Sept. 18–The Grand Wayne Convention Center has been hoping for more hotel rooms nearby. That wish was granted Monday when White Lodging of Merrillville announced it will build a 125-room Hampton Inn & Suites next to its Courtyard by Marriott on West Jefferson Boulevard across from the convention center.
Construction should begin in late spring and the hotel likely will open in early summer of 2019, Deno Yiankes, president and CEO of White Lodging's Investment and Development division, said during a news conference Monday morning at the Grand Wayne Center, 120 W. Jefferson Blvd. There will be no impact on the layout of adjacent Parkview Field.
The city of Fort Wayne began discussion with White Lodging about 10 years ago on investing in hotels downtown, city officials said. When the company's 250-room Courtyard by Marriott opened in 2010 at 1150 S. Harrison St., plans included building a second hotel when demand justified it.
"We finally concluded this is the right time," Yiankes said.
The Hampton, which will cost about $20 million to construct, will have hotel guest rooms, about 25 percent of which will be suites, he said. Plans don't call for large meeting rooms. It tentatively will have about 1,000 to 1,500 square feet in the west end of the building that can be used for a coffeeshop or other retail space, Yiankes said.
Public investment in the project will include the Fort Wayne Redevelopment Commission, which voted 5-1 Monday to provide the land to White Lodging for $1, provide $500,000 in Tax Increment Financing (TIF) for the new hotel and to pay up to $250,000 in TIF funds to construct a walkway connecting the Hampton to the existing Harrison Square parking garage just south of the hotel site.
The ability to purchase the planned Hampton Inn site for $1 was an option included in the original deal with White Lodging for the Courtyard by Marriott, and the company now is exercising that purchase option, Nancy Townsend, city redevelopment director, said after the meeting.
The Fort Wayne-Allen County Capital Improvement Board also will consider whether to invest up to nearly $1.3 million in the Hampton Inn project when it meets at 7:30 a.m. Sept. 28 at the Grand Wayne Center.
A 2014 research study commissioned by the Grand Wayne Center concluded the downtown area needs more hotel rooms if Fort Wayne wants to attract events that draw 800 to 1,000 participants, the city's announcement about the new Hampton said.
The opening of the new Hampton Inn will give the city about 750 hotel rooms downtown and about 5,000 throughout Fort Wayne, said Dan O'Connell, president and CEO of Visit Fort Wayne, which works to attract people to visit the Summit City.
In remarks during the news conference, O'Connell said the additional rooms provided by the new Hampton will allow the city to host larger group conventions and meetings than it can now because many organizations prefer to have all of their delegates or participants housed in hotels near each other, he said.
Having three hotels — the new Hampton, the Courtyard and the downtown Hilton Fort Wayne, with a combined total of about 625 rooms — all right next to the Grand Wayne Center will be part of a "tremendous package" Fort Wayne can offer potential convention and event organizers, O'Connell said.
White Lodging also plans to invest additional money in downtown Fort Wayne by freshening up its Courtyard by Marriott with new carpeting, drapes and chairs and converting its Champions Sports Bar and Restaurant to a new dining concept, Yiankes said. The work likely will take place during late 2018, he said, but they haven't decided yet on the new concept for the restaurant.
