The facility is expected to cost more than $100 million.
Frederick, Md (KM) It’s been discussed for many years, but the biggest question about the proposed downtown hotel and conference center in Frederick is when will construction begin. During a recent appearance on WFMD’s “Morning News Express,” Mayor Michael O’Connor said such large projects like these can take a few years. “If it was easy to build a large scale hotel and conference center in downtown Frederick, I think somebody would have pulled the trigger and done it. But it requires these partnerships of public and private entities coming together.” he said.
The hotel and conference center is planned for property along South Carroll Street. It’s expected to contain 208 rooms and 21,210 square feet of conference space, including ballrooms, pre-function and breakout space. There will also be a parking area which will be open to everyone, not just hotel guests.
Mayor O’Connor said getting a lot the funding for a project such as this that’s expected to cost more than $100 million dollars takes time. “The conversations of working with the state, and securing some state funding was about filling in–when you’re looked at a roughly a $100-million project–trying to fill in a piece of the financing that was just going to be a challenge for the private sector to lift alone without some public support,” he says.
The project is expected to cost $101.56 million with the private sector coming up with the largest amount. Plamondon Hospitality Partners, which plans to build the hotel and conference center, is expected to pay $73.54 million toward the project which is 72.41 percent, according to background materials from a recent Board of Aldermen Workshop. Public financing will be $28.02 million or 27.59 percent. The City of Frederick will be committing $2 million while Frederick County will be coming up with $2.52 million. The state’s contribution is expected to be $23.50 million or 23.14 percent.
“The support from the state, I think, has been really critical,” says the Mayor. “It’s demonstrated the value that this is going to provide as an economic development driver.”
But after many years of discussion, it looks like there could be some movement on this project. “The reason why detailed drawings and those kinds of things are continuing to work their way through our process is because now there’s enough confidence on the part of the private sector to move those pieces of the project that they can and get them into the next phase,” Mayor O’Connor says.
A site plan for the downtown hotel and conference center is expected to be presented to the Frederick Planning Commission next month.
O’Connor says this new facility will only add to what the city of Frederick already has. “You’d be hard pressed to find another community the size of Frederick that doesn’t have structured downtown lodging of the type that we’re talking about building in Frederick,” he says.
By Kevin McManus