By DENNIS QUICK
Senior Staff Writer

Two hotels are still on the drawing board for upper King Street, the area extending northward from Calhoun Street. Plans for the 185-room hotel and 69-room hotel were announced nearly two years ago.

Real estate developer Ted Stoney’s plans for a proposed 69-room, $12 million to $15 million hotel on John Street near King, where Momma’s Blues Palace stands, were put on hold when investors lost interest in the hotel.

The original three investors abandoned the project because “it was taking too long,” thanks largely to the Charleston Board of Architectural Review’s approval process, Stoney explains. He adds that turning a historical building into a hotel “takes time” because of construction complications when trying to integrate old structures with new.

Plans for the four-story hotel first went before the BAR in fall 2003, after Charleston’s Board of Zoning Appeals approved the zoning for the hotel.

However, even though the BAR approved the hotel’s conceptual height, scale and mass, the hotel’s planners had to go “several times” before the BAR to get additional approvals, says Stoney.

There are three stages of BAR approval: the conceptual stage, a stage concerning detailed design of the façade and a stage involving final details, construction drawings and materials, says hotel architect Glenn Keyes.

“The first stage has already been approved, but we’re not advancing to the second stage until the hotel’s financing gets in order,” explains Keyes.

Investors throughout the Southeast have shown interest in the project but have yet to sign on, Stoney claims. Stoney declines to speculate when he will have a new group of investors. However, in a best-case scenario, with an investment team in place and BAR approvals this year, Stoney says the hotel could open in 2007.

Construction has yet to begin on the 185-room, $35 million Hilton hotel local developers Hank Hofford and Michael Bennett are building north of Marion Square, where the old county library stands.

“We’re in no rush,” says Hofford, adding that construction on the hotel will begin “sometime next year,” after Hofford and Bennett complete their 169-room Hampton Inn in Savannah.

Plans for the upper King Street hotel are being “fine-tuned,” Hofford explains. “We’re not moving as fast as some people would hope, but progress is going just the way we want.”

Among those eager to see the hotel replace the old, dilapidated county library are Jim and Lee Breeden, owners of Boomer’s Books, located a few blocks north of the eyesore.

“The building is a detriment and a barrier to attracting people to upper King,” Jim Breeden says.

Contrary to reported rumors, local real estate development company Clement, Crawford & Thornhill never planned an upper King Street hotel on the company’s “Midtown” property, a six-acre site bordered by Spring, Woolfe, Meeting and King streets.

“We really don’t have a plan for Midtown,” says spokesman Jonathan Scott. “We never had a specific plan for that property. We just thought it would be a good piece to acquire. Because we’ve been putting so much emphasis on Magnolia, we haven’t gotten around to figuring out what we’re going to do at Midtown.”

Dennis Quick covers hospitality for the Business Journal. E-mail him at dquick@crbj.com.

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