Hurst council OKs site plan, incentives for new Hilton Garden Inn

Hurst hasn’t seen a new hotel built since 2009, but that is about to change.

Last week, the City Council unanimously approved a site plan for a Hilton Garden Inn that would connect to the Hurst Conference Center via the hotel lobby.

Assistant City Manager Jeff Jones said the new hotel is a “win-win” situation for the city, describing it as a public-private project.

The conference center was designed to include a hotel, Jones said.

The planned hotel “is the epitome of our Transforming Hurst initiative where we have public projects to attract private developers,” he said.

The City Council also approved a 12-year tax-revenue-sharing agreement for the project. During the first year, the developer will receive 100 percent of Hurst’s property tax and hotel/motel tax revenue generated from the Hilton Garden Inn. The share will decrease to 50 percent by the 12th year of the agreement.

The hotel will be on Campus Drive in Hurst’s Town Center, which already has three hotels — Hyatt Place, Hampton Inn and Holiday Inn Express.

The six-story, 140-room hotel will feature an indoor pool and hot tub, a full-service restaurant and bar, two patios, a business center, free Wi-Fi and a guest laundry facility.

It will be within walking distance of restaurants such as Abuelo’s and Black-eyed Pea.

Sanjiv Melwani of CN Churchill, which about eight years ago built two hotels in Richland Hills near North East Mall, said that the groundbreaking will probably be in November and that the hotel should be open by the first quarter of 2017.

“Hurst is a vibrant city,” he said. “It has a good location on the Airport Freeway near Fort Worth and D/FW Airport.”

Jones said he and other officials were impressed by the quality of Milwani’s hotels and his emphasis on customer service.

Hurst is also adding spaces at the conference center parking garage, which will have three additional parking decks. The garage will hold 312 vehicles; the hotel is guaranteed 125 of those parking spaces. Hurst also added 86 on-street parking spaces, and there is a 17-space drop-off area in front of the conference center.

This story was originally published July 21, 2015 at 9:55 AM with the headline "Hurst council OKs site plan, incentives for new Hilton Garden Inn."