ST. MICHAELS, Md. - There's an ongoing fight over a proposed hotel in St. Michaels.
The new, larger hotel, would be built on South Talbot Street, across from the community pool.
Some in town believe the project is not in the best interest of the environment and St. Michaels as a whole.
The proposed hotel would have 73 rooms, be two stories high, and have 110 parking spots. The St. Michaels Planning Commission reviewed the site sketch on Thursday.
Planning Commissioner Christopher Thomas brought up a few concerns during Thursday's meeting to include parking, trash, emergency vehicle access, loading and unloading for deliveries, and traffic.
"The town of St. Michaels should be proud of their commission for asking the right questions," Thomas said. "Our goal is to uphold a comprehensive plan for as much as we have power. It just feels too big."
Paulette Florio also has some concerns. She lives on the same street as the proposed project.
"This is very, very large. It's completely out of scale with the town and it does add quite a bit of congestion to the streets," says Florio.
There are still a few more planning commission steps to take before the project would be presented to town commissioners.
A consensus was made to move the proposal to a preliminary meeting. And if moved forward, it would go through a final review.
The developer's spokesperson Margaret McCann says they're prepared to make the hotel something everyone can agree on.
"We are ready to move forward. We are looking forward to the input from the town and to say Let's go ahead.' We will make any and all necessary revisions that we need to," McCann says.
McCann added, "I feel like, in our position, we are bringing a financial boom to St. Michaels. St. Michaels is a tourism-driven economy. There is nothing else in this town that brings the money and the jobs like tourism. So I feel like this is a huge project and we should have a little more support from the town, the county, and everything else like that."
Editor's note: this article originally stated that the new hotel would be replacing the St. Michael's Inn. That was incorrect. WBOC regrets the error.
