Aug. 24--A Cleveland developer is about to construct the first hotel in downtown Detroit in almost a decade. 

Ferchill Group is building a 198-room Hilton Garden Inn at Brush and Gratiot. The site is now a parking lot in Harmonie Park, a pocket neighborhood that has attracted restaurants, bars and small businesses in recent years. It is near Comerica Park, Ford Field and the entertainment district along Woodward. 

The contractor, Turner Construction Co. of Detroit, has erected a construction fence around the site and piled structural steel and lumber there in preparation for shoring up the foundation excavation. Work is expected to begin on the $26.5-million project no later than Sept. 15, said Timm Judson, Ferchill's chief investment officer. 

But the hotel plan has caused mixed emotions among Harmonie Park's prominent property and business owners. They welcome the customers the hotel will bring to Intermezzo and other local restaurants. But they have questioned the building's 100-foot height, the proposed location of its trash containers and Ferchill's plans to build a 150-space parking lot to serve the hotel. 

They want Ferchill to build a parking garage, and the developer is evaluating whether to construct a 500-space deck. 

"We're closer to building it than we were several months ago," Judson said Thursday. 

The two sides met Tuesday and are expected to meet again Monday. 

"A hotel would do very well here," said Dave Schervish, Harmonie Park's principal developer. "We would help them, and they would help us." 

When the 10-story hotel opens as expected in the fall of 2002, it will be the first newly constructed downtown hotel since the Atheneum Hotel opened in July 1992. 

It's welcome news for a downtown that counts no more than 3,000 hotel rooms -- a small number compared to downtowns in most major cities. 

"We're excited to have it here," Brian Holdwick, Detroit Economic Growth Corp.'s vice president of business development and financial services, said Thursday. "We need hotel space in the city, and this is a start. Hopefully, there are more to come." 

When Detroit made a bid last year for the 2006 Super Bowl, the National Football League questioned the city's small number of hotel rooms. The city and the Lions eventually were awarded the game, but some of the 18,600 hotel rooms reserved for the game are as far as Toledo. 

By comparison, Philadelphia's center city offers 11,374 hotel rooms and downtown Boston has 14,074 hotel rooms, industry experts say. 

Hilton Garden will cater to business travelers, casino-goers, Music Hall patrons and people attending Lions games and other events at Ford Field, which is scheduled to open at about same time, said John Ferchill, chairman and chief executive officer of Ferchill Group. 

The brick-facade hotel will have a convenience market and a business center, both of which will be open around the clock. It will have a bar and outdoor entertainment area and will offer a breakfast buffet. There will be no hotel restaurant. Rates are expected to be $125 to $150 a night. 

Hotel industry analysts were upbeat about the hotel's prospects, even though the nation's economic downturn has caused companies to slash travel budgets, the lifeblood of many hotels. 

"It's a good product in a good location," said Mike Blahosky, who heads hospitality services at CB Richard Ellis, a commercial real estate brokerage in Southfield. 

Chuck Skelton, president of Hospitality Advisors in Ann Arbor, said downtown hotels have seen occupancy rise to an average 64 percent from 48 percent in the mid-1990s. He attributed the increase to General Motors Corp. moving its world headquarters to the Renaissance Center and the casinos' efforts to attract overnight visitors. Compuware Corp.'s new downtown headquarters should also boost hotel business when it is completed in 2003. 

"We think it will be a nice complement," said Skelton, who did a hotel study for Ferchill. "It's sized right." 

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