Hotel opponents look at options
♦ Plans to purchase the property next to Summerville Park for apartments might just be the answer.
Rome Mayor Bill Collins is working to broker a deal that could bring the Northwest Georgia Housing Authority into the picture to develop new market-rent housing at the entrance to Summerville Park in lieu of a 52-room Sleep Inn hotel.
Collins and Summerville Park Neighborhood Association President Eric Mcdowell met with NWGHA Executive Director Sandra Hudson on Wednesday to brainstorm a way to help with Rome’s housing stock, while at the same time helping one of Rome’s oldest communities, which is adamantly opposed to a hotel with additional traffic and virtual round the clock activity on its fringes.
“I am sitting here on behalf of the city and the residents of Summerville Park,” Collins said. The mayor himself is a resident of the community.
Hudson said she has heard the phrase “Not in my backyard” all too often when it comes to development proposed by the housing authority. “I am honored by the fact that you guys want the Northwest Georgia Housing Authority to build in your backyard,” Hudson said. “Not happy, grateful,” was the response from Collins. “You have a fabulous reputation,” Mcdowell said.
Hudson said that in order to make any kind of deal financially feasible on the approximately 1.3 acre tract, a 12-unit, market-rent development built in a manner similar to the authority’s new Jackson Square apartments in Rockmart would seem to fit the bill.
“They would not be low-income. It will be market-based rent for this community. There is a need for that,” Hudson said.
Financial feasibility is still an issue. Hudson said she would need to get an appraisal for the property right away and see if a plan can be developed.
Hudson said she would need to contact the developer of the Sleep Inn, who does now own the property, to see if she could get a bottom dollar price for the site, first right of refusal for the property, and a date certain option to purchase the property.
Above and beyond the purchase price, reportedly $540,000, Hudson said her information is that the developer already has $362,450 invested in the property and plans for the hotel. The housing authority would in all likelihood have to go to local lenders for construction money.
The authority could not use public housing dollars or get tax credit incentives to raise capital for a 12-unit complex.
The housing authority just got more than $300,000 in developers’ fees for upcoming renovations to the Charles Hight Highrise and Park Homes complex. It will
also get additional developers’ fees for the Altoview Terrace Apartments construction and Ashland Park Apartments renovations before the year is out.
Hudson said she has no idea what kind of a time frame the hotel developer is working under. Mcdowell said he has been told that if the developer does not build within three years, he would face a penalty of $75,000. Lisa Smith, executive director of the Georgia’s Rome Office of Tourism, said the same developer has the rights to build a new Econolodge further out on Martha Berry Highway.
“This would give us a chance to brand the community in a great way,” Collins said.
Mcdowell said he didn’t think the residents of Summerville Park would have any problems with a 12-unit development.
“I’d be thrilled with that,” Mcdowell said. “It’s beautiful. Let’s do it!”
Hudson cautioned Collins and Mcdowell not to get overly excited because there was still a lot that had to be done to make a deal happen. Her NWGHA board of directors will be presented with whatever plans evolve over the next couple of weeks at their Aug. 28 meeting.