A new hotel planned in Greenwood would be the sixth one proposed in the county in the past year.
MHG Hotels is planning to construct a four-story, 107-room hotel on Greenwood Springs Drive, near the southeast corner of the intersection of County Line Road and Emerson Avenue. The hotel, which would be a Marriott-brand SpringHill Suites, would be built directly north of an 180-unit apartment complex approved by the city last fall, Greenwood Planning Director Bill Peeples said.
Johnson County currently has eight hotels with a total of 740 rooms. Last year, the occupancy rate in 10 Johnson County hotels was 71.4 percent, above the 70 percent threshold that generally indicates to developers sufficient demand to justify building more hotels, Kenneth Kosky, the director of the county’s convention and tourism bureau, Festival Country Indiana, has said previously.
A Fairfield Inn with 81 rooms is currently being constructed in Franklin. The developers of the proposed Greenwood Sportsplex, southeast of the County Line Road and Interstate 65 interchange, have requested permission to build up to three eight-story hotels as part of the project. And the owner of the Barn at Bay Horse Inn has proposed a three-story hotel north of Stones Crossing Road.
SpringHill Suites would be built on about 2.5 acres of land on the north end of an undeveloped 11-acre property east of the Goodwill store on Emerson Avenue. The property where the hotel is planned already is zoned for light industrial use, a category that allows for hotels to be built, according to the city code. In November, the Greenwood City Council approved rezoning land on the south end of that property for the apartment complex.
SprillHill Suites would be across the street from Holiday Inn Express & Suites and WoodSpring Suites. With the nearby hotels, the projects fits in with how other properties in the area have developed, Peeples said.
A building permit will be issued once city boards finish reviewing the site and construction plans, which would allow construction to begin this spring, Peeples said. The developer hasn’t indicated how long construction will last, he said.
