Hotel Status Update - March 5, 2009

OK, I took this shot at 8:30AM this morning. It's 34 degrees out (which is nuts for here in March, but whatever, we'll get over it). As you can see in the background, the brick dudes are doing bricks! May 1st approacheth (that's the planned opening date for the Comfort Suites Hotel next door to our office)!

Hotel Update - February 27th, 2009

I took the photo below Friday afternoon. As you can see, the crews are hard at work on Leland's first new hotel, the Comfort Suites Hotel at 1020 Grandiflora Drive, right next to the Coldwell Banker Sea Coast Realty office. There are now windows on all three floors and the brickwork is going up fast. I'll bet that by the end of the first week of March the entire outside will be bricked. On the interior drywalling started a few weeks ago. It's fun watching this 106-room hotel go up so quickly. Looks to me like they're still on track to hit their May 1st opening target.

Comfort Suites Hotel Building Update - Feb 4, 2009

Leland today has no hotels. Within the next year or two there will be four. The first, a Comfort Suites Hotel, is going up next door from our office. The grand opening is on schedule for May 1st. Today I asked Project Superintendent Joe Stephenson for a tour of his work in progress and he graciously showed our Office Manager Kari Essig and me around. The hotel is being built by Harold K. Jordan & Co., Inc. general contractors. The manager will be Barry Eagle. I took the photo below while we were walkling to the building. (Is this what they mean by a "green" building?)

We went in the north end of the building. In the photo below looks from back to front down the central hallway.

This shot isn't too interesting, just looks from one room through the wall to others. They start putting up sheetrock next week.

Originally planned for two meeting rooms, the hotel is going to have one 50-person capacity room.

There will also be an inground pool.

And an exercise area adjacent to the pool.

Here's a shot of the lobby, looking across from what will eventually be the breakfast/lounge area.

The hotel will be on the far end of business upscale for the Choice Hotel's Comfort Suites Hotel line. There will be 106 rooms in all.

So thanks again for the tour, Joe.

Comfort Suites Hotel Building Update

Work is proceeding with great haste on the Comfort Suites Hotel next to the Leland office of Coldwell Banker Sea Coast Realty. We even saw people working on the roof on Thanksgiving morning and they generally start at daybreak and continue until dusk.


The 106-room Comfort Suites Hotel, the first to be completed of four planned hotels within two mile stretch on Route 17 in Leland, is scheduled to open in May 2009, so that timing is certainly driving the work.

This is just one more sign that northern Brunswick County is continuing to develop at a rapid pace, in contrast to much of the country where commercial development has slowed significantly.

Hotel Happenings and Wicked Awesome Cinnamon Chip Scones - Delicious Wonder Drug?

I'm happy to report an unexpected possible benefit from The Old Wilmington Tea Company's Cinnamon Chip Scone mix and recipe. Marge and I bought a bag of the mix when we visited Blue Moon Gifts on Sunday and she whipped them up and served them for dinner. (I was out of the kitchen blogging and Twitting for a couple of hours and when I came back the scones were on the table - isn't it cute how I wrote she "whipped them up"? OK, it also wouldn't be correct (or safe) to say Marge labored in the cooking for two hours either, so . . . allow me to reset.) Correction: Marge made them.

OK, so anyway, the recipe allowed Marge to "make" eight scones. She plated (cool chef verb) four of them for our evening meal and four we saved to take to a recuperating friend (this is where the Wonder Drug lie comes in, but that's later). They looked so pretty I couldn't resist grabbing my camera and grabbing a photo. Actually it took a 6-8 attempts to get a decent shot for this blog entry - the problem, beyond my combined technical and artistic ineptitude, was the sugar coating which made it difficult for me to get a good exposure. Whatever, they looked great, smelled better, and tasted awesome and at the end of our meal only crumbs remained - in the interest of continued domestic harmony I'll mention that there only two human food eaters in our house and Marge consumed only one of the scones.

So here they are (below). As always, depending on your browser you should be able to click to see the image in much larger size. (Caution - click at your own risk, you may experience an immediate visceral reaction that causes you to eat cookies or hop in the car for an emergency Krispy Kreme run.)

So here's the Wonder Drug part: Monday morning I dropped off the remaining four scones at my friend and colleague Craig Spafford's house. Craig's recovering from a medical procedure and I hadn't seen him since the day after the surgery a week or so ago.

On Monday I dropped off the scones on Craig's porch. On Tuesday our Office Manager Kari Essig and I dropped by after attending the Lanvale Forest Grand Re-Opening in Leland and Craig was up and dressed in street clothes. Wednesday he showed up at the office for a while to give everyone a hard time. He also mentioned that the scones lasted less than 10 minutes, their disappearance assisted by generous slatherings of sweet butter.

To summarize:
- Monday - no Craig in sight, drop off scones - scones consumed rapidly
- Tuesday - Craig dressed and smiling
- Wednesday - Craig in office fussing about but really being his usual stellar professional self
My conclusion: Old Wilmington Tea Co. Cinnamon Chip Scones Made by Marge are a Wonder Drug - Works for me!


Hotel Progress - The Comfort Suites hotel is going up fast right next door to our office in Leland, NC in front of Magnolia Greens.


Here's a shot of dirt and the slab on October 7th:




Here's a shot of the first structural steel being delivered on October 13th:

And here's a shot from yesterday, November 13th, of a bunch of workers hammering away on the third floor!

Occupancy expected for May 2009!

First Steel for New Hotel

This morning when I drove to the Coldwell Banker Sea Coast Realty office in Leland there were four trucks in a row lined up in the middle of the parking lot. I didn't pay much attention because I was in a hurry to get inside and fire up the Starbucks coffee machine in our office so I could moderate the blood level in my caffeine system. After I had a sip or two of Breakfast Blend (which is a bit light for my taste but we're out of Sumatra Dark till later today), I realized what those four trucks meant. First steel!!!

Yep, last week I posted a photo of the completed slab for the Comfort Suites hotel that's going up next to our office. These trucks are bringing the first structural steel components. Some time in 2009, by summer we're told, there's going to be a 106-room hotel close by our office, with two meeting rooms, an indoor pool and possibly an adjacent restaurant. Some of the agents in our office are having a great year this year (despite all the complaints in national media and by some local real estate companies, pundits, and pundit wannabes) and there's been talk that a few of us may want to get on the meal plan at the new hotel, not to mention the pool plan, the meeting room plan, and the place to recommend to our out-of-town clients plan.

Leland is truly on the rise. "Our" hotel will be the first of four going up within a half mile in the next two years, each with roughly 100 rooms. It's a lot of fun to be part of this growth.