The city is seeking $100,000 in grant funding to help provide infrastructure for a new hotel near Fire Station No. 2 on 15^th Street Extension.

During its meeting Monday, the City Council authorized the mayor to sign an application for a N.C. Rural Infrastructure grant and enter into an agreement with the Mid-East Commission for it to prepare the application. The city will pay the commission $2,500 to prepare the grant and administer it.

A developer has plans to build the hotel and create about 20 jobs. The estimated cost for sewer lines and street infrastructure that would serve the hotel comes to $424,000, with $100,000 of that cost being paid for by the grant, according to a memorandum from Matt Rauschenbach, the city’s administrative services director and chief financial officer. The city’s $5,000 “match” for the grant (if awarded) will be paid by the developer, according to the memorandum.

In April, the council changed the zoning classification of 3.47 acres on 15^th Street Extension from a residential classification to a business classification.

The vote came after a public hearing on the rezoning request made by Granville Lilley, then owner of the property.

The Planning Board, after discussing the request during a meeting earlier this year, recommended the council change the zoning classification from RA-20 (residential agriculture) to B-2 (general business). The property is near the Cherry Run shopping center. The Planning Board determined that changing the zoning classification would be consistent with the city’s comprehensive land-use plan.

Property adjacent to part of the 3.47 acres is in the B-2 zoning district, according to a document submitted by Lilley.

“We’re just trying to blend in out there and get a zone that’s all the way around us, just about,” Lilley told the council in April. “We want to be ready if something comes. Probably, we should have done this several years ago. We’ve been trying to develop that land. The front of the property, I think, is already B-2 (business). We’re trying to get it all (B-2), so if something does come, it won’t take but a couple of months to get it done.”