South Main boutique hotel back on track
A proposed South Main boutique hotel is getting back on track after a yearlong delay.
Construction on a new Arrive Hotel is expected to begin at 477 South Main in July and take about a year to complete.
The hotel project stalled last year after a principal developer, John Wessman, was indicted on a bribery charge in Palm Springs, California.
Arrive Hotels has negotiated a majority ownership interest in the project and plans to move forward, an Arrive representative said.
Wessman retired and left Wessman Development after his indictment. The company would continue as a minority owner in the hotel venture.
Arrive Hotels co-founder Chris Pardo and his partners will seek a Downtown agency’s approval of an ownership change and a new timetable for the project, said Cecilia Walker of Walker & Associates, Arrive’s advertising and public relations firm.
The hotel project is on the Center City Revenue Finance Corp.'s agenda for Tuesday.
An entity of Wessman Development won a 15-year tax incentive from the board in February 2017 for a $14.2 million project to convert 477 S. Main and 484 S. Front into 62 hotel rooms, two restaurants and 90 parking spaces.
A couple days after that approval, a California grand jury indicted Wessman, another developer and an ex-mayor of Palm Springs on bribery and corruption charges. The defendants have pleaded innocent.
The building at 477 South Main was the longtime home of Lewis Supply Co. and last housed the Memphis College of Art's graduate program.
Arrive’s first hotel opened in Palm Springs in 2016, and it has hotels under development in Phoenix, Austin and Wilmington, North Carolina.
Reach reporter Wayne Risher at (901) 529-2874 or wayne.risher@commercialappeal.com.