Mercy properties attract hotel plans

O’Reilly Hospitality Management LLC is pursuing two hotel developments adjacent to Mercy hospitals in Springfield.

Last week, the Springfield company announced intentions to build a four-story Fairfield Inn & Suites by Marriott northwest of Mercy Orthopedic Hospital, at U.S. Highway 65 and Evans Road. O’Reilly Hospitality also has surfaced in the plans for a hotel across from the main Mercy Springfield campus on South National Avenue.

Meanwhile, another hotel developer – Earl Steinert – is seeking approval to build a 106-room property near the $116 million Mercy hospital under construction in southeast Springfield.

Mercy’s Springfield campus
O’Reilly Hospitality is partnering with Rita Baron of architecture firm Baron Design & Associates LLC and Terry Reynolds of C. Arch Bay Co. to build a five-story, 110-room hotel across from the main Mercy campus.

The property at the southwest corner of National Avenue and Cherokee Street, which is owned by Reynolds’ One Hundred Two Glenstone Inc., was rezoned by Springfield City Council in the fall to make way for the hotel development.

Baron and Reynolds have been working to develop the land for three years, and Baron said she brought in O’Reilly Hospitality CEO Tim O’Reilly as a partner last summer for his hotel development and management experience. O’Reilly’s company operates five properties, according to OHospitalityManagement.com.

“It will be the first TownePlace by Marriott in Springfield,” Baron said of the extended-stay hotel slated for South National. “I’ve been working with Tim on other hotels and … I thought the three of us would make a great team.”

Baron Design served as the design firm for O’Reilly Hospitality’s Hilton Garden Inn on Republic Road, which achieved Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design-Gold status earlier this year. She said the 72,000-square-foot TownePlace Suites by Marriott also would be built to achieve LEED certification, and construction should begin in early September. A general contractor had not been selected as of July 18.

Baron said she is not currently involved with O’Reilly Hospitality’s plans to build at Highway 65 and Evans Road adjacent to the Mercy Orthopedic Hospital, where contractor McCarthy Building Cos. Inc. held a July 19 ceremony to place the final steel beam.

Target: 65 and Evans
After O’Reilly Hospitality’s July 16 announcement of plans for a 103-room hotel near Mercy Orthopedic, Chief Development Officer Scott Tarwater said construction likely would begin in the fourth quarter and finish in the second half of 2013.

Springfield Planning and Development Director Ralph Rognstad said O’Reilly Hospitality’s plans had not yet been submitted, and there were no properties platted for a hotel development northwest of the orthopedic center.

Steinert has proposed a hotel east of Highway 65, on 2.6 acres sandwiched between Farmers Branch Road and the highway, just south of Evans Road. The developer is seeking a zoning change on the property to build a five-story, 106-room Hampton Inn, said development representative Rick Wilson of Wilson Surveying Co. Inc.

The current zoning permits a hotel, but not to the size – 62,000 square feet – that Steinert is proposing.

“One of the things we’re allowed to do on the site under (Planned Development) 201 is build a hotel, which was (Steinert’s) attraction to the site, except that it was so limited in floor-area ratio – which (determines) the number of square feet allowed inside the shell of the building – we couldn’t make it financially feasible to do,” Wilson said.

Steinert’s been down this road before. Last fall, neighbors fought a proposal on East Republic Road that would have changed the floor-area ratio and allowed Steinert to build a five-story hotel just south of James River Freeway. Council rejected the proposed changes, citing neighbors’ concerns about the hotel overlooking their properties.

Wilson said two neighborhood meetings have been held to discuss the Highway 65 and Evans Road project and several nearby residents have expressed concerns about the plans.

On July 12, Planning and Zoning commissioners approved the zoning change proposal by a 5-3 vote, Wilson said, and City Council is expected to consider the plan July 30.

“The orthopedic center is a natural draw. Every hospital needs a hotel or two close to it for the families of patients. They have visiting doctors. They have visiting nurses. They need hotel services,” Wilson said, adding that three nearby golf courses also made the property attractive to Steinert. “He’s been looking for a far south location for a while, and this is the one that looks like it could work for him.”

Web Editor Geoff Pickle contributed to this story.