BEAVERCREEK — During a recent Beavercreek City Council meeting, the proposal for building a five-story hotel near the Fairfield Commons Mall was approved.
Hilton hotels will be expanding to the Beavercreek area with their newest hotel design called Home 2 Suites, most recently built near the Liberty Township shopping center off Interstate 75 towards Cincinnati.
Blake Helms of HiFive Development Services said that Hilton was very excited about building their second hotel in the Fairfield Commons Mall area, their first was neighboring hotel Springhill Suites that recently opened.
The new hotel will feature 107 rooms, five stories on 1.81 acres of land. After round-tabling issues and concerns of the council, the request was approved with 19 conditions, including parking requirements, storm water management, lighting, landscaping, signage as well as construction requirements.
Council members are also prohibiting the hotel from having two different signs for each hotel, since they are so close together. The sign for Home 2 Suites will be combined with the current signage of Springhill Suites, which is located on Fairfield Commons Boulevard near the Fox and Hound Pub and Red Robin restaurant.
The new hotel will be near and accessible from Golden Corral buffet. One of the concerns Beavercreek Council Member Melissa Litteral had was if there was going to be a walking path from the hotel to the nearby restaurant. Helms indicated that it could be addressed at the time of the site plan stage. The path would allow guests of the hotel to safely walk from the hotel to area businesses.
Another concern was if the fire department would be able to assist the hotel of the requested size. The fire department indicated that they have a 100-foot ladder truck that would be adequate to handle a fifth floor fire if need. This was something that was discussed during the construction of the Soin Medical Center, which is 96-foot tall.
The other issue that was highly discussed was the concern with stormwater and runoff water- where was the clean, storm water going to go compared to the water containing dirt, oil and other dirty components. The hotel representative and City staff explained that pavers would contain a filtration system with sand and rocks that would clean any water filtering through to the water detention pond.
Even though requirements are in place for these systems to be checked on a yearly basis for each Hilton hotel, Helms indicated that they are only able to inspect about 15-20 percent per year. With the water issues, city council wanted more done to make sure that the property owners follow the requirements and log the maintenance on this property since the filtration system would need cleaned on a scheduled basis.
The final site plan will be approved at a later date before construction begins.
