New hotel planned for Bettendorf's former Lodge site

A Hilton branded, extended-stay hotel new to the Quad-City market will anchor the redevelopment planned at the former Lodge hotel site in Bettendorf.

Less than two years after the Lodge — originally the iconic Jumer's Castle Lodge — was demolished, a Quad-City developer is proposing to build a 107-room Home2 Suites hotel at the prime intersection at Interstate 74 and Spruce Hills Drive. Details of the plans by CDCQC, a subsidiary of Davenport-based Russell, were laid out Monday night for the Bettendorf City Council.

Jeff Reiter, the city's economic development director, told the council at its committee-of-the-whole meeting that the site has always been contemplated as a new hotel. "We had two prior attempts at a development agreement, one with the (former) property owner and one with the current owner... This project is one that has some teeth in it."

Russell and CDCQC propose building the Home2 Suites as part of a new mixed-use project at 900 Spruce Hills Drive that will occupy the whole northeast corner at Spruce Hills and Utica Ridge Road.

Reiter outlined a proposed development agreement and a tax increment financing, or TIF, ordinance for the project. The council will vote on the two measures at its regular meeting tonight.

The hotel will be developed by Davenport-based Frontier Hospitality but Russell is a large investor and the hotel's contractor, said Caitlin Russell, a company vice president. She estimated the hotel at about $9 million and said it will occupy 2.5 acres of the 9.4 acre site.

"Home2 Suites is a great brand by Hilton," she said. "Hopefully this will help spur the area to be revitalized."  

Plans are not finalized for what the rest of the development will include but Reiter compared the vision to the type of developments being built in West Des Moines, Iowa.

He said the city and Russell "talked at length" about what else should be developed on the site and the intent is not for "a strip mall with a cellphone store or a Subway."

Russell is working to also acquire the adjacent 7-Eleven station to redevelop the corner, Reiter said. Under the development agreement, it cannot build a new gas station at that corner and agrees to remove any entrances to the corner parcel.

This is the company's second development agreement for the site, but Russell said the company never signed the first one because it was for a speculative project.

That first round of discussions also spurred debate after some of the council was hesitant to approve TIF
incentives when there was no tenant or specific project identified.

Not only will the hotel increase the city's tax base, but Reiter said once the entire site is built out it could be as mean as much as $15.5 million in new development there.

In addition, the hotel will help restore the city's declining hotel/motel taxes. Reiter estimated the new hotel could generate an additional $47,000 a year in hotel/motel taxes.

The hotel site has sat empty since September 2016 when Russell began demolition. It bought the hotel in December 2015, less than four months after it closed.

The new Home2 Suites will be the second Hilton-branded hotel for Bettendorf. A Hilton Garden Inn is nearby at I-74 and Middle Road.

Under the development agreement, the new hotel needs to be in operation no later than Dec. 31, 2019.

Source:  QCTimes.com