A plan for the first hotel on Lake Minnetonka in decades is still on hold, facing planning roadblocks much to the frustration of city officials.
On Nov. 17, the Excelsior City Council approved tabling the issue until Dec. 1 after developer Charlie James failed to meet a Nov. 13 deadline for final paperwork for the hotel, which is planned for a vacant lot yards from the shoreline.
"We need to get these things resolved and get this thing moving, because it's really rare for a project to drift like this," Council Member Greg Miller said at the meeting.
Construction of the four-story hotel was initially expected to start in spring 2013, but final approval was pushed back. It's continued to be delayed several times, awaiting final plans included needed figures related to tax-increment financing that would go toward public improvements of the city's port and park.
This summer, the City Council approved a 90-day extension for developers to submit final paperwork, with a Nov. 13 deadline. But James told the City Council in an e-mail before their Nov. 17 meeting that he "cordially suspended" discussions with Jim Graves and his company, Graves Hospitality, to be the hotel operator. In the e-mail, James said Graves wanted to change the design of the hotel to reduce costs, and instead, he wanted to get another opinion on the viability of initial designs.
"Probably one of the biggest concerns for me is we waited a long time, gave extensions while he was looking for an operator, and now we hear that operator is no longer involved and there is a new operator," Miller said at the meeting. "Red flags are popping up all over. This applicant needs to know we either really want to get this thing decided and moving forward or not and do something else."
