As high-powered developer Roy Carroll’s $60 million mixed-use ‘signature project’ takes shape in downtown Greensboro, two more hotel chains have announced they will build in the center city area: Aloft Hotels and Westin Hotels and Resorts.
What’s significant about the Westin project is it will go on the site of the current Empire Room and Elm Street Center meeting space. As the N&R notes, that space on South Elm street has been targeted for a hotel for at least six years now, with the city in 2014 offering up a $1.9 million incentives package. And lest we forget—former Guilford County Commissioner and International Civil Rights Center and Museum co-founder Skip Alston tried to broker a deal for a South Elm Street hotel using federal stimulus funds.
All this would be a significant change to the downtown landscape, and it’s (supposedly) due to the $78 million taxpayer-funded downtown performing arts center, which we now know is set to open in 2019.
