A hotel near Appling? Columbia County asked to allow it

Land surrounded by woods and pasture near Appling could be the site of Columbia County’s next hotel. 

Applicants Bhumika and Sunil Patel, and landowners Thomas Wilson Jr. and Mary Wilson, submitted a request to rezone just under an acre of land from residential-agricultural to C-2 commercial, which would permit construction of a hotel containing more than 30 rooms. 

If built, the two-story hotel would be the closest lodging to the recently opened Amazon fulfillment center, and very near an expected string of residential construction projects.

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While the request singles out just one parcel, at 1803 Appling-Harlem Highway, a concept plan accompanying the request outlines a proposed 50-room hotel with an adjacent two-pump gas station that would occupy 1803, 1805 and 1815 Appling-Harlem Highway.

The 25,840-square-foot hotel’s rooms, according to the plan, would be about 330 square feet each, which is the hotel industry’s calculated average size for a typical hotel room. The 2,550-square-foot gas station would border the hotel’s north side.  

Both businesses would provide a combined 84 parking spaces. The size of the hotel would be similar to those found in several economy and midscale hotel chains such as Holiday Inn, Quality Inn and Comfort Inn.

The 1803 parcel includes a single-family home. The half-acre 1805 parcel also is owned by Thomas Wilson Jr. The 1815 parcel, measured at 2.79 acres, is owned by Shrryia Enterprises Inc., a limited-liability company that shares an Evans mailing address with the applicants.  

Next to that parcel is a Dollar General store, and next to that is the Circle K corner convenience store where Appling-Harlem Road meets Columbia Road. 

Columbia County has 17 hotels and one bed-and-breakfast, and all but four of them are clustered around Interstate 20’s Exit 194, where Jimmie Dyess Parkway begins. Two are off I-20's Exit 190 in Grovetown, off Horizon South Parkway and across from the Gateway commercial development. The third is off Exit 195, just inside the county line. The B&B, Red Oak Manor, is in the city of Harlem.

But the Grovetown hotels are six miles from the county’s new Amazon facility. The proposed Appling hotel would be just two miles away, and in a plum spot to temporarily house seasonal workers often hired by the online retailer during busy holiday periods. 

The proposed hotel also would put visiting construction workers closer to new growth springing up around the city of Harlem, most notably the massive Greenpoint residential development comprised of several new subdivisions. 

The rezoning request is scheduled to be considered by the Columbia County Planning Commission on Nov. 4.