Mark Barrett

ASH

ASHEVILLE – Owners of the BB&T Building downtown said Wednesday they will build a 120-room hotel where the building’s parking garage is now and will eventually revamp the BB&T itself inside and out.

After the hotel on the parking garage site is completed — expected to take about 18 months after it begins later this year — work will start to make the main building home to an upscale, boutique hotel with 150-170 rooms, MHG-Tower LLC said in a statement. Six floors with vacation rentals and condominiums for sale would be located above the hotel in the BB&T.

That project will include what MHG-Tower called an “extensive external redesign” of the BB&T, now a 17-story office building that is the city’s tallest, the company said.

The first hotel will be on the current site of a 351-space parking deck at the corner of Broadway and College Street, cater-corner from the BB&T Building. Property owners said it will be an AC Hotel by Marriott, a brand Marriott International describes as “upper moderate tier.”

The building will be at least nine stories tall, MHG-Tower spokesman Dave Tomsky said. There will be some retail space at ground level, then several levels of parking with the hotel itself above that.

MHG-Tower said last August that it planned to redevelop the BB&T property to include a boutique hotel but gave few details. The company is a partnership between Georgia-based McKibbon Hotel Group and longtime building owner Tower Associates.

At least four other downtown hotel proposals are in different stages of development. McKibbon Hotel Group opened Aloft Hotel on Biltmore Avenue in 2012, meaning there would be three McKibbon hotels within just a few blocks of each other when the proposed developments are completed.

Tomsky said John McKibbon, chairman of McKibbon Hotel Group, has gauged the demand for hotel rooms downtown.

“I can guarantee that John McKibbon’s not going to commit to a hotel unless he’s pretty darn sure he can make a go of it,” he said.

The brown exterior of the BB&T has legions of critics. Tomsky said McKibbon and Tower Associates head Glenn Wilcox feel “that the look of the BB&T Building could be considerably updated and improved so that it is more in harmony with what’s around it.”

The AC Hotel will include a restaurant and bar, meeting space and other amenities. The garage on the site now is 48 years old and Tomsky said the new one will have some spaces for the public.

Practically all AC Hotels are in Europe. Marriott spokeswoman Sarah Moran said the first United States hotel for the brand is to open later this year.

When announcing expansion of the brand in the U.S. last year, Marriott said AC Hotels are “inspired by the runways and fashion houses of Milan” and will target younger, “design conscious” travelers.

Owners of two nearby businesses said the changes will eventually bring more customers to their doors but could cause some problems during construction.

Kim Brophey, owner of dog training center The Dog Door, said she is especially worried about loss of the parking garage.

“Downtown is already so tight on parking it’s unbelievable,” she said.