March 08, 2013--A 41-room hotel called The Spectator is the latest new inn planned for downtown Charleston.

The four-story accommodation would rise at 71 State St. in a parking lot just off South Market Street adjacent to the French Quarter Inn.

Managing members are Jay Keenan and Batson Hewitt of Charleston, who are involved in other downtown Charleston hotel enterprises.

"We want it to be a very high-end property," Keenan said.

The proposed 27,000-square-foot hotel would include ground-floor parking and three floors of rooms above it.

It also would share an off-site parking lot on Queen Street, about two blocks south, with the French Quarter Inn, which is also owned by Keenan and Hewitt.

Construction could start in September with an opening in late 2014.

Plans for the proposed hotel will go before Charleston's Board of Architectural Review at 4:30 p.m. Wednesday at 75 Calhoun St.

Keenan and Hewitt also are partners in the 52-room HarbourView Inn on Vendue Range and the 50-room French Quarter Inn near the City Market in downtown Charleston.

"We have had wonderful success with The Harbourview Inn and the French Quarter Inn," Keenan said. The properties are managed by Charlestowne Hotels.

The planned project comes on the heels of numerous other hotels opening or in the planning stages on peninsular Charleston.

Roper Hospital is trying to rezone property on Calhoun Street across from the hospital for another party to develop a hotel with up to 150 rooms.

Holiday Inn recently opened a 120-room hotel on Meeting Street and a 153-room Holiday Inn Express on Lockwood Boulevard.

Nearly 1,500 new hotel rooms are in the works in about a dozen projects across the peninsula, in addition to The Spectator.

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