A 99-room Hampton Inn & Suites hotel is being planned near 76th Street and Rawson Avenue.
People’s Choice Corp., which owns car wash businesses at 7700 W. Rawson Ave. and 6900 S. 27th St., plans to build a five-story, 99-room Hampton Inn & Suites hotel on a vacant site northwest of South 76th Street and Rawson Ave. The property is located just south of Loomis Road, and has access to 76th Street and Rawson Avenue. According to plans submitted to the city, the $11.5 million hotel will have a business center, an exercise area, a swimming pool and 2,500 square feet of meeting space. City officials like the concept for the hotel, but want to see improvements to the architecture, parking and landscaping plans, said Franklin planning manager Joel Dietl.
"We like the idea," Dietl said. "That is a prominent location. (City officials and citizens) have asked for more things like hotels and high-end restaurants. It’s a tight site. But if (People’s Choice) can make it work, it will be a great use for that area." The project will be reviewed by the Franklin Plan Commission during its meeting on Thursday.
Hampton Inn and Hampton Inn & Suites are both brands of Beverly Hills, Calif.-based Hilton Hotels Corp.
The Franklin site would be only the third Hampton Inn & Suites in southeastern Wisconsin. The others are in downtown Milwaukee and in West Bend. There are three Hampton Inn locations in the area in Brookfield, in Milwaukee near the airport and on the city’s far northwest side.
If built, the Hampton Inn & Suites will be only the second national hotel chain to raise its flag in rapidly developing Franklin. The first will be a 114-room Staybridge Suites hotel, which is being built southwest of South 27th Street and Ryan Road and is scheduled to open during the third quarter of 2009. The $10 million, five-story, 78,000-sqaure-foot hotel is a franchised property owned by Ann Arbor Executive Suites LLC and managed by Park Ridge, Ill.-based The Brichton Group Inc. Staybridge Suites is a brand of Windsor, U.K.-based InterContinental Hotels Group Plc. Two other Staybridge Suites hotels are under construction in the area, in downtown Milwaukee and in Oconomowoc.
