Florence council tees up more money for downtown hotel

The doors aren’t open yet and the name isn’t official, but the Hotel Florence in downtown Florence appears to be a go.

Florence City Council took another major step Monday toward facilitating the $5.6 million project on West Evans Street when it approved the second of two incentives requested by the Florence-based development group. Council voted 6-1, with Councilman Ed Robinson dissenting, to approve a tax rebate package that refunds 85 percent of the taxes on the property for seven years.

Ben Zeigler, spokesman for the development group, said with the final piece in place it will be full-speed ahead.

“We’re grateful that the city has taken this final step,” Zeigler said. “Now that they have, we’re ready to get started.”

Zeigler said the group will move ahead with final plans, land purchases and financial arrangements and could begin actual work in the first quarter of next year. A likely opening date would in the fourth quarter of 2013.

“We had done as much as we could do,” Zeigler said. “This really opens the door for us.”

The package represents an estimated $476,000 in savings for the developers, but the city will make out pretty well, too. Properties that produce tax revenues of about $2,500 a year — with only about $500 a year accruing to the city — will, upon completion of the project, produce revenues of about $80,000 a year. Even with the developer being rebated 85 percent, the pass-through revenues will still be $12,000, and because of the way the deal has been structured, all of that will go to the city of Florence. (Under an earlier iteration of the incentives plan, the county would have participated in the tax revenues, as well.) What’s more, when the seven years are over, the full tax value will be available to the city.

That math seemed simple enough to most of the council, but Robinson couldn’t find the sense in it. In one of his trademark harangues, Robinson told his colleagues no one had done anything to convince him of the project’s viability.

“I don’t see giving this one individual well over $1 million (the two incentives actually total $901,000, an estimated figure),” he said. “I don’t see it. There’s nothing to sell me on its success of this project. … What’s happening with downtown? I don’t know. Probably everyone else knows. I don’t know. …Why will people come to do this downtown area and pay upscale prices? I don’t see it. …”

Mayor Stephen J. Wukela offered a rebuttal, leading Robinson through the before-and-after tax revenues and the comparison of the two. The city gets more than it’s receiving now — something like 2,300 percent more — and could eventually get even more than that. And that doesn’t take into account the potential the project has for spurring still more development in the sagging downtown area.

“I don’t think I can make any better argument than that,” Wukela said.

Robinson wasn’t buying it. “In my mind I might be crazy,” he said, “but I don’t see it.”

Other council members were solidly behind the project.

Councilwoman Teresa Myers Ervin said, “I think this project is needed. We do need to be kept abreast of what’s going on, but we need this.”

Added Councilman Glynn Willis, “I think this is just the beginning of a new downtown. You can see the wheels beginning to turn today.”

The project would bring a 53-room boutique hotel, unofficially named the Hotel Florence, to the West Evans Street parcel, along with a 180-seat restaurant. The restaurant would be the current Victor’s Bistro, which would move north from its South Irby Street address to the new location. Victor’s owner Tim Norwood is a member of the development group along with attorney Zeigler, the Raines Hotel Group, architect Randy Key and Pearce Land Co. LLC.

The developers used the city’s initial grant, $425,000 that came from city utility funds, to help purchase the land. City officials said the developers already closed on one parcel and have an option on the other. The site is where the old Schofield’s Hardware Building stands on the south side of West Evans.

The city could get the utility money back over time because increased water usage at the site. A 50-plus room hotel will almost certainly use more water than a vacant building.

The second incentive, the tax rebate, won’t begin until the developers have invested their money and completed the project.

The project could begin coming out of the ground as early as the first quarter of next year. It will take 12 to 24 months to complete.

In other business, council members voted unanimously to defer action on a proposed rezoning for 1616 S. Coit Ave. near Timrod Park Developers want to upzone the property for a more aggressive business use. Neighbors are mostly against the idea. The deferral will allow the city more time to work on new zoning plans, but the only way the property gets rezoned any time soon is if the developers can reach some kind of accommodation with the neighbors.

“If we had voted on it today I’d have been against it,” Wukela said. “So now we have some more time. I’m leaving it up to you guys (the developer) to find some kind of solution here.”