Ground broken for new hotel at KineticPark

HUNTINGTON -- Representatives of the Huntington Municipal Development Authority and developer H & W Hotels broke ground Monday on a new hotel planned for the lower level of KineticPark.

The three-story TownePlace Suites, a branch of Marriott hotels, will serve guests visiting for extended stays of a week or more. Located on the 2.55-acre lot just north of Bob Evans restaurant, the hotel will have 87 suites featuring full kitchens, flat screen TVs and free, high-speed, wireless Internet service. The hotel also will have a pool, exercise room, guest laundry room and light continental breakfast.

A hotel has always been part of the KineticPark master plan for its lower, commercial area, said Bill Toney, executive director of the HMDA.

"When you have businesses like we want to have, they need places to stay," he said. It also is likely to be used by those involved with Marshall University, Cabell Huntington Hospital and St. Mary's Medical Center, he said.

KineticPark is a proposed business and technology park located along Hal Greer Boulevard near Interstate 64. So far, the park has a Bob Evans on its lower level and professional offices on its upper level, but no biotech businesses as of yet.

Sitting in a high-traffic area with an estimated 60,000 cars passing that land every day, KineticPark is a key factor in the growth of the area, said HMDA President Rick Flowers. And the "successful development of this commercial area is critical to the development of the (business-technology area)," Flowers said. "Since the very beginning of the KineticPark project, it was widely agreed that a hotel would be pivotal to the project."

Don Howard, president of the Lexington, Ky.-based H & W Hotels, said the developers had considered a hotel at KineticPark about five years ago but couldn't find one that made sense at the time. Since then, consultants have said an extended stay hotel would fill an important niche in the community.

H & W was involved with the development of the Best Western hotel in Barboursville, making TownPlace Suites its second project in this area and its third in West Virginia.

Howard said he hopes it will open in the spring of 2009.

Representatives from local organized labor groups, including carpenters, operators and pipe-fitters, gathered near the groundbreaking event. They held up signs that read, "Please ask this developer to employ local workers," and, "This developer has not promised to employ local workers."

H & W Vice President Jeff Yeary said those decisions have not been made because a contractor has not been hired yet. He said bids likely would be let on the project within the next month.