Local hotel developer and operator Alpesh Patel has plans for a new Days Inn hotel at Howell Place. In a sale that closed late Thursday, Patel’s Howell Hotel LLC acquired a two-acre parcel from out-of-state investor Sustain LLC for $300,000.
Patel plans to begin construction on the 52-room hotel later this month and hopes to be open for business by August or September. He says he was attracted to the site because of its proximity to Southern University and the nearby ExxonMobil refinery complex.
The site for the planned hotel is situated between a Hilton Garden Inn and the former Champion Medical Center surgical center, which closed earlier this year.
Though the site is technically two acres, only about 1.75 acres is developable because of a drainage ditch, according to Colin Smith of Kurz & Hebert Commercial Real Estate, who brokered the transaction.
The Days Inn will be Patel’s fourth hotel in the local market, and the second Days Inn in the area.
—Stephanie Riegel
