HELEN - A wording change in the Helen zoning ordinance regarding planned unit developments (PUDs) has been approved and, as of Tuesday afternoon, clears the way for a new hotel in the city.
That hotel is planned inside Innsbruck Golf Club, a gated community with a public golf course, located in the city.
Innsbruck Property Owners Association President Dennis Doll says the hotel is being built by an Innsbruck homeowner.
"It's going to be a five-star hotel, a Southern Living top-ranked hotel," Doll says. "It's going to be 25 rooms."
The new lodging development will incorporate some of Innsbruck's current facilities.
"They're buying the existing homeowners' clubhouse and pool, and maintenance facility for the club," Doll says. "They're actually going to reuse that building and build up from there. It's going to be the centerpiece of the restaurant. It'll be the dining room. The lower level is going to be a spa, we understand, and the pool will be retained as a pool facility."
The development should take place during 2016, with work beginning soon.
"Construction could begin as early as January," Doll says. "We hope to close on the property that we're selling to him in late December."
Doll says the word change adding the word "hotel" into the city's ordinance regarding PUDs was key to closing the sale of the property. Innsbruck's covenants already allow a hotel, but Doll says that didn't get translated into the city's original PUD ordinance.
The new hotel development inside Innsbruck is expected to help property values in the gated community, the city of Helen and the surrounding area.
"The property values in north Georgia have been down for a number of years, and we think this is going to put a spark in that property value in Helen, so we're excited about what it's going to do and where it's going to go from here," Doll says.
The golf course at Innsbruck was laid out by Bill Watts and opened in 1987.
