Grant to help pay for water, sewer service to hotel

Published 2:37 pm Monday, December 14, 2015

Washington’s City Council, during its meeting tonight, is scheduled to consider authorizing the mayor to sign a grant agreement and other legally binding documents related to providing water and sewer infrastructure for a new hotel being built next to fire station No. 2 on West 15th Street.

In August, the city was notified it had been awarded a $100,000 grant to provide the publicly owned utilities to the 87-room hotel. The project developer, New Age Properties, is required by the grant conditions to contribute $101,400 toward the project, with the city providing $5,000, which the developer agrees to reimburse the city. The project’s budget is estimated at $206,400, according to a city document.

The hotel will include a restaurant, according to information supplied to the city’s Planning Board. The board will have some say in the design and appearance of the hotel.

Manfred D. Alligood Jr.is listed as the agent for New Age Properties Group, which filed its incorporation papers March 23. The papers show the company’s address as 1935 W. Fifth St., Washington, and lists Alligood as a member of the LLC.

During a council meeting in August, the council approved allowing the encroachment of grading work and fill material along the western property line of the fire station. To elevate the hotel above the base flood elevation, fill material will be used to raise the elevation of the project site, according to a city document.

During a meeting in June, the 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 grant application. The city will pay the commission $2,500 to prepare the grant and administer it.

The N.C. Rural Infrastructure Authority approved that grant in August. The hotel will house 87 rooms, according to the N.C. Department of Commerce. The hotel will be the anchor tenant on a 15-parcel commercial and light industrial property, according to the department.

New Age Properties Group has plans to invest about $6.8 million to build the hotel and create about 20 jobs, according to the department. 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.

In April, the council changed the zoning classification of the 3.47-acre hotel site on 15th Street Extension from a residential classification to a business classification.

The council meets at 5:30 p.m. Monday in the Council Chambers in the Municipal Building, 102 E. Second St. To view the council’s agenda for a specific meeting, visit the city’s web­site at www.washingtonnc.gov, click “Government” then “City Council” heading, then click “Meeting Agendas” on the menu to the right. Then click on the date for the appropriate agenda.

 

 

About Mike Voss

Mike Voss is the contributing editor at the Washington Daily News. He has a daughter and four grandchildren. Except for nearly six years he worked at the Free Lance-Star in Fredericksburg, Va., in the early to mid-1990s, he has been at the Daily News since April 1986.
Journalism awards:
• Pulitzer Prize for Meritorious Public Service, 1990.
• Society of Professional Journalists: Sigma Delta Chi Award, Bronze Medallion.
• Associated Press Managing Editors’ Public Service Award.
• Investigative Reporters & Editors’ Award.
• North Carolina Press Association, First Place, Public Service Award, 1989.
• North Carolina Press Association, Second Place, Investigative Reporting, 1990.
All those were for the articles he and Betty Gray wrote about the city’s contaminated water system in 1989-1990.
• North Carolina Press Association, First Place, Investigative Reporting, 1991.
• North Carolina Press Association, Third Place, General News Reporting, 2005.
• North Carolina Press Association, Second Place, Lighter Columns, 2006.
Recently learned he will receive another award.
• North Carolina Press Association, First Place, Lighter Columns, 2010.
4. Lectured at or served on seminar panels at journalism schools at UNC-Chapel Hill, University of Maryland, Columbia University, Mary Washington University and Francis Marion University.

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