An illustration shows Cathedral Place as it may look if a luxury hotel is approved at the property. | City of St. Augustine.
Published on May 10, 2024 at 2:11 pm
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St. Augustine-based Jalaram Hotels wants to turn the historic downtown’s tallest building into a new luxury hotel. Cathedral Place currently hosts office space, but that could change if the city approves the hotel plan.
Originally the First National Bank of St. Augustine, the building at 24 Cathedral Place first opened in 1927. Hotel magnate Kanti Patel bought the building for $10 million under his Kasam Hospitality company in 2018.
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St. Augustine’s Planning and Zoning Board got a look this week at the latest plans for the hotel, currently called The Exchange.
As proposed, the new hotel would not alter the exterior of the historic high-rise, but the interior would be renovated to convert existing office space to the hotel, and the surrounding area would be spruced up too. The plan includes a maximum of 120 hotel rooms and a parking garage that could accommodate as many as 160 vehicles.
Representatives of the developer said one component of the project is to improve Charlotte Street to the building’s east. The parking garage would be surrounded by hotel rooms and not visible from the street, and trash services will be moved to eliminate existing trash cans that often stand along Charlotte Street.
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The hotel would continue to provide event space for weddings as well as add additional restaurants and bars on its upper floors.
Various St. Augustine business owners and St. Johns County Chamber of Commerce CEO Isabelle Renault all spoke in favor of the project, citing their confidence in the decades of experience Patel and his Jalaram Hotels have in St. Augustine and the tax revenue the building would generate.
Some members of the Planning and Zoning Board expressed concern that 160 parking spaces wouldn’t be enough to accommodate hotel staff, visitors and members of the public who could use some more parking too.
Speaking in support of the project, Planning and Zoning Board member Carl Blow said the focus of the project on bringing in a wealthy clientele would support local businesses.
Blow dismissed concerns that the hotel could bring additional traffic to roads, saying that much of St. Augustine’s traffic issues come from locals who make a brief trip into town and then leave.
“I’d much rather have a visitor, or a warm body, that’s going to stay in this hotel and spend the night and spend $1,000 a day than a person driving down from Nocatee, once again clogging up the streets, that’s spending maybe $25 or $50,” he said.
The project will come back before the Planning and Zoning Board on June 4, and then the developer will have to make stops in front of St. Augustine’s Historic Architectural Review Board and the City Commission before a final decision is made.
Jalaram Hotels’ Troy Blevins told Jacksonville Today that the project still has years to go but that the team is hard at work to move things forward.
“We’re still looking at five to seven years out,” he said. “We have a long way to go. It’s a long process, and we are doing what we can to work our way through everything.”
