JEFFERSONVILLE — Local developers are bringing Marriott Towneplace Suites to downtown Jeffersonville in place of Rose Hill Elementary School that will be razed for the project.
Representatives from ARC Companies revealed the global hotel franchise secured for the development during a Jeffersonville Plan Commission meeting Tuesday, presenting plans for a three-story, 93-room hotel facility.
The Plan Commission and Jeffersonville Board of Zoning Appeals passed the plan unanimously.
"We're extremely excited to be here," Eric Goodman, ARC Companies vice president of development, said. "It's been a long road."
ARC purchased the Rose Hill Elementary School property in 2013 with plans to retrofit the roughly 30,000-square-foot building into a mixed use residential facility. Uncertainty of the impact of the Big Four Bridge coupled with city plans to build residential units on the old American Legion property across the street caused ARC to reconsider its vision.
"We started thinking about how we could create an anchor to stabilize what we know locally as downtown," Goodman said.
ARC is teaming up with Marriott, Indiana operator Dora Hotel Company and Hotel Appraisers and Advisors for the $15 million project.
About 1,200 square feet of retail — a restaurant or small coffee shop, Goodman said — will join the 17,800 square feet of hotel space. The facility will also include a small patio, indoor pool and 93 parking spaces.
The hotel will face Maple Street creating a "hard corner" with Mulberry Street with parking in the rear.
"We also wanted to set the tone of development," Goodman said. "We feel like we're the pioneers down there."
Goodman said the building won't have a "prototype hotel" design.
"They're one of the only global franchise groups that will allow us to manipulate the facade," he said.
The plan is to incorporate the names of the cities that inspired the Big Four Bridge — Cleveland, Chicago, Cincinnati and St. Louis — into the hotel's design, he said.
Plan Commission member Rita Fleming said she liked the designs the developers presented but wished ARC wouldn't demolish Rose Hill Elementary School.
"I'm a bit disappointed in that because your original plan incorporated that," Fleming said.