The hotel would feature tastefully-decorated interiors with a fireside seating area, continental breakfast area, wine and beer area, meeting room, indoor pool, exercise room and guest laundry area on the first floor and rooms on the second level. The first step is a feasibility study, which will cost a total of $7,000 and take a few months to complete. Seibert asked the town council to pick up half the cost. While council members were generally receptive to his plan, they deferred a formal decision to their April meeting so they can determine where their share of the money will come from.
While the study is being conducted, Seibert says he will meet with local banks and potential investors and assemble a team to run the hotel once it is built. He says upfront and long-term franchise fees are much lower than those charged by many of Cobblestone’s competitors. Seibert adds that the area is under-served in terms of lodging, especially given the number of companies that are based in Pulaski County. Seibert says new hotels take about five months to build, so a property could potentially be ready for occupancy by the end of 2013.
Cobblestone’s first upper mid-scale hotel opened five years ago. To date the company has 21 hotels open, eight under construction and 35 under development in seven states.
