DATE: Saturday, May 10, 1997                TAG: 9705100260

SECTION: BUSINESS                PAGE: D1   EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: BY IDA KAY JORDAN, STAFF WRITER 

DATELINE: PORTSMOUTH                        LENGTH:   29 lines

COMFORT INN RISING ON SITE NEAR NAVAL HOSPITAL

A 62-unit Comfort Inn on the corner of North and Effingham streets in Olde Towne is scheduled to open in early 1998.

The three-story hotel near the Naval Regional Medical Center is under construction on about an acre that is the former site of the Portsmouth Social Services Department.

Sam Lavingia of Virginia Beach acquired the property from the Portsmouth Redevelopment and Housing Authority. He said he expects to spend more than $2 million on the project, hire 15 persons and pay $78,000 annually in real estate taxes.

Kirk Berkeley, a Portsmouth architect working on the project, said only 39 of the units will be conventional hotel rooms. The plan calls for five efficiency suites and 18 efficiency rooms, all with kitchenettes.

``There's a demand for the efficiencies from people connected with the Naval Hospital,'' Berkeley said.

The hotel will have a fitness room, a small meeting room for up to 60 people and another smaller room off the lobby, he said.

Lavingia owns KGS Properties Inc. of Virginia Beach, and among his properties is a Comfort Inn on Shore Drive in Virginia Beach. Several years ago he built a Day's Inn in Portsmouth on London Boulevard but no longer owns that facility, he said.

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