- March 28, 2024
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New business is fine in Winter Park, but when it cannibalizes old business to survive, everyone in the city should have a problem with it.
Commissioner Carolyn Cooper had a point at the Sept. 26 meeting when she suggested that the proposed Alfond Inn, to be built by Rollins College, might have an adverse impact on existing hotels in the area, namely the Park Plaza Hotel on Park Avenue and Mt. Vernon Inn along U.S. Highway 17-92. She suggested that the Alfond Inn strive for a four-star rating or above to avoid killing off its three-star competition.
Hotels with the same star rating within the same area do compete with each other. They can potentially take away each other’s business. In the case of the Mt. Vernon Inn, whose owner spoke up in protest at that meeting, it’s had little competition within Winter Park’s borders for much of its more than half a century of existence.
Undoubtedly some patrons who may otherwise have slept at the Mt. Vernon Inn will seek out the Alfond Inn instead. It’ll be newer, flashier and designed with modern clientele in mind. Folks who are looking for a nighttime hot spot and lounge that’s just a block or two from other Park Avenue restaurants and lounges.
Will the Alfond Inn take away customers from the Park Plaza Hotel along Park Avenue? It seems to be in far greater jeopardy of losing customers by location alone. It’s far closer than the Mt. Vernon Inn. But if the City Commission doesn’t vote in favor of stratifying the class of the hotel to avoid a conflict, then the market will decide for them.
What neither of those hotels will be able to boast is a philanthropic basis for existing. The revenue from the hotel will flow directly into the Alfond Scholars Fund, which will provide scholarships for needy students as well as feeding into an endowment to keep the school going.
There’s no discounting the value of Rollins’ students’ frequently well-heeled parentage patronizing a high class hotel to help raise money for scholarship funds for less amply funded students. Coupled with the idea of a bustling new hot spot for Winter Park residents and visitors, the whole idea seems more than win-win. It’s a shoo-in. It’s a slam dunk. It’s what that empty tract of land along Interlachen Avenue has been waiting for.
Commissioners could hardly hide their excitement at the last Commission meeting when they discussed plans, even with the seemingly immense roadblock of parking capacity still looming in the path of the project.
But with nearby businesses and churches already on board to offer up parking for the hotel, that vital part of the plan could be easier to solidify than the massive gap in the hotel’s parking capacity would let on.
The inevitability of the project was obvious by the end of that meeting, even if some major parts of the planning had yet to be completed. But the Commission should tread carefully in allowing a 100,000-square-foot hotel to spring up without considering the consequences. For local businesses in a down economy, and with travel also suffering for years, those consequences could be dire.