Craig Realty looking at Frederick location for hotel and event center
By Chris Fortune
A new hotel and event center could emerge at the corner of Frederick Avenue and Interstate 29.
Representatives from Craig Realty Group have expressed interest in redeveloping the property at 4016 Frederick Ave. A bill establishing a memorandum of understanding between the city and Craig Realty will be up for consideration at Monday’s council meeting.
“If the project moves forward, the developer himself is fronting an amount to assist the city and doing our due diligence,” Interim City Manager Clint Thompson said. “Just the financial review portion of the project.”
The agreement allows Craig Realty to provide the city with $25,000 for it to conduct a third-party review of the projected financial results associated with the project.
“It’s due diligence to ensure that the developer does not receive a windfall at the expense of the projected tax increase that the city would be forgoing in the future,” Thompson said.
The memorandum includes the city’s potential use of public assistance for the project if they find it worthy of moving forward.
“If the city’s going to partner with the private entity, we want to make sure that the long-term of the project will be successful,” he said.
The new hotel could include up to 110 rooms and a 12,000-square-foot event center. Thompson said the project fills an unmet need in the community for additional conference space for businesses to host events.
“They have to travel outside of St. Joseph to host their own events,” he said. “It’s an opportunity to not only provide that amenity to our businesses, but it’s an amenity to our residents.”
The property is owned by Steven Craig and is going through the permitting process to level the land in the area.
“They have conceptually designed the hotel event center space,” Thompson said. “And so we do have some concepts of what the facility could look like at that location.”
The corner once was home to the Ramada Inn and another smaller hotel.
