A hotel for Jessop Place 120-room Suburban Extended Stay a boon for key Canton Twp. site, officials say
An extended-stay hotel is under construction near the Jessop Place exit of Interstate 70.
The Jessop Place exit of Interstate 70 was a matter of location, location, location for Mark Nesselroad.
A matter that required action.
“Washington was one of our targets,” said the CEO/founder/owner of Glenmark Holding Limited Liability Co., a real estate leasing and development firm in Morgantown, W.Va. “The oil and energy economy is so big, there’s the business climate of Washington County, the traffic. We felt it was a niche market.
“People call it Little Washington, but it’s anything but little.”
That hustle and bustle is why Washington County Hospitality, a subsidiary of Glenmark Holding, is building an extended stay hotel off the Jessop ramp from I-70. The appropriately branded Suburban Extended Stay will be a four-story, 120-room facility in Canton Township, near Dean’s Water Service. Construction began last September and Nesselroad projects a late October opening.
He said “a little more than half” the rooms will be double occupancy, the rest single. The room rate will be $70 per night, although guests will have access to limited services at extra cost. Food will not be among those services.
“This hotel will be pretty big,” Nesselroad said of the 50,812-square-foot building, which also will feature laundry facilities, locker room space for oil and gas workers and a gazebo area with grills.
He estimated the cost of the project at “a little under $9 million,” with the construction tab slightly below $5 million.
C&L Hospitality of Louisville, Ky., will manage the hotel. Bedway Development Corp. of Belmont, Ohio, is handling construction.
The Canton hotel may look familiar to interstate drivers across the tri-state. Glenmark Holding has developed two other Suburban Extended Stay facilities within 45 miles of Washington: one with 90 rooms near I-68 in Morgantown, the other with 120 rooms in Triadelphia, W.Va., across I-70 and slightly east of the massive Highlands retail complex.
“Essentially, this will look exactly the same as the hotel near Wheeling,” Nesselroad said of the units being erected at Jessop Place. Suburban is one of 11 brands owned by Choice Hotels, of Rockville, Md. This will be Choice Hotels’ fourth facility in Washington County, following Comfort Inn Meadowlands, Comfort Inn & Suites (North Franklin Township) and Cambria Hotel & Suites (South Strabane Township).
Thus far, Glenmark and Suburban Extended Stay have been a winning team. Nesselroad said that in 2014, the Morgantown location captured Choice Hotels’ Platinum Award for best Suburban Extended Stay in the nation, and that Triadelphia was second. So he hopes the third time, at Jessop Place, is equally charmed.
Though still going up, the hotel already has enhanced the visual nature of the neighborhood. It is on the site of the former Hays Avenue School, which closed about 45 years ago and fell into serious disrepair before being leveled in 2008.
This project, in the words of newly 90-year-old Yogi Berra, is deja vu all over again.
In November 2006, township supervisors unveiled a master plan, called Plan 2010, to redevelop 350 acres in that area. Eight months later, a national hotel chain came to a preliminary agreement to buy the school and surrounding property and construct a four-story, 121-room extended stay hotel.
Sound familiar?
The chain backed out in July 2008, and six years later, ground finally was broken for the upcoming hotel.
Two municipal officals are pleased this is transpiring.
“This is a shot in the arm for the township,” said Chris Hammett, Canton’s code enforcement officer. “This is a good spot, close to the mall (Washington Crown Center), close to the stadium (Consol Energy Park) and restaurants.”
Bob Franks, supervisors chairman, said the area “has built up a bit,” citing facilities improvements Dean’s Water and Allegheny Technologies Inc. have undertaken.
“This is an area we are trying to get up to date,” Franks said. One of the main attractions, he said of the hotel, “is it’s right off the interstate. It would serve people visiting their kids at W&J (Washington & Jefferson College) and such.”
Location, location, location.