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By David Dagan
A new hotel near Hershey will add about 90 rooms to a market
that is falling far short of meeting visitors' demand, York County
developer David Hogg said.
Hogg's company, Springwood Hospitality, is developing the
Country Inn and Suites at the corner of Grandview Road and Route 39 in South Hanover
Township. The two-mile
radius around Hersheypark is difficult for hoteliers to break into because land
is scarce and the municipal-approval process is daunting, Hogg said.
"When people stay to visit the park or even (Hershey Medical Center),
they like a short drive," Hogg said. There may be plenty of hotels farther away
from those sites, he said, "but folks who are willing to pay for the
convenience clearly vote long and loud with their dollars."
Hogg said he paid about $1.7 million for the site of roughly
4.3 acres, or about $400,000 an acre. It
took about five years to find the site and about and two-and-a-half years to
get the required approvals from South
Hanover Township,
he said. A call to the township manager was not returned.
Hotel developers in the area have a hard time finding
appropriately zoned land in the relatively small bundles required for a hotel,
said real estate agent Ajaykumar Patel.
"That's why hoteliers are a little stuck. They need the
right acreage ... as well as the right zoning, as well as having the (public) water and sewer," said Patel, a commercial real
estate agent at Coldwell Banker Hershey Realty Professionals, in Derry Township.
By Hogg's count, the area now has seven hotels, not
including two owned by Hershey Entertainment and Resorts, which he said serve a
different market than the other hotels.
Construction is expected to start Oct. 30 and the hotel is scheduled to open Aug. 1, 2009, he said.
