June 23–Plans for a 105-room Fairfield Inn & Suites hotel just off U.S. 1 Bypass at Hawkins Avenue should be approved and construction permits issued within the next few weeks, local economic deveopment officials say.

The project — at 131 Amos Bridges Road, across from The Oaks apartments — is awaiting final approval of a plan to run a water line to the site, said city Zoning Administrator Amy McNeill.

"The ball is in their court," McNeill said Friday, noting that the Sanford-Lee County Technical Review Committee had reviewed the developer's initial submission of plans on May 25.

"Review comments were forwarded to the project designer, and the plans need to be revised as per the comments and resubmitted for review and approval before the zoning approval may be issued for the project," McNeill said. "We have not heard back from them yet."

There were no major issues with the plans other than the water supply, she said.

"One of the comments was that there is not public water adjacent to that site," McNeill said. The water main would have to be extended and the plans would have to reflect that."

Extending the water line to the 2-1/4-acre hotel site would be the responsibility of the developer, East Coast Hospitality, LLC, of Washington, N.C., McNeill said. East Coast Hospitality already owns the Holiday Inn Express hotel in Sanford.

"We're still in the design phases," Travis Hawthorne, project manager for the development's engineering consultants, Britt, Peters & Associates, Inc., of Greenville, S.C., said Friday. "We met with the city a month ago and we're still having the drawings reviewed. We're still in the permitting process. Now we're wrapping up some design issues, and getting the water connection to the site."

Hawthorne said he didn't have a timetable for when the permitting process would be concluded and construction could begin, or a projected opening date for the hotel, which would be the first in that area.

But Bob Joyce, economic development director for the Sanford Area Growth Alliance, said Friday that he expects to see the required permits issued within about two weeks. And he said the hotel, which would be part of the Marriott chain, would be a welcome addition to the city, particularly in that location, across U.S. 1 from the Pfizer facility and other companies in the adjacent industrial park.

"[The hotel] would be visible from U.S. 1, and is in a nice location across from Pfizer," Joyce said. "Pfizer has a number of out-of-town visitors frequently. They say many of the folks they have stay at hotels in Cary and Apex. So this is great for us. Caterpillar and GKN and other tenants in our industrial park would benefit from having a nice hotel out there. Economic development-wise, it's great news for us."

Joyce said that East Coast Hospitality "has owned that property for several years."

"They had plans to build a hotel on that site before the recession, in 2007," he said. "At that time, the project wasn't quite that big."

The owner of East Coast Hospitality, Vimal Kolappa, could not be reached Friday for comment about the project. Kolappa also is a member of the state's Economic Development Board, Joyce said.

There are also rumors that a major restaurant chain — perhaps Outback steakhouse — had signed a letter of intent to build next to the site if the hotel were to be be built, economic development officials said.

The new hotel also would be good for the nearby Raleigh Executive Jetport, said airport director Bob Heuts. The jetport, which serves many local industries' corporate aircraft — including Pfizer's — has no hotels close by.

"As we continue to grow, it would be great to have a nice hotel in the area for our corporate clients," Heuts said.

Joyce said Pfizer often flies its corporate jet into RaleighExec, as company executives come for visits to the Sanford plant. The jetport, formerly known as the Sanford-Lee County Airport, is just off U.S. 1 a few miles north of the Fairfield Inn & Suites site.

Contact Editor G. Chambers Williams III at 919-718-1227 or on Twitter @gchambers3.