Smyrna hotel project delayed as it coordinates with proposed neighboring development

Jake Busch, Marietta Daily Journal, Ga.
·2 min read

Sep. 22—Two major, neighboring Smyrna developments are delayed as their respective developers seek to coordinate in the busy Cumberland-Truist Park area.

One developer, Smyrna-based Buckhead America Hospitality, is proposing construction of a seven-story, 107-room boutique hotel and rebranding of the six-story, 135-room Holiday Inn Express to which the new hotel will be attached. The new hotel would be a Courtyard and TownePlace Suites by Marriott on just over three acres, with the Holiday Inn Express retrofitted to become part of the Marriott facility, according to Garvis Sams, the attorney representing Buckhead America.

The Smyrna Planning and Zoning Commission, which advises the Smyrna City Council on zoning matters, approved the rezoning request 6-0 on April 11, though a hearing for the request at this week's City Council meeting was tabled to the Oct. 17 council meeting.

The delay comes as another major development, the multi-use Emerson Center, has plans for construction in the coming years directly next to hotel property. Emerson Center plans to bring 300 apartment units, a 188-room hotel and roughly 37,000 square feet of retail space to Spring Road, according to Rusty Martin, Smyrna's community development director. The $60 to $75 million Emerson Center site, the MDJ reported in 2017, is slated for about nine acres.

Part of the holdup on both developments is determining how exactly they will connect from Spring Road.

"We're trying to coordinate the entrances between the two projects so we have a consolidated entrance that has access to both properties," Martin said.

Sams, who represents both the Emerson and Marriott developments, noted the Cumberland core area is hot for not only commercial and industrial developments, but residential ones, too. He said coordinating the hotel development with the Emerson project will help determine next steps for both, though the process of coordinating two sites with different components is complicated.

"The process is making sure that we're able to develop, maybe not simultaneously with, but in conjunction with that Emerson development," Sams said.

Martin said Buckhead America is hoping to complete the hotel project by the spring of 2024. Sams would like to see both the hotel and the Emerson Center development get going simultaneously, though he said market forces could complicate things.

"I can't speak for my clients, it'd sure be great if both properties came out of the ground at the same time but who knows, with this economy and inflation and everything else, what's going to happen," Sams said.