LITTLE ROCK — A chain-link fence now surrounds the former parking lot where a new downtown Little Rock hotel is to be built.
Although construction of a six-story Residence Inn by Marriott at the northeast corner of Third Street and River Market Avenue is to begin soon, no groundbreaking date had been released as of Friday.
Contractors for the McKibbon Hotel Group secured a building permit for the project about a week ago.
The parking lot where the project will be built was privately owned and designated not for public use, but has been closed to parking since the end of February.
McKibbon owns two other hotels in downtown Little Rock: the Courtyard by Marriott in the First Security Center on President Clinton Avenue and the Hampton Inn and Suites on River Market Avenue, both in the River Market District. The firm announced the lat- est hotel project, its third, in mid-February.
According to the permit application, the hotel construction, without the purchase price of the property, will cost $9,693,000. The hotel will contain about 88,776 square feet and 107 rooms, said Little Rock Planning Department Director Tony Bozynski. He said the contractor can break ground at any time under the permit. The permit application also does not detail the time frame for the project’s completion.
A spokesman for the hotel group has said the company has been pleased with the performance of its two other hotels, which have 120 and 119 rooms, respectively.
The construction is expected to disrupt some traffic in the area around the planned hotel site. The Central Arkansas Transit Authority announced this week that it would close River Rail trolley stop number 10, which is in front of the proposed hotel.
The stop, one of 15 made by the River Rail trolley, was closed permanently Monday. Spokesman Virginia Fry said the authority plans to reopen the stop at a different location once the hotel is built.
“We will likely be relocating that stop cater-corner to Dizzy’s Bistro,” she said. “In the meantime, there are other stops close by, and they will remain open.”
Fry said the authority will likely close about a mile of the trolley’s track on and off during construction because of various needs of the construction crew. She said that the closures will not last the entire construction period and that notices will be posted on the authority’s website as well as in signs at the actual closed stops when necessary.
“The hotel [group] has said they want the trolley stop close, so we look forward to having them there,” she said.
Arkansas, Pages 9 on 03/24/2012