MOUNT PLEASANT, S.C. – Mount Pleasant town leaders will consider a change to an ordinance that would allow owners of a former restaurant to build a hotel in its place, a move the town’s mayor is against.
The town’s planning commission has recommended amending the Seaside Farms Planned Development District Ordinance to allow for a small boutique-style hotel to be built. That hotel, which would be limited to more than 25 rooms, would be built at the site of the former Yamato Steakhouse on Riviera Drive.
The owners of the former restaurant hope to build the new hotel within the Neighborhood Retail and Office Tracts on a 2.4-acre parcel of land near the Isle of Palms Connector.
But Mayor Will Haynie says he does not believe many of the town council members are on board with the change based on conversations he has had with them. He says the neighborhood was initially designed to have grocery stores, restaurants, pharmacies, and retail all in one place to reduce driving traffic.
“I just don’t see how putting something that is just for transient use is within the keeping of what the neighbors want and by far from what I’ve heard of seaside neighbors is they don’t want another hotel in there, not every single one, but by far the majority of them feel that way,” Haynie says.
One business owner who declined to speak on camera said with the Harris Teeter next to the potential development site going out of business, having a hotel may help bring in business from visitors.
Haynie said he would like to see that space turned into something people who live in that neighborhood can use.
“As Mount Pleasant has grown, one reason this was put up there was to be a place where when you get home, if you have to commute, maybe you can work from home, that you don’t have to leave and contribute to the traffic on all the major arteries,” he says. “And so I look at something like this through that intent and that was the original intent of that whole neighborhood, and I’d like to see it stay that way.”
Haynie said if the proposal gets voted down, the property owners must wait a year before they can reapply or that can be waived if they come back with a different plan.
If someone buys the property and uses the zoning as is, town council does not have to vote on everything that goes on there.
This proposal is unrelated to the Harris Teeter property. There are no plans to convert that space into housing or a hotel, and it currently has two strong leasing prospects, town leaders say.
