Capitol and the East Deck: is a boutique hotel in their future?

Speaking of Capitol Broadcasting and their future plans for the American Tobacco Campus, the rumors floating in downtown circles these days tend to circulate around the least-attractive of the structures erected lately between Blackwell and Mangum: the exposed gray parking deck serving the Diamond View office buildings and the DPAC.

The south and west sides of that parking deck lack any brickwork or other aesthetic treatment, not by accident but because these sides of the deck, as well as much of the western edge of the DPAC, were intended to be "wrapped" with residential buildings.

Currently they have some colorful material providing a modicum of coverage, as Ginny noted at her place yesterday; Capitol unveiled some earlier versions of these back in March, as their deal with the City required such wrappers to be in place if the residential liner structure was not under construction by late 2007.

And with the condo market being not so hot these days, it's no surprise that neither the wrapper building nor the freestanding apartments/condos on what's currently Diamond View Park have gotten any traction.

We here at BCR are hearing that Capitol may have a new idea for the wrapper structure, though, one that still brings beds in but has a little more frequent turnover than your typical apartment or condo.

And that concept? Well, it rhymes with "moo-tique grow-tel."

Yes, Capitol looks to be the latest downtown Durham developer interested in a boutique hotel concept for the city center.

Greenfire kicked the trend off with their 2007 acquisition of the CCB/Hill/SunTrust building, slated to become a boutique hotel -- and still set to do so, according to Greenfire head Michael Lemanski, though the timeline isn't clear, and the project was omitted from the list of project completions required for the developer to get County support for the Parrish/Church St. parking deck. (Rumblings downtown have watchers wondering if Greenfire is looking for a new partner on the plan or just planning to go it alone.)

Scientific Properties then jumped into the fray, trying to line up a boutique hotel concept for the Van Alen project they've proposed on the Johnson Chrysler site just next to the Diamond View area; reports have Scientific holding a letter of agreement with nascent Louisville boutique hotel developer 21c Museum.

And now comes word from multiple sources that Capitol may want to make a boutique hotel the outcome of their wrapper building for the East Deck.

A challenge there is obviously the dimensions of the structure, which is only as wide as the distance from the deck's edge to the roadway providing internal connectivity between Blackwell, Vivian and the DPAC/Diamond View -- which is to say, not very damn wide at all, perhaps the width of a large living room.

All fine and good for apartments and condos, which can be nestled linearly along such a space; but adding a hotel in such a space, to say nothing of the supporting services that accompany a hotel, like housekeeping and food service, would seem to be a challenge.

Still, if there's somebody who can figure it out, it's Goodmon and the CBC team. We'll keep our ears open for more news on this report.

Incidentally, this wouldn't be the first time a hotel was proposed for Ambacco; if memory serves, the Old Bull building was initially proposed for such a treatment in the early planning phases, long before it morphed into apartments. Perhaps what was old will become new again?

Comments

[CG]

As much as I'd like to see Capitol, Scientific and Greenfire get their projects done, I question whether Durham can successfully accommodate three boutique hotels. Perhaps it could over time, but if they all came online around the same time, they would likely cannibalize each other. Add to the list the King's Daughters B&B, the new Marriott at Main and Watts and the existing hotels in the area, and we could soon have a glut of hotel rooms (albeit at different price points, styles, etc.) in and around the center city. Hopefully, the general revitalization of downtown and new venues such as the DPAC will drive new visitor traffic to the area and prove me wrong.

[Khalid]

One question? If you were on a business trip and had access to a rental car. Where would you want to stay RTP or Downtown? A lot of people would give downtown a shot...

[Deanna]

Actually, Durham city center [defined as a 1 mile radius around Downtown] has 70% fewer hotel rooms than an average city its size. And I'd be willing to wager almost none of them have the DPAC in addition to the usual downtown business/tourist visitors. We could double the number of hotel rooms we have now and still be just above average in terms of density.

Hotels don't tend to setup shop and then hope visitors come -- they're built where there is a pre-existing need.

[louisville kentucky apartments]

If I'm in a business trip and access a rental car, I want to go To Downtown. Maybe there were so many visitors in the place.

Margaret Rodriguez