Holiday Inn project still alive

Weary travelers looking for a place to lay their heads in Maricopa will have to wait 10 months, as the construction of a local Holiday Inn Express has been delayed.

“We had an access issue with the Arizona Department of Transportation, but that will be resolved within the week,” said Larry Miller manager of Matrixx Management, the company behind the hotel development.

Once the redesigned transportation plan is approved by ADOT, Miller said his company would modify the hotel’s site plan so the two documents fit together. “It should be a very fast process,” he said.

When the modifications are complete Miller said the documents would be sent to the city of Maricopa for approval and construction would begin within 60 days. Construction is expected to take 7 months, with a completion date in June 2011.

Miller said the company has verbal commitments for financing, but is still working on receiving the written documentation.

The planned hotel would feature 80 rooms on a 6-acre site on the east side of John Wayne Parkway just south of Maricopa Self Storage.

Miller said the hotel will have an onsite restaurant in the form of a Denny’s, International House of Pancakes or a Marie Callender’s, a swimming pool and fitness center, as well as a 35,000-square-foot conference area.

The project is not Miller’s first in Maricopa. Previously, he helped develop several subdivisions south of the Union Pacific Railroad tracks and is the founder of Maricopa Broadband.

“There is a huge need in this community for a hotel with all of the employees at the two test tracks, out-of-town visitors and others,” Miller said.

In a February interview about the prospect of the hotel in Maricopa, Danielle Casey, the city’s economic development manager, said a hotel would create revenue for the city in the form of 2 percent sales tax and a 2 percent bed tax. Assuming an average nightly occupancy of 60 rooms at a rate of $100 per night, that could translate into nearly $90,000 in revenue for the city.

However, when property taxes, wages to employees and other factors are weighed, Casey said the financial windfall for the city could approach $2.3 million during a five-year timeframe. Not all the impacts are financial though, Casey said.

“When companies look at Maricopa as a possible place to locate a business, a hotel is one of the things they are looking for,” Casey said. “These business people do not like to have to stay out of town and drive into the city. And if they build here, they would like to be able to have a place near their company for potential partners to stay when they come to town.”

File photo