On Tuesday, Hattiesburg City Council members voted 5-0 to approve a variance to allow four stories, rather than the usual three stories, for an as-of-yet-unnamed hotel coming to North 40th Avenue.
The hotel will be located at 200 North 40th Ave., the current location of Elite Screen Printing and a small convenience store. Those buildings will need to be demolished in the near future to make room for the hotel.
“(The owners) have purchased that property, and it’s really just the continuance of that development,” Ward 1 Councilman Jeffrey George said. “It’s the same developer that has done that entire area from the beginning when they did the (Grand 18) movie theater.”
Members of the Hattiesburg Board of Adjustment voted 7-0 on Dec. 5 to approve the variance, in part because the La Quinta Inn on Lundy Lane had received the same variance in 2013 to allow four floors.
“So it’s just something that’s common in that area, that’s been done for other hotels,” George said. “And I think anything that can bring up the area from metal buildings to a nice hotel is positive.”
The variance, which was filed for by Hunter Andrews, engineer and owner of P&W Investments, also allows a green strip six feet in width at the hotel, rather than 10 feet.
Four business owners in the area wrote to council in favor of the variance: J. Ward Conville, owner of Melrose Apartments; Jay D. Craft, owner of the property located at 108/110 Lundy Lane; Ron Savell, owner of Mugshots Grill & Bar; and Ryan Utterback, owner of Utterback Rentals LLC.
George said to his knowledge, the name of the hotel has not yet been announced.
