GRAND HAVEN, Mich. — A site on 233 Washington Ave. in downtown Grand Haven could be home to a new 128-room hotel. 6PM Hospitality Partners unveiled their plans for the hotel at a Grand Haven Planning Commission work session Tuesday night, which was met with positive reception.
"We're proposing [a] 128-room Residence Inn by Marriott. Residence Inn is an extended-stay brand by Marriott, which will really help capture guests to stay a long time and spend time and their resources in the restaurants and shops throughout downtown Grand Haven," said CEO of 6PM Hospitality Partners, Peter Beukema Tuesday.
Beukema said a hotel is much needed in downtown Grand Haven.
"It is a missing part in downtown Grand Haven," Beukema said. "We've looked at industry data from downtown Grand Haven, and currently the number one hotel choice is in Holland for Grand Haven visitors. And the number two and number three are downtown Grand Rapids."
Hopefully, lakeshore tourists will have another option to stay in Grand Haven in the form of a Residence Inn by Marriott.
"It's providing a different type of product within this community that will keep travelers here. The brand's average length of stay is between five and seven nights, where a transient hotel like a Hampton Inn or Courtyard Marriott would be more of one to two nights. And so that's going to keep people here longer to spend time and really enjoy downtown." said Beukema. "This property will generate about $18 million economic impact to the community, with the daily spend of guests, both in the restaurants and the stores at the gas stations and alike."
Plans for the hotel were positively received at Tuesday's work session.
"We're in the very early stages. Tonight was just a planning commission study session to get their feedback and their reaction to where we're at so far," said Beukema. "I thought that meeting went very well tonight. We had a lot of positive feedback about the project, obviously some concerns around parking and the height."
Their next step is to prepare a full planning commission submittal to address the concerns they heard from the commission Tuesday night.
"The engineering and architecture demolition would probably start late fall to mid winter, kind of that around the first of the year-ish. Then we move into the actual construction. That'll take about 14 months, with a goal to open in March or April of 2027," Beukema said.
It's a project that's close to home for the Zeeland native.
"To create a place of a sense of home and community downtown is what really drives us, and to be able to do this in our own town, in our own community, is is a win, win," said Beukema.
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