Hyatt plans 255-room hotel for SoBro

A development group for Chicago-based Hyatt Hotels Corp. is preparing to build a 13-story, 255-room Nashville hotel south of downtown’s Demonbreun Street on property two blocks from Music City Center, NashvillePost.com has learned.

The planned mid-level Hyatt Place hotel — slated to front Third Avenue on the current site home to Rock City Machine Co. and to be sandwiched between the Encore condominum tower and the restaurant Sole Mio — would be one block from the under-construction high-end Omni Hotel, designated to serve as the anchor hotel for Nashville’s new Music City Center. The convention center is scheduled to open in early 2013.

Prior to the Metro Council’s approval of a public-private package to pay for the new Omni Hotel, project leaders had eyed a 1,000-room convention center headquarters hotel. The new Omni hotel — to open in the summer of 2013 — will instead hold 800 rooms. Nashville’s Hyatt Place, if built, could perhaps help fill the gap.

Indiana-based White Lodging Services would serve as the new hotel’s developer, operator and manager. The hope is for a spring 2012 groundbreaking and a fall 2013 opening. White Lodging has a contract in place to purchase the half-acre property.

“We think it’s a great location,” said Matt Frankiewicz, director of development for White Lodging, as he listed off several nearby landmarks: the Omni, the Music City Center, downtown Broadway, Bridgestone Arena, the Country Music Hall of Fame & Museum and the Schermerhorn Symphony Center.

“We’re very excited about the project and being in downtown Nashville,” he said.

Other hotels south of Broadway include the Hilton Nashville Downtown and the Hampton Inn & Suites. In Nashville, White Lodging manages the Nashville Marriott at Vanderbilt. The company, which recently delivered design plans to the Metro Development and Housing Agency, said this past June it was targeting Nashville [2] as an expansion market.

The hotel would be located within MDHA’s Rutledge Hill Redevelopment District. The new Nashville Hyatt must comply with various design standards.

According to MDHA spokeswoman Julie Oaks, MDHA’s Rutledge Hill Design Review Committee has approved conceptual plans, but has requested additional signage, material and landscaping details.

Established in 1985, White Lodging serves as a fully integrated hotel ownership, development and operations company, representing several hotel chains.