July 13–A hotel has been penciled into the expansion plans for Mount Pleasant Towne Centre, adding to the recent groundswell of new accommodations planned for the township, officials said.
An unnamed hotel is being proposed adjacent to the parking deck to be constructed at the north side of Belk department store, said Andy Lowe. He works with Bayer Properties, the firm charged with handling the day-to-day operations of the 450,000-square-foot shopping center on U.S. Highway 17, just south of the Isle of Palms Connector.
Lowe said the group is talking with several hoteliers, but nothing has been finalized. He added that the exact size of the hotel is not defined yet, but the group plans to have the hotel open as early as 2014, the same time anchor tenant Belk is planning to complete the massive expansion that doubles its footprint in the shopping center.
A hotel at Towne Centre adds to a series of new accommodations in various stages of development in Mount Pleasant.
Just a short distance from Towne Centre, developer Jupiter Holdings plans to build a 100-room, three- to four-story Holiday Inn Express on Stockade Lane, north of the Isle of Palms Connector, between All Saints Lutheran Church and the former Charleston Crab House restaurant.
Developers plan to break ground after conducting a traffic impact study and clearing other regulatory hurdles, the company has said.
A 133-room Hilton Garden Inn is planned to replace the shuttered Masters Inn at the base of the Ravenel Bridge.
Charleston Harbor Resort and Marina is planning to add 90 more rooms to its 130-room hotel on Patriots Point Road.
The uptick in hotel developments comes as the Charleston Area Convention and Visitors Bureau recently reported that the hotel occupancy rate for the Mount Pleasant/Daniel Island area was 79.7 percent in June, up 5.4 percent compared to the same month in 2012.
The area kept pace with Charleston County, which marked 80.7 percent occupancy in June, up 5.2 percent compared to June last year.
The growth in the region’s occupancy rates has been tied to national tourism rankings, including Charleston being named the world’s No. 1 tourist destination by readers of Conde Nast Traveler magazine last year and No. 1 in the U.S. in 2011. Earlier this month, Travel & Leisure magazine dubbed it the No. 1 tourist destination in the U.S.
Reach Tyrone Richardson at 937-5550 and follow him on Twitter @tyrichardsonPC.
