ROBBINSVILLE TWP. RESERVES A ROOM FOR A CHAIN HOTEL

NJ.COM - September 8, 2008 - The township is a step closer to its first chain hotel, bringing in a commercial tax ratable to a town officials have said is ripe for development.

The zoning board approved a preliminary site plan Tuesday for a 136-room Staybridge Suites Hotel on Robbinsville-Allentown Road at West Manor Way.

Robbinsville already has family-owned motels along Route 130, but this would be the first chain hotel, said Jack West, the township engineer.

The four-story 19,600-square-foot hotel and a 6,375-square-foot restaurant would be constructed on a 4.92-acre site, according to the general land use application.

Pending final approval from the township and the Mercer County Planning Board and the Mercer County Soil Conservation District, the landowner and applicant, Washington Lodging LLC, could begin constructing the hotel in the spring of 2009, West said.

West said the applicant was originally going to purchase a 7-acre portion of a 24-acre lot, but the New Jersey Turnpike Authority purchased the majority of that land for its Turnpike-widening project, scheduled to begin in 2009. Washington Lodging LLC instead purchased the remaining parcel of land, a little less than 5 acres, West said.

Though a hotel is a permitted use for that parcel -- the area is a vacant plot in a planned commercial district zone -- the applicant needed several variances, including for a minimum lot area for a hotel, and another variance because the hotel will have less impervious coverage, West said.

Henry Kent-Smith, the attorney representing Washington Lodging LLC, said his client was committed to building the hotel immediately, but would wait to build a restaurant until they can find a chain or family-owned restaurant that would want there.

"I don't think there's a better location....You're right at the intersection with Interstate 195, and the Turnpike exit 7A is less than a mile away. We think that's an ideal location for the hotel," Kent-Smith said.

Washington Lodging LLC plans to sell .44 acres of its land to a neighboring veterinary hospital, West said.

Another hotel application is scheduled to come before the zoning board in October. That hotel would sit across from the proposed Staybridge Suites, at the corner of West Manor Way and Robbinsville-Allentown Road, West said.