Group replacing New World Landing scales back plans for new downtown Pensacola hotel
A hotel group that plans to replace New World Landing with a new building is scaling back their plans for the South Palafox property.
3H Group Hotels of Chattanooga, Tennessee, had previously won approval from the Pensacola Architectural Review Board to build an eight-story hotel, but are now scaling back their proposal to a seven-story, 220-room hotel.
The new plans, which will have to be approved by the ARB on Thursday, remove the planned roof-top bar and pool and add a second-floor patio overlooking Palafox and Cedar streets.
The building will now be 87 feet tall as opposed to the nearly 100 feet of the previous design.
In September, the ARB approved the demolition request for New World Landing but denied the hotel's conceptual approval.
The developers made changes to the design of the hotel that included adding balconies on the south side of the building and awnings over the sidewalks along the Palafox and Cedar streets, and those plans won final approved in December.
The current New World Inn is set to officially stop operation on Wednesday, the hotel said on its Facebook page. The inn is currently holding a pre-sale of all furniture and restaurant equipment inside the inn.
New World Landing has been a well-known landmark for events in downtown Pensacola since it opened in 1983 as a redevelopment project of a former warehouse of a St. Regis Paper Company cardboard box factory. The boutique hotel has offered 16 rooms for visitors and served as a popular venue for local political events. The Panhandle Tiger Bay Club used the venue to host many of its events, bringing in high-profile speakers to the city.
The building was damaged in Hurricane Sally, forcing the restaurant Skopelos, housed in the boutique hotel, to close its doors.
This article originally appeared on Pensacola News Journal: Pensacola hotel to replace New World Landing gets a redesign
