[Editor's Note: An earlier version of this story indicated that Glenn Stewart was developing the hotel on his Parc Lafayette property. This story has been corrected and updated with new information from the Louisiana company planning to purchase land at Parc Lafayette and introduce a new Hilton brand to the Lafayette market.]
Just weeks after advertising his La Marquise building for lease (our real estate source says it's also for sale), former radiation oncologist Glenn Stewart appears to be moving forward on a deal to sell a portion of his property to a Natchitoches-based company for construction of a Home2 Suites hotel, a franchise member of the Hilton group.
Dimension Development Company has a letter of intent with Stewart to buy approximately 2 acres at 1909 Kaliste Saloom Road, according to Ken Ritter, general manager of Homewood Suites by Hilton near the airport, which Dimension Development also owns. The 1909 address is owned by Parc Lafayette LLC, whose only member is Stewart, according the Secretary of State's office. Local tax records show that Parc Lafayette LLC purchased the property in January 2012 from Stewart Family LLC and Birch Tree Estates.
If all goes as planned, construction should start late summer or early fall and take about 10 months, Ritter says, noting the design will complement the architecture of Parc Lafayette. Ritter will manage the new Parc Lafayette hotel.
The hotel will be constructed in the back of the planned Grub Burger Bar on Kaliste Saloom Road. Accessible from Kaliste Saloom, Long Plantation Road and Camellia Boulevard, it will front the promenade area that runs alongside Parc Lafayette and back up to Long Plantation.
Above is the Jacksonville, N.C., Home2 Suites. The Home2 Suites planned for Lafayette, however, will reflect the architecture of the upscale Parc Lafayette retail and office center on Kaliste Saloom Road
and Camellia Boulevard.
The 22,500-square-foot hotel will have 106 suites and 3,400 square feet of meeting space, Ritter says, competing in the mid-tier category with the likes of InterContinental Hotels Group's Candlewood Suites just up the road at 2105 Kaliste Saloom Road.
Based in Memphis, the all-suite, extended-stay hotel brand was launched in January 2009, becoming the first new brand introduced by Hilton Worldwide in 20 years. Home2 Suites hotels are all franchised.
Dimension Development, one of Hilton's largest franchisees, also owns and manages Marriott and IHG brands. It has properties in New Orleans and Bossier City.
The Home2 Suites product is a far cry from the four- or five-star hotel and convention center Stewart envisioned for his development when he tried unsuccessfully in 2011 to create an Economic Development District (aka Tax Increment Financing district) at the site. Read more on that story here.
It's unclear whether Stewart still plans to pursue that project.