Hotel OK’d at development of old Southern Skillet site

A boutique hotel has been added to the menu of a $100 million mixed-use project replacing a Roswell strip mall that once held a popular country breakfast spot.

The hotel is slated to have 125 rooms and will stand next to the upcoming Southern Post development.

The Roswell City Council unanimously gave its blessing Tuesday for developer Mattis Partners to build a five-story hotel, listed on an application to the city as “The Hotel at Southern Post.” The hotel is supposed to complement the aesthetic of the neighboring mixed-use development.

The Southern Skillet restaurant closed in January 2011 after 30 years of serving the city. The restaurant anchored the Roswell Plaza Shopping Center on Alpharetta Street. The city bought the 4.3-acre shopping center for $4.8 million in January 2016.

Fairburn-based developer S.J. Collins Enterprises purchased the land from the city for just over $5 million about three weeks ago, said S.J. Collins partner Jeff Garrison. Plans are to break ground on Southern Post in January and to build 100,000 square feet of office space and 40,000 square feet of retail along with 128 apartments and 10 townhomes.

Garrison said the hotel and Southern Post have different owners, but people shouldn’t be able to tell. “We’re blurring the lines between the two projects so there’s a seamless integration,” he said.

The area is nearNorcross Street and Ga. 9 by the city’s historic and bustling Canton Street.

No opening date was listedfor the hotel. As for the brand of boutique hotel that will go near the old Southern Skillet property, Matt White with Mattis Partners said they still need to hash it out.

“We haven’t selected a brand at this point,” he said, “but our intent is to select a brand in either Marriott, Hilton or Hyatt.”

Part of the proposed hotel’s property is one of the 509 plots listed on Georgia’s Hazardous Site Inventory. The brownfield used to be home to Roswell Cleaners & Coin Laundry. Soil and groundwater samples from 2007 showed traces of hazardous substances, like the cancer-causing vinyl chloride used in dry cleaning.