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Berlin, Ocean Pines News Worcester County Bayside Gazette Logo Berlin, Ocean Pines News Worcester County Bayside Gazette

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Planning Comm. gives okay to site plan for Micro-tel

WEST OCEAN CITY – The Worcester County Planning Commission approved the site plan for the proposed Micro-tel Hotel and retail spaces in West Ocean City last week after making some concessions.
The 79-unit hotel and 5,500-square-foot retail building are planned for property of the south side of Route 50, approximately 300 feet east of Keyser Point Road. It will replace the existing Bed Time Inn.
With a color palette of green and red cedar, the Micro-tel Hotel will have architectural features similar to those of the Holiday Inn Express, now under construction.
Architectural features for the retail building will be deferred until tenants for it have been secured, but before a building permit is issued.
Land planner Bob Hand said he did not know at this time how many entrances or how many shops might be in the retail building.
Hand said landscaping would be up to 16 feet wide in some areas of the front of the building, but he asked for and received a waiver for landscape buffers elsewhere. They will be reduced from 10 feet to 6 feet and will include “concentrated landscaping . . . to diminish the visual and physical impacts of the use of structure, both on the site and from adjacent properties.”
Hand also received a waiver for outdoor community space for the retail building. The Planning Commission accepted the proposed 420-square -foot, which is quite a bit smaller than the customary 800-square-foot minimum. There will be 800 square feet of community space, however, in front of the hotel.
The project also obtained a waiver for the two required outdoor features for the hotel and two additional outdoor features for the retail space because an informational kiosk and a flagpole will be more centralized to serve as outdoor features for both the hotel and the retail space. The site will also have benches, although no seating was illustrated on the site plan adjacent to the retail building.
The proposed hotel will have 119 rooms and the required 119 parking spaces. The proposed retail building will have 18 parking spaces, as required according to its square footage.