The Hilton-branded Homewood Suites hotel proposed for a one-acre site on the East Broad Street side of The Mark, a nine-acre mixed-use development now under construction in the eastern edge of downtown Athens, is not specifically a Landmark Properties project, the company’s president and CEO said Thursday.
Wes Rogers of Landmark Properties, the Athens-based development firm building The Mark, said the Germantown, Tenn.-based McNeill Hotel Company is under contract to purchase the tract from Landmark Properties. Landmark always planned to have a hotel site as part of The Mark, Rogers said.
Another part of The Mark property, a “small sliver” of land across from the hotel, also could be carved out of the Landmark Properties development and sold, likely to a retailer, but there are no current plans in that regard, Rogers said.
Rogers said Landmark had offers from a number of hotel groups for the East Broad Street tract, but declined to say whether any of those offers were from local hoteliers. McNeill does have another Athens property, the Hilton-branded Hampton Inn Athens off West Broad Street. The Tennessee company operates 11 hotels across the Southeast, including other Hampton Inns, and the Marriott-branded Fairfield Inn & Suites, Towne Place Suites, Courtyard and Residence Inns.
Calling McNeill “a great operator,” Rogers said in seeking out a hotel for the East Broad site, Landmark Properties “wanted to make sure it was a high-quality brand.” Homewood Suites properties are promoted as extended-stay rooms and suites for business or leisure travel.
Landmark Properties retained architectural approval rights in connection with the Homewood Suites proposal, Rogers said, to ensure it fits in with the rest of the development. The hotel proposal will be in front of the Athens-Clarke County Planning Commission on April 7 for consideration of an “alternative compliance” proposal that would relieve them of a local ordinance requirement that the ground floor of the facility’s parking garage include some retail space. The East Broad site, at the edge of a new entrance road being constructed for The Mark, is on the side of a hill, meaning, according to notes on the agenda for the April 7 meeting, the hotel’s parking deck will have to be built underground.
Regarding the rest of The Mark, Rogers said Thursday there soon will be a lot of activity on the site, as the steel framework begins to go up. The project remains on schedule for completion next May, he said. The development’s major commercial tenant — Landmark Properties itself, which will be moving its headquarters from Epps Bridge Parkway into 35,000 square feet at The Mark — should be in its new space early next year, Rogers said.
With regard to the development’s 30,000 square feet of retail space, Landmark Properties already has letters of intent from businesses that would occupy approximately 17,000 square feet, Rogers said. He declined to identify any of the potential tenants, citing the relatively early stage of negotiations to get them into the space.
Also, Rogers said, pre-leasing of the 928-bed student-oriented residential portion of The Mark is set to begin in the fall.
Rogers also spoke Thursday about recent residential property acquisitions by Pottery Street LLC, a subsidiary of Landmark Properties, in the immediate vicinity of The Mark. Pottery Street LLC is continuing to renovate those structures as rental properties, and has further development plans for the area, Rogers said.
Addressing another issue regarding property close to The Mark, Rogers said Pottery Street LLC has no plans with regard to developing the East Broad Street tract occupied by the circa 1920s house it purchased from Patterson Hood, cofounder of the band Drive-By Truckers.
If the company does develop a plan for the tract that does not include the house, the structure would be offered to anyone who might want to move it, Rogers said. Late last year, the Orange Twin conservation community worked to get the house moved off the tract under a provision in Hood’s deal with Pottery Street LLC that gave him the option of having the house moved.
Weather delays kept Orange Twin from getting the house off the tract by a Jan. 5 deadline, and Pottery Street LLC opted not to extend the deadline.