Dalton businessman Kasey Carpenter said he expects the hotel he is building in downtown Dalton will open by Dec. 1.
“Everything looks good,” he said.
The hotel, named The Carpentry, is under construction at the site of a former bank building at the corner of the 200 block of West Cuyler Street opposite of both of Carpenter’s restaurants, the Oakwood Cafe and Cherokee Brewing + Pizza Company. Carpenter had originally planned to renovate the bank building but he said as he got further into planning he found it made more sense to tear the building down and construct a new building. The bank that stood at that site was the Community and Southern Bank.
The hotel will be a “boutique” hotel, smaller and more intimate with an eye on design, with more expensive furnishings and decorations. Carpenter said it will have 41 rooms.
The property, which was an empty lot, is currently assessed at $90,000. But when the hotel project is completed its estimated assessed value will be $9.7 million, according to city officials.
Because the project is in the downtown tax allocation district (TAD) it is eligible for tax increment financing. TADs freeze the value at which a property can be taxed for general revenue. Taxes that will be collected on additional value created by improvements to the property will go to the hotel for infrastructure improvements to the area that will be made as part of the project.
In December 2018 Carpenter reached a tax increment financing agreement with the city and the Dalton public school system to finance the hotel. That agreement called for Carpenter to finish the hotel on or before Dec. 31, 2019. Since Carpenter did not finish the hotel by that date the deal expired and Carpenter had to apply for a new deal. The city recently extended the hotel finish date to Dec. 31 of this year. The tax increment financing agreement expires Dec. 31, 2033. Under the terms of the deal, the hotel could receive a maximum of $970,664. Those payments are contingent on the assessed value of real property on the project site and in the TAD area increasing.
Voters in 2014 gave the City Council the authority to create TADs. The City Council has created four. The others are the Hammond Creek area around the north bypass and Pleasant Grove Drive, the area around Dalton Mall and the West Walnut Avenue/Market Street area.
Whitfield County voters rejected TADs that year and again in 2021, but under state law the county has the right to join in city TADs if the county commissioners believe that is in the public interest. The county participates in Dalton’s TADs around the Dalton Mall and the downtown business district, which were created in 2018, and Hammond Creek, which was created in 2020. It also participates in a Varnell TAD that includes the Patterson Farms residential/commercial development on Cleveland Highway.