By Emily Ford
emily.ford@salisburypost.com
SALISBURY — The Salisbury Planning Board has only two items on its agenda this week, but both could have a big impact on the city.
The board will meet at 4 p.m. Tuesday in City Hall, 217 S. Main St.
Members will consider a rezoning request from BPR Properties to build a four-story, 90-room Holiday Inn Express on East Innes Street next to Courtyard Marriott, which the developer opened about a year ago.
High Point-based BPR Properties is asking the city to rezone about two acres by maintaining the existing highway business base zoning and applying a conditional district overlay to allow development of a hotel. The developer is asking for approval of some alternatives, including allowing a four-story building and 16-foot deep parking spaces instead of 18-foot parking spaces.
Planning Board will hold a courtesy hearing and consider a presentation by city staff. The board then will make a recommendation to City Council, which has the final determination.
Interest in Salisbury from Holiday Inn Express comes after the city lost a longtime Holiday Inn on Jake Alexander Boulevard. The Wallace family in June 2013 dropped their Holiday Inn franchise and renamed their property Hotel Salisbury & Conference Center. Hotel Salisbury has had fewer reservations since the change.
When it opened last year, Courtyard Marriott was the city’s first new hotel in 13 years. While tourism officials cannot divulge the hotel’s occupancy rate, the Courtyard is said to be doing “extremely well.”
Rowan County recently had been the best month for hotel room tax revenue since officials began keeping records in the 1980s.
Planning Board members also will hear from a committee considering Livingstone College’s request to add agriculture to areas zoned institutional-campus. The college wants the change so it can resurrect an urban farm off Brenner Avenue that was active in the 1950s and ’60s.
Because the change would have an impact on institutional-campus zoning throughout the city, not just on Livingstone’s 45 acres on Locke Street, a committee has been studying the request.
Contact reporter Emily Ford at 704-797-4264.