A hotel plan that has been on the drawing board for years will once again come before the Orange Beach Planning Commission. Hotel Orange Beach is seeking final planned unit development approval to rezone 1.8 acres of beachfront property from multi-family high-density to the PUD. The property formerly housed Romar Baptist Church at 23370 Perdido Beach Boulevard.

The commission will meet twice on Nov. 10, a work session at 3 p.m. and the regular session at 4 p.m. in council chambers at city hall.

Developers paid $6.5 million for the property in 2021, according to published reports. Plans are to add more stories on top of the parking deck to eventually accommodate 100 rooms.

A Springhill Suites Marriott is poised to open east of the former church’s location and on the north side of the road next to Doc’s Seafood and Steaks. The city council recently approved a liquor license for the new hotel where plans call for 120 rooms in the seven-story hotel.

In August of 2022, the city council OK’d a change in the planned unit development for the Cobblestone Hotel at The Wharf on the site of the former mini golf course. Plans called for a four-story, 63-room hotel with a restaurant and a swimming pool but little work has been done at the site.

Across the water from The Wharf, dirt is turning for the Margaritaville complex and plans call for a 160-room condo hotel and 49 standalone condos, featuring a Jimmy Buffett Suite. In a later phase, about 150 bungalow-style homes with two to five bedrooms will be built and offered for sale. 

During the meetings, the commission will also discuss:

• A request to combine parcels at 4387 William Silvers Parkway into one lot where U-Own-It Boat and RV Storage.
• A request to replat lots 11 and 12 and common areas one and two in the Moondance Subdivision. The neighborhood is at the end of Bear Point off of Mississippi Avenue.
• Combining two lots at 29734 Bayshore Drive South. The owners want to merge one lot with half of another. These parcels are located on the south side of Bear Point on Bayou St. John.
• A site plan review for Emerald Coast Carpet Cleaning to build a 3,600-square-foot office building on Canal Square west of O’Reilly’s Auto Parts.
• Giving a one-year extension for the Abbey Road subdivision planned for the southwestern corner of Capt. Trent Lane and Canal Road. Developers want to put 33 single-family homes on the 3.7-acre lot.