New hotel would be located next to fire station No. 2

Published 5:07 pm Wednesday, August 26, 2015

The proposed site plan for a new hotel that would be built to the fire station on West 15th Street was reviewed and briefly discussed by the Washington Planning Board on Tuesday.

The hotel, being developed by the New Age Properties Group, a limited liability company, will include a restaurant, according to information supplied to the Planning Board. The board will have some say in the design and appearance of the hotel.

“That’s the last I heard,” said Glenn Moore, a planner with the city, when asked by the board if the hotel would carry the Marriott brand.

Manfred D. Alligood Jr.is listed as the agent for New Age Properties Group, which filed its incorporation papers March 23. The papers show the company’s address as 1935 W. Fifth St., Washington, and lists Alligood as a member of the LLC.

During the City Council’s meeting Monday, the council approved allowing the encroachment of grading work and fill material along the western property line of the fire station. To elevate the hotel above the base flood elevation, fill material will be used to raise the elevation of the project site, according to a city document.

Hood Richardson, who’s done some engineering work related to the site for the hotel, said water from the fire station now runs off onto the property where the hotel will be built. “We want to be able to blend their (fire station) topography with our (hotel) topography,” Richardson told the council. Doing so will allow better movement of stormwater runoff to a retention pond, he said.

The city is seeking $100,000 in grant funding to help provide infrastructure for the hotel.

During a meeting in June, the council authorized the mayor to sign an application for a N.C. Rural Infrastructure grant and enter into an agreement with the Mid-East Commission for it to prepare the grant application. The city will pay the commission $2,500 to prepare the grant and administer it.

The N.C. Rural Infrastructure Authority approved that grant last week. The hotel will house 87 rooms, according to the N.C. Department of Commerce. The hotel will be the anchor tenant on a 15-parcel commercial and light industrial property, according to the department.

New Age Properties Group has plans to invest about $6.8 million to build the hotel and create about 20 jobs, according to the department. The estimated cost for sewer lines and street infrastructure that would serve the hotel comes to $424,000, with $100,000 of that cost being paid for by the grant, according to a memorandum from Matt Rauschenbach, the city’s administrative services director and chief financial officer. The city’s $5,000 “match” for the grant (if awarded) will be paid by the developer, according to the memorandum.

In April, the council changed the zoning classification of 3.47 acres on 15th Street Extension from a residential classification to a business classification.

 

 

 

 

About Mike Voss

Mike Voss is the contributing editor at the Washington Daily News. He has a daughter and four grandchildren. Except for nearly six years he worked at the Free Lance-Star in Fredericksburg, Va., in the early to mid-1990s, he has been at the Daily News since April 1986.
Journalism awards:
• Pulitzer Prize for Meritorious Public Service, 1990.
• Society of Professional Journalists: Sigma Delta Chi Award, Bronze Medallion.
• Associated Press Managing Editors’ Public Service Award.
• Investigative Reporters & Editors’ Award.
• North Carolina Press Association, First Place, Public Service Award, 1989.
• North Carolina Press Association, Second Place, Investigative Reporting, 1990.
All those were for the articles he and Betty Gray wrote about the city’s contaminated water system in 1989-1990.
• North Carolina Press Association, First Place, Investigative Reporting, 1991.
• North Carolina Press Association, Third Place, General News Reporting, 2005.
• North Carolina Press Association, Second Place, Lighter Columns, 2006.
Recently learned he will receive another award.
• North Carolina Press Association, First Place, Lighter Columns, 2010.
4. Lectured at or served on seminar panels at journalism schools at UNC-Chapel Hill, University of Maryland, Columbia University, Mary Washington University and Francis Marion University.

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