The Town of Lexington will give consideration to a proposed downtown hotel this week.

Developers looking to bring a Courtyard by Marriott to a vacant lot at 116 E Main St. next to Bodhi Thai are set to go before the town’s Board of Appearance Jan. 9. 

The potential project comes via Lexington Hospitality, which manages the Holiday Inn Express & Suites at 325 W Main St. and the Quality Inn and Suites at 328 W Main St. and has multiple properties in downtown Columbia (an Aloft and a Holiday Inn) plus a Quality Inn and Suites in Aiken. 

Raj Champaneri, chief development officer and COO for Lexington Hospitality, told the Chronicle last month, after their appearance before the board was pushed from December to January, that they were finalizing their proposal.

On Jan. 6, the town posted to its Facebook about the meeting and where they are in the approval process, including the above renderings of the proposed hotel:

Proposed downtown development project - a new hotel with bistro and meeting space is coming to Main Street. It’s a private development project that has been in the works and publicly discussed for a few years. Just recently it has entered the appearance approval stages before plans and land disturbance permits are submitted.

The hotel is proposed to be built on the empty grass lot on Main Street and is going in front of the Board of Appearance for the purpose of the board providing feedback on its appearance and design.

The meeting, being held at Town Hall (111 Maiden Lane) at 5:30pm on January 9, is only to discuss the appearance. This is an early stage in the development process.  The developers want to know if the Town will approve the look of the building.

The Town is aware there are some discrepancies in the packet related to the number of hotel rooms and total square footage. These items will be discussed at the meeting. Future plans that will be submitted to the Town will resolve the discrepancies.

A few other things to note: The Main Street entrance to the hotel will be right in and right out only with secondary access off of Butler Street. There will be an additional parking lot built that will accommodate overflow parking and certain spaces in that lot will be open to the public. The hotel is a private development, not a Town project.