DATE: Wednesday, June 11, 1997              TAG: 9706110423

SECTION: LOCAL                   PAGE: B1   EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: BY BILL REED, STAFF WRITER 

DATELINE: VIRGINIA BEACH                    LENGTH:   69 lines

PLANNER ENVISIONS UPSCALE INN AT THE SOUTH END OF SANDBRIDGE

A resort planner wants the city to kick in $75,000 to conduct a market study for a five-star eco-tourism hotel at the south end of Sandbridge.

The $75,000 would be seed money, said architect Roger Newill, former chairman of the Resort Area Advisory Commission, and a major first step in creating a ritzy $15 million inn at the doorstep of Back Bay National Wildlife Refuge and the False Cape State Park just a few miles beyond.

City Council fielded the request and agreed to consider it at a meeting June 24, along with a number of other prickly issues like a controversial rezoning south of the Green Line and a proposed library referendum.

If the council decides to proceed, backers like Newill envision the development of a $150-to-$300-a-night hostelry rivaling gold-plated inns such as the Four-Season Biltmore in Santa Barbara, Calif.; the Highlands Inn in Carmel, Calif.; the Cloister at Sea Island, Ga.; or the Sanderling in Duck, N.C.

The inn would cater mostly to moneyed patrons throughout the world with a hankering to experience nature. They could indulge themselves in the nearby wildlife refuge, state park and Back Bay a few hundred feet from their hotel rooms and pamper themselves and family members with luxury accommodations and gourmet food.

Newill, a Cornell University graduate, has enlisted the aid of a consulting group associated with his alma mater, the Cayuga Hospitality Advisers, which specializes in hotel development and marketing.

He foresees selecting a developer from a field of 12 or so of national stature by February. Hotel construction could start as early as May 1998. Part of the $75,000 would be advanced to three or four finalists as an inducement to complete detailed hotel proposals. Cayuga Hospitality Advisers would get $40,000, plus expenses, for recruitment and consulting.

Councilwoman Nancy K. Parker wanted to know Tuesday if the city had ever advanced prospective developers any money for construction or service proposals. No, said Donald Maxwell, the city's economic development director, but in this instance the city would be dealing with a group of select developers.

The practice is fairly common, said William J. Callinin, managing director of Cayuga Hospitality Advisers. ``It would assist in attracting companies, which will spend $10,000 to prepare the services required,'' he said. ``It would tie them in.''

The money would come from the city's Tourism Growth Investment Fund, a revenue pool fed by special taxes on local hotels and restaurants and special resort franchise fees, Newill said. This is the same pool that helped finance $40 million in Atlantic Avenue improvements, the $17 million GTE Virginia Beach Amphitheater and the $103 million Beach hurricane protection project now under way at the Oceanfront.

Councilwoman Barbara M. Henley may have set the tone for future deliberations on the Sandbridge hotel issue.

``I've told everybody it is fine as long as there's not a penny of city money in it,'' she said at the end of Newill's presentation.

Newill and Callinin foresee a future developer buying eight commercially zoned parcels abutting Little Island Park - a public beach area - and creating a high-quality, low-density inn that would add value to surrounding Sandbridge properties.

The commercially zoned land would be enhanced in value by the extension of city sewer lines to the proposed hotel within two years, Newill said.

Doug Wilkins, owner of the majority of the property, said he favors the hotel project, but cautioned that escalating land values may force him to sell to commercial interests willing to pay the price. These could include anything from fast-food restaurants to high-density condominiums or apartments that are allowable under the current B-1 zoning.

Newill and his group hope to convince the City Council to concur with the hotel venture which, he said, would be financed entirely through private sources. The city's only contribution would be the $75,000 in seed money.

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