City seeks hotel
By Ethan Smith
Published in News on March 2, 2016 1:46 PM
Goldsboro is seeking letters of interest and information from development companies for the construction of a hotel that will be built adjacent to the future Maxwell Regional Agricultural and Convention Center.
The city is asking developers to prepare to build a full service, 2,700-square-foot, 150-room hotel including a restaurant and lounge, that is designed, developed, financed and constructed privately that will not be financially or operationally subsidized by the city whatsoever.
With the agricultural and convention center project expected to break ground in 2016, the city is asking developers to include examples of other hotel projects the company has completed within the last five years, a list of the project's scope, deliverables and final outcome and a proposed time frame for completing the construction of the hotel so that it can be measured against the projected completion of the center.
Letters of interest are due from developers by April 15, and developers will be allowed to visit the site the center will be constructed on by requesting a tour of the site from the city.
Following this deadline, the winner of the hotel contract will be decided by a panel that will be put together by City Manager Scott Stevens.
Panel members will select the developer that will be awarded the contract by judging the degree to which proposals demonstrate project feasibility and general responsiveness to terms and conditions that appear to meet the city's needs.
The site the hotel will be built on is a total of 6 acres, and whatever land area remains after the hotel is constructed will be marketed to restaurants and retail shops.
Betsy Rosemann, director of travel and tourism, said there will be plenty of benefits for whichever hotel brand moves into the area beside the Maxwell Regional Agricultural and Convention Center.
"They would benefit because we're going to be bringing them business," Mrs. Rosemann said. "With the 65,530 square feet of space and everything else the center will have to offer, we plan to keep them busy."
The breakdown of the layout of the Maxwell Regional Agricultural and Convention Center is a main lobby of 5,680 square feet, 15,000 square feet for the main assembly room that will seat 840 people banquet style or 1,554 people theater style, four additional meeting rooms totaling 4,000 square feet and approximately 20,000 square feet for agricultural extension offices.