson, University Historian, the now empty building downtown has been through many renovations over the past 100 years.

“In 1903 the building was named the Horne building, named after the mayor of the town. At one point the building was a Dollar General, and before that it was a Belk department store,” Wilson said.

Although the building has been occupied by many different businesses, Wilson has high hopes for the new hotel.

“I can only say I hope it would be a great success here. It is a great asset to the historic district and it could really help with tourism. I think it would be an anchor piece to the downtown area,” Wilson said. “I think that is a marvelous idea.”

The renovation’s design creates a very aged ambiance with the hotel. Lindsay Hornsby, Interim Director at the Milledgeville Main Street Office said the goal is to restore the hotel to a historic structure.

The objective for the hotel is not to solely create a place for people to stay as they pass through Milledgeville, but a place for events and receptions as well.

“The hotel will be a high-end hotel with approximately 18 rooms in addition to banquet and reception facilities,” Hornesby said. “We have always had a need for a hotel in the downtown area especially when there are events in Milledgeville.”

Pendergast agreed with Hornesby.

“I feel there is a need in our downtown. Visitors, parents and businesspeople would benefit from staying and enjoying our downtown restaurants, retail shops, and being in close proximity to GCSU, GMC, city hall, the county courthouse, banks, churches, and more,” Pendergast said. “It’s the heart and soul of Milledgeville.”

The city of Milledgeville will wait in anticipation for the next few months to hear back from the state of Georgia on when construction on this new hotel can commence.

Posted by Colonnade Archives on Oct 3 2008. Filed under News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry