Construction begins at Beaufort hotel as part of $75M in downtown development projects
Preliminary work has begun on the construction of a 120-room Beaufort hotel as part of an expansion of the nearby Beaufort Inn in the city’s historic district. This project is the first of several pieces of a $75 million plan local developer 303 Associates hopes to complete even with a steady stream of lawsuits seeking to stop the work.
“Now that we’ve started, we’re not planning on stopping,” said Courtney Worrell, co-CEO of 303 Associates.
The work is proceeding as preservation and development interests continue to collide in court and the city recovers from the resignation of its mayor, in part because of the long-running feud over size and style of buildings proposed for the downtown district.
303 Associates, located in Beaufort, is moving ahead now with a half-million dollars in utility work to prepare for construction of a three-story, 120-room hotel at the corner of Port Republic and Scott streets. The hotel will feature a roof-top bar and other amenities. The major utility work was necessary because old water and sewer, power and telecommunications lines of neighboring properties on Bay Street bisected the hotel property, Worrell said.
“Anytime you are redeveloping in a downtown historic area there will always be some surprises to be found,” Worrell said. 303 agreed to bear the entire cost of replacing the utilities, which are now being replaced and reconnected, without disrupting service, so they are out of the footprint of the hotel, Worrell said.
Foundation work will follow once the utilities are squared away, Worrell says.
The hotel, first proposed in 2016, was granted final approval in 2019 and again in 2021 after some changes to the original design. “It’s a big step for everything else to move forward and I can assure you it’s a big step financially on our end,” Worrell said.
The hotel is one of several projects totaling more than $75 million that 303 Associates has planned in downtown Beaufort.
The others are:
▪ a 496-space, 186,000-square-foot parking garage at Craven, Charles and West streets.
▪ 19 two-bedroom, two-bath apartments at the corner of Charles and Port Republic.
▪ 3,600 square feet of additional meeting space on Port Republic as an expansion of Tabby Place, an event venue tied to the Beaufort Inn.
▪ The addition of a 14-bedroom cottage at the Beaufort Inn at the corner of Port Republic and West Street.
A specific timeline for construction of the hotel isn’t clear because of legal challenges that remain, said Worrell and Jonathan Sullivan, 303 Associate’s other CEO.
The three projects have been the subject several lawsuits and appeals against the city and developer 303 Associates. Those challenges have been brought by the Historic Beaufort Foundation and Graham Trask, a Beaufort property owner, with the dispute centering on the size of the projects and the legality of the approvals by the city.
303 Associates and the city have prevailed in each legal challenge but appeals remain.
303 Associates, in turn, has filed a lawsuit against Trask, accusing him of a campaign to undermine the projects that have cost 303 Associates more than $40 million.
Planning around the litigation hasn’t been easy, Sullivan said.
“We have to get through this phase first,” he said.
The litigation, he says, has tied up a lot of parking in downtown Beaufort. The land where the hotel project is planned had been used as a parking lot but is now sitting empty awaiting construction.
“This is a very big step,” Sullivan said of the utility work in advance of the hotel construction.
Mayor Stephen Murray, who resigned Sept. 15, cited the disputes over downtown development in his resignation letter and a “daily barrage of uncivil and rude people accusing me of impropriety without a shred of proof.” The weight of the mayor’s duties, he also said, were taking a toll on his health, family and reputation.
His departure came as fissures between development and preservationist factions became more public. The flashpoint for this rift was a recent decision by the city to remove a dedicated seat for the Historic Beaufort Foundation, a historic preservation group, on the city’s Historic District Review Board.
This story was originally published October 3, 2023 at 12:56 PM.
