Despite a delay of more than a year in construction of the $5 million Wingate Inn in North Kingstown, the developer insists that the project is not threatened by a financing crunch, and a groundbreaking should happen this fall.
"Everything is a go," said William Almonte, developer of the 100-room hotel, which is planned as the anchor hotel for Quonset Davisville and Commerce Park. "We’re going to get the financing completed, and we expect to be in the ground no later than October."
Construction had been slated to start in April 2001, according to a January 2001 press release from the Rhode Island Economic Development Corp., which approved the Wingate Inn project as the "flag" hotel for Quonset.
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But last week EDC officials said the project has been delayed because Almonte is still lining up the necessary financing.
"It’s taken some time for Mr. Almonte to get the financing for the project, " said EDC spokeswoman Clare Eckert. "Hotel financing in general has been very difficult to get. We’ll continue to work with him until such time that it appears it’s impossible."
The hotel – which is expected to serve business travelers to Quonset as well as South County tourists – is planned for a 17-acre site on Post Road, at the entrance to Quonset’s industrial park. EDC oversees development at Quonset.
While Almonte acknowledged the scarcity of hotel financing, he said zoning snags and access issues stemming from the relocation of Route 403 have been larger impediments to the project. He expressed confidence that he would have the financing for the project, "hopefully in the next two or three weeks," he said.
"The zoning took us about eight months," Almonte said. The site had to be rezoned to "general business" to permit hotel use, and a height variance was needed to allow the hotel’s four stories to exceed the area’s 35-foot height limit.
Almonte added that construction work on the main access road to the hotel, being done in connection with the Route 403 project, will not be finished until October of 2003.
A spokesman for the North Kingstown Planning Department said the town’s planning commission approved the necessary zoning changes eight months ago, and it OK’d the design of the hotel at a meeting last November. But a land-development application has yet to be filed.
"We’re still waiting for them to come back to us with a development application," said John Aubin, a North Kingstown senior planner. "We haven’t heard anything from them since the planning commission meeting (last November)."
Approval of land-development plans – which include drainage plans, traffic patterns and the like – typically take up to three months from the time the application is submitted, Aubin said.
Almonte said he expects to submit the project’s development application next month. Construction should last about 10 months, and he has targeted October 2003 for the grand opening.
When asked if EDC officials are concerned about the delay in the Wingate Inn project, Eckert said the corporation is confident that construction of a hotel at Quonset is imminent.
"Generally speaking, we’re certainly concerned that development of the hotel come to fruition at that location," Eckert said. "Development at Quonset is going gangbusters, and from that sense, we don’t think it will ever be a problem. A hotel is our first priority there."
Both nationally and in Rhode Island, hotel developers have encountered a financing drought for new projects.
"Even prior to September 11, business travel had been soft, and there was a fair amount of building, so industry conditions weren’t looking that strong," said Thomas Graves, a hotel industry analyst at Standard & Poor’s in New York. "Post September 11, it’s become even more difficult to get funding, and generally there is less interest in new hotel development," Graves said.
He added, however, that local market conditions play a big role in the availability of financing for specific projects, and that occupancy rates in Rhode Island have "held up pretty well" relative to the national average, citing market data from research firm Smith Travel Research.
A market-demand study conducted in 2000, prior to EDC’s approval of the project, said the hotel could expect a 70 percent occupancy rate during its first full year of operation in 2003.
The Wingate Inn brand, an international hotel chain catering to business travelers, is owned by New York-based Cendant Corp., which owns several other major real estate and travel brands, including Ramada, Super 8 Motel and Century 21. The hotel planned in North Kingstown would be the first Wingate Inn to be built in New England.
