Rehoboth Beach ends January with flurry of hotel projects

Beginning with a public hearing on one project and the preliminary site-plan review of another at the next planning commission meeting, the next couple weeks on Rehoboth Beach’s municipal calendar are going to be all about hotels.

The Rehoboth planning commission will next meet Friday, Jan. 24. The agenda includes a public hearing on the site plan for One Rehoboth Avenue Hotel and the preliminary review of a site plan for Coast Hotel.

The One Rehoboth Avenue project is being built by a partnership between Grotto Pizza and Pennsylvania-based real estate developer Onix Group called One Rehoboth Avenue LLC. The property they own stretches the width of the block from Rehoboth Avenue to Baltimore Avenue and fronts the Boardwalk. The property includes Grotto Pizza on the Boardwalk, the Sirocco Hotel, the former Dolle’s Candyland property and Kohr Bros. Frozen Custard.

As proposed, the building would be four stories above ground and one level of underground parking. There would be retail and restaurant areas at Boardwalk level, and a three-story, 60-room hotel above.

It was first brought to the planning commission in late 2022. The planning commission voted in favor of moving to the public hearing in November.

Following that public hearing, the planning commission is expected to conduct a preliminary site-plan review for a 10-room expansion at Coast Hotel, which sits on the northwest corner of Rehoboth Avenue and Second Street.

This property was the longtime home of the Sandcastle Motel. Under new ownership, the 60-room hotel underwent an 18-month-long, top-to-bottom, multimillion-dollar renovation before reopening as Coast Hotel in July 2023.

In May, the city’s board of adjustment approved a variance request that paves the way for the expansion. The city has a FAR of 2; however, the existing structure had a legal nonconforming structure with a FAR of 2.34. The approved variance allows the property to have a FAR of 2.71.

This meeting is scheduled to take place at 1:30 p.m., in the city hall commissioners room, 229 Rehoboth Ave.

Two more hotel projects before city commissioners

In addition to the planning commission’s Jan. 24 docket, city commissioners have also scheduled two public hearings related to hotel projects for Friday, Jan. 31. Both hearings are related to rezoning a portion of the project property from residential to commercial.

The first rezoning is for the Beach View Hotel on Wilmington Avenue. Rehoboth Beach-based Seaboard Hospitality LLC is proposing a top-to-bottom revitalization of the hotel, which has 38 rooms and was built in 1980. This project was first discussed by the planning commission during a concept review in November.

Plans call for all the existing rooms to be updated and modernized, with a number of family-style suites created. Also, there would be an expansion of the employee area, and the building would be brought into compliance with modern handicap-accessibility requirements.

The property stretches the width of the block to Delaware Avenue. The city commissioners public hearing is needed because there’s a narrow strip of land on the Delaware Avenue side of the property that has been used commercially for decades, but is marked as residential on the city’s zoning map. However, the city’s comprehensive development plan has the property marked as commercial. The public hearing needs to be held before the two can be matched up.

The second public hearing is for the proposed rezoning at 330 Rehoboth Ave., which has been on the city’s radar for years. It was first brought forward in January 2019 as a four-story, 90-room hotel project called Rehoboth Grand. The lot is about 42,500 square feet, of which about 23,000 square feet along Rehoboth Avenue is zoned C-1 commercial and about 19,500 square feet along State Road is R-1 residential. The developer, 330 Hospitality, has requested the rezoning of the residential portion so the property as a whole can be redeveloped.

From the beginning, this project has been caught up in lawsuits and appeals. City commissioners have already conducted a public hearing on the rezoning request and voted against it, but a Superior Court judge ruled in August that commissioners didn’t create a proper record. This public hearing is a continuation of the second public hearing, which began in November.

The city commissioners meeting is scheduled to take place at 10 a.m., Friday, Jan. 31, in city hall, 229 Rehoboth Ave.