Hotel Reservation In Virginia Beach|"Developer Attempted Downtown Hotel Block"

Source              :  napavalleyregister.com
Category        :  Hotel Reservation In Virginia Beach
By                  :   JENNIFER HUFFMAN
Posted By     :  Hotels in Virginia Beach South Courtyard

Hotel Reservation In Virginia Beach

Just weeks after Todd Zapolski announced plans to bring a seven-story hotel to First Street, recent efforts to build another upscale hotel in downtown have surfaced. A Florida developer spent six months trying to consolidate ownership of an entire city block in hopes of creating a “four-plus” star hotel decorated with hundreds of thousands of dollars in fine art. The block, totaling 1.87 acres, is bordered by Seminary, Polk, Franklin and Clay streets, in a mixed commercial-residential area just north of the Clay Street garage. It’s  currently home to a WestAmerica bank branch, Mini Mango restaurant, MIV Insurance Services and two residences. Florida-based hotel developer Richard Kessler said he spent six months over the past year studying the block. His company is known for developing “very high-end four- and four-and-half-star hotels,” Kessler said in a phone interview Wednesday.

He’s developed more than 10 “luxury and boutique” properties in Colorado, New Mexico, Florida, North Carolina and Georgia. A number of them go by the names of the Grand Bohemian or the Bohemian Hotel. Kessler said he plans to build his first California property, to be named the Bohemian Hotel, in Healdsburg. He’s also hoping to launch a similar project in Sonoma. Each Kessler Collection property is filled with between $500,000 to $1.5 million in fine art, including grand pianos and other accoutrements, Kessler said. “It becomes almost a museum in itself,” the developer said. Kessler said his search for a development site in Napa had included a variety of sites in downtown Napa, including Todd Zapolski’s newly announced Archer Napa hotel site on the north side of First, west of Coombs Street.

He said he ultimately decided not to partner with Zapolski because he wanted to do a slightly smaller and higher-end hotel. The WestAmerica block — a larger site totaling nearly two acres — was attractive because of its proximity to downtown, he said. Kessler said his firm visited with several property owners on the block, including Mae Woo, owner of the WestAmerica site, and Kent Imrie, owner of MIV Insurance Services. A very high-end luxury hotel is the type of project the city needs “to build a more sophisticated image,” Kessler said. The city “has tremendous potential of moving to another level,” but the lodging must be in place to do so, he said. Imrie represents the AH Smith partnership that owns an older home at 1461 Polk St. as well as the commercial office site at 1584 Clay St., where his business is located. The Polk Street home is on a list of “threatened treasures” created by Napa County Landmarks. “He was interested in building a boutique hotel in Napa,” Imrie said of Kessler. “He learned about our property and asked us about it. We were talking informally about numbers.” Imrie, acknowledging that his property sits at an area that is ripe for development, said the discussions did not progress, namely because he wants his insurance business to remain where it is. “It didn’t make sense for us, and we moved on,” he said.

However, Kessler’s idea for a luxury hotel on Clay Street “makes sense with what’s happening on the west end of Napa and the renewed popularity of Napa,” Imrie said. “We’re in an interesting area. I had no idea the west end would take off. All the things happening in this part of town have made our property something to look at differently,” he said. Kessler said that after meeting several times with the WestAmerica bank property owner Woo, “she concluded she had no interest in selling it.” And after talking with Imrie about buying his holdings, “the cost they needed to get from their land made it unfeasible to consider assembling” the block parcel, he said. “That’s the end of the story for us on that site.” Woo did not return a phone message asking to be interviewed. Jennifer LaLiberté, economic development manager for the city of Napa, said there was ongoing developer interest in the block that includes WestAmerica, Mini Mango and Imrie’s insurance office.

“Certain uses would probably work better than others,” LaLiberté said. Because the block is adjacent to a historic residential district and the Blue Oak School, any development must be “thoughtful about the location and how it integrates with its surrounding land uses,” she noted. LaLiberté noted that the Andaz hotel on First Street has a license to use part of the Clay Street parking garage. “We’ve been asked by various folks whether the city could allow another hotel to use the Clay Street garage,” she said. “I think that’s highly unlikely; that garage is already partially licensed to the Andaz, and we need the remaining capacity to serve the public. When the Town Center is fully leased, that garage will be much more utilized than it is today, in addition to the Pearl Street garage.” Zapolski’s proposed hotel, the Archer Napa, is considering utilizing the Pearl Street garage similar to the way that Andaz uses the Clay Street garage, she said.

“It seems like the only tangible solution is to put the parking under” any new development, LaLiberté said.

Michael Holcomb Sr., owner of the Mini Mango building on Clay, said he would have liked to “do something” with his Mini Mango parcel as part of a larger project on the block. The lack of parking in downtown is the biggest holdup in any redevelopment plan, he said. He’s talked to Woo about a development featuring a small hotel of about 130 rooms or a 100-unit apartment complex that would encompass the WestAmerica site as well as his own property, Holcomb said. But “unless you can deal with the parking epidemic, you have nothing else to talk about,” Holcomb said. Until then, “the idea of doing something on our site is remote.” While the WestAmerica block deal didn’t work out, Kessler said his interest in Napa remains. He had also been in talks with the city to develop the municipal parking lot behind Cole’s Chop House on Main Street into a luxury hotel. The city decided not to proceed with those plans, he said. In addition, “we think the Copia site has some merit” for a hotel project, Kessler said. He may have talked to Keith Rogal about possibly developing a hotel at part of the former Copia campus at 500 First St., but Kessler would not elaborate.

Source:http://napavalleyregister.com/news/local/developer-attempted-downtown-hotel-block/article_2f0481c6-1814-11e3-b229-001a4bcf887a.html