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A major addition to the Country Club Corners shopping center will be a new Holiday Inn Express & Suites DeLand South at180 Fenway Drive on the north side of the campus.
The new hotel, which will have 92 guest rooms, is expected to open sometime in June, assuming everything goes smoothly until then, said Pete Patel of Gannath Investment LLC, the company that owns the property.
The hotel will feature an indoor/outdoor swimming pool, a fitness center for guests, and a small meeting room guests can reserve. And while guests can be served breakfast, the hotel will not have any kind of restaurant, Patel said.
There will also be charging stations in the parking lot for use in electric cars, he added.
Patel and his partners own four hotels in East Volusia, three of them in Daytona Beach and one in Edgewater. This is their first foray into West Volusia.
For more information, go to www.ihg.com/holidayinnexpress/hotels/us/en/deland/dabdl/hoteldetail.
The Holiday Inn Express will provide a major boost to the West Volusia Tourism Advertising Authority, which is funded by taxes levied on hotels, motels and other short-term rentals.
“The last new hotel — the Courtyard by Marriott — definitely made an impact on our collections,” said Georgia Turner, the authority’s executive director. “I’m guessing [the Holiday Inn Express] will be a busy property because of its location. That’s a really growing area.”
Turner anticipates the new hotel will probably work with Stetson University to host visiting sports teams, and hold group meetings that will also help drive up occupancy.
“I’m glad to see another facility here,” she said.
The additional bed-tax revenue will help the tourism authority carry out a big public-relations campaign to let people outside the area know what’s going on in West Volusia, especially in what Turner called the “shoulder season” for tourism — such as the slower summer months.
