New hotel coming to Coastline Center downtown

WILMINGTON, NC (WWAY) — Another new hotel is in the works along Wilmington’s downtown riverfront.

Poteat Hospitality Associates, LLC, and Big Dawg, LLC, which operates the Best Western Coastline Inn, have been approved for an Aloft Hotel franchise by Starwood Hotels, according to a news release from Creative Commercial Properties. Construction of the $25 million, 125-room hotel on the Coastline property is slated to begin in early 2016. The developers hope to have hotel open in time for the Wells Fargo Championship golf tournament in May 2017. It’s a goal they call “ambitious.”

According to the release, the hotel will be incorporated into the existing Coastline Conference Center building. It will rise up six stories above the historic Coastline Railroad Warehouse building and feature a rooftop courtyard with fire pit and a bistro. The ground floor will feature a full-service restaurant that will also cater the planned 7,000 square feet of meeting space.

The developers say Mayor Bill Saffo supports the project and sees it as an economic development goal.

“The new Convention Center has been somewhat handicapped by a lack of convenient guest rooms adjacent to the center, and they may have missed out on some of the more lucrative conventions,” Saffo said in a statement.

The Aloft will add to the 54 rooms at the Best Western and 186 rooms at the $33.6 million Embassy Suites to be built at the Wilmington Convention Center. A Hotel Indigo has also been planned across the street from the Convention Center for years, but has still yet to be built.

The three-story 9,000 square foot historic Coastline Railroad freight building facing Nutt Street will be rehabilitated and be available for a high-energy restaurant or retailer, the release says. The upper level will be utilized for office or conference space.