Nine New Hotels Will Add 1,328 Guest Rooms

Nine new hotels with a total of 1,328 guest rooms are planned for Northwest Arkansas, increasing the area’s room count by 25 percent to 6,614 over the next couple of years.

The number of Northwest Arkansas hotel rooms increased by 5.3 percent from 2003 to 2004, from 5,019 to 5,286.

Hotel room revenue in Northwest Arkansas grew by 8 percent last year, from $72.8 million to $78.7 million, according to the Northwest Arkansas Business Journal’s annual Largest Hotels here.

With so much growth going on in the hotel sector, we decided to take a look at hotels that are under construction or still in the planning stages.

Two large hotels are planned for downtown Fayetteville, and two smaller hotels are slated for the north side of the city.

The century-old Mountain Inn has been razed to make way for the $40 million, 18-story Renaissance Tower on College Avenue between Mountain and Center streets. The new structure will be a Marriott with 200 hotel rooms and 25 condominiums.

The establishment of a tax-increment financing district downtown provided $3.5 million for the purchase of the property and demolition of the existing building.

Developers of the new 241,000-SF building are Rob Merry-Ship, Richard Alexander, John Nock and The Growth Group. The architects were Hnedak Bobo Group Inc. of Memphis and Rob Sharp of Fayetteville.

Construction is expected to begin in August and be completed by March 2008.

After months of revisions, The Barber Group of Fayetteville finally got approval from the city’s Planning Department to construct the $70 million, nine-story Divinity Hotel at the corner of Dickson and Block streets.

The Barber Group initially proposed a 15-story building at the site, but city planners thought it would look out of context with other buildings in the area, most of which are two stories tall.

The 510,000-SF building will have 137 hotel rooms and 30 condos.

Eddie Abeyta of HKS Architects in Dallas will be the architect on the Divinity Hotel. He designed the W Victory Hotel in Dallas and other W hotels across the country.

The Divinity Hotel will have two or three restaurants, a rooftop bar, a spa, 13,000 SF of meeting space and about 8,000 SF of retail space on Dickson Street, Brandon Barber, president of The Barber Group, said via e-mail.

Barber said construction is slated to begin by February and be completed in the winter of 2008.

North Fayetteville

A Courtyard by Marriott has been in the planning stages since February 2003, but it looks like that project might be finally moving forward.

Steve Farina of Vista Host Inc. in Houston said construction will begin in early August and be completed in the summer of 2007.

The four-story, 72,242-SF Courtyard will be built on 3.3 acres at 600 E. Van Asche Drive in Fayetteville’s CMN Business Park. The proposed hotel will have 113 rooms.

CEI Engineers of Bentonville is the engineer for the project.

Eliot and Stuart Cohen of Memphis are the majority partners in the Fayetteville Courtyard hotel.

Farina said Vista Host will manage the property. The company manages 27 hotels in the United States and has an ownership interest in half of those. Vista Host also has a hotel under construction in Jackson, Tenn.

Area Hospitality of Fayetteville LLC plans to build a Hilton Garden Inn on a piece of land west of Fuddruckers restaurant in Fayetteville’s CMN Business Park.

But the timetable depends on settlement of a lawsuit between the architect, Brooks Jackson of Little Rock, and the developer, said Sid Saleson, president of Area Hospitality.

The three-story, 74,838-SF hotel was approved by the Fayetteville Planning Commission in August 2005. The proposed hotel will have 120 rooms.

Saleson said construction will begin immediately after the lawsuit is settled. He said it will take about one year to build the 120-room hotel.

Saleson said Area Hospitality bought the 7.25-acre site two years ago for $1.5 million.

Area Hospitality is an apartment developer in Little Rock. The LLC is incorporated in Little Rock, but Saleson has developed other Hilton hotels through his company based in Mundelein, Ill.

The Mehlburger Firm of Little Rock is the engineer for the proposed Hilton Garden Inn in Fayetteville.

Rogers

Barber plans to build a $100 million, 325-room Westin hotel near the Pinnacle Promenade in Rogers.

Narry Krushiker plans to build two new hotels in Rogers.

The two hotels are planned for Metropark, a 50-acre site off Horsebarn Road in Rogers that is being developed by Collins Haynes.

The Metropark hotels include a six-story Holiday Inn and a four-story Staybridge Suites.

The Holiday Inn, at 1801 S. 52nd St., will have 130 rooms. The Staybridge Suites, next door at 1803 S. 52nd St., will have 80 rooms.

Construction should begin within the next couple of months on each hotel, and they should be finished in about a year, said Tung Tang, an engineer with CEI Engineering Associates of Rogers, who is working on the project.

Besides those new hotels, the Embassy Suites in Rogers is slated to finish construction next year on 152-room addition to the hotel. John Q. Hammons Hotels LLC of Springfield, Mo., is the developer of that project.

Vista Host, developer of the new Fayetteville Courtyard hotel, recently sold the Amerisuites in Rogers to Hyatt, which plans to spend $3.5 million on renovations and reopen it in September as a Hyatt Place Hotel.

Bentonville

Tom Bhakta plans to build a Best Western Castle Rock Suites near Rainbow Curve in Bentonville.

The three-story, 47,100-SF hotel will have 83 rooms. It is slated to be finished in the spring.

Bhakta also plans to build a five-story Doubletree Guest Suites at 301 S.E. Walton Blvd.

The 145,000-SF building will have 140 rooms and 9,600 SF of meeting space. It is expected to be open by the spring of 2008.

Both of Bhakta’s new hotels will be operated by OMNI Hotel Management.

We were unable to reach Krushiker or Bhakta to determine the cost of those projects.