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What Rose Hotel project means for downtown Rockford

Posted By: woodtv.com on April 4, 2024.  For more information, please click here to read the source article.

Project leaders hope a hotel coming to downtown Rockford will help spur further growth.

The Rose Hotel is planned for 12 S. Main Street near Bridge Street in Rockford. The 54-room hotel has been years in the making, with Wheeler Development Group working with the city to add one since 2018.

The pandemic slowed the project down and the developer allowed an option it had on the property to expire.

“There was so many unknowns within that hospitality market at that time and even in the rebound phase, the hospitality market was slower than some of the others,” Jason Wheeler with Wheeler Development Group explained to News 8.

Now, the project is back on track. A groundbreaking is expected to take place in early summer, with a targeted opening in summer 2025. The hotel has secured the necessary funding after the Michigan Strategic Fund board approved a request for a $3.2 million Michigan Community Revitalization Program loan on March 26.

Wheeler said the structure of the project made the loan “critical” to its success.

“Not even just from a financial perspective,” he said. “Just knowing that there is the support from the state and seeing growth in markets like city of Rockford, that builds a little bit of confidence within our team to know that that the project has viability. There are similar projects in similar markets within the state of Michigan that are benefiting as a community from growth like this — and I would think even Ada is a good example … the hotel that’s going up there.”

City leaders say the hotel will add much-needed lodging options for people who come in from out of town. Many visiting for events like tournaments at the Meijer Sports Complex, which is just outside of Rockford in Plainfield Township, have to look elsewhere for lodging, Mayor Terry Konkoe told News 8.

“This will give us a destination that they can stay at,” he said.

The hotel will add a full block to the downtown area and will bring new retail space on the ground floor. On the north end of the building will be a hotel-owned and -operated lunch and dinner restaurant, while the project developers are looking for a restaurateur to open a breakfast and lunch spot in the south end. Wheeler said an announcement on the retailers set to go into the space will be coming soon.

“I think the overall impact that it will have is exciting, thinking beyond just getting the building up and running,” he said. “We hope that it inspires continued strategic growth and responsive growth.”

City Manager Thad Beard said he believes the hotel and its $14 million investment will be “contagious.”

“That will lead to other businesses improving their properties as well, potentially even new businesses coming in because of the opportunities that arise from it,” he said.

The team said overall, the response from the community has been positive, but some are concerned about the impact the project — set to be built in what’s now a parking lot — will have on the downtown’s parking situation.

“We also are cognizant of the fact that there’s a lot of perceptions and fears of it impacting it negatively with the parking,” Beard said. “We spent quite a bit of time and research, finances to document what our parking needs were and what they would be going forward to ensure that our downtown parking capacity could handle a hotel, which it did. But perception is reality and so we’re cognizant of that.”

He said the city is looking to use taxes collected from the Rose Hotel to add 50 to 60 spots to the Towers parking lot, which Beard said is in need of repairs anyway.