Developers planning to build an Aloft Hotel at the Coastline Conference and Event Center in downtown Wilmington hope to start construction in the second quarter of this year.

With 125 rooms, the 7-story structure will connect to older facilities on the site, which were once part of the Atlantic Coast Line Railroad complex before the company moved its headquarters to Florida more than 50 years ago.

David McLamb, executive vice president of Poteat Hospitality, said the family-owned company based in Laurinburg wants to preserve as much as possible of the historic nature of the existing former warehouse building and the connected three-story structure facing Nutt Street. That part of the center used to be the railroad's freight office.

“We’re trying to have a minimal impact on the existing building because that's the character we want to carry through," said McLamb, who is the son-in-law of Poteat Hospitality founder Reg Poteat.

Reg Poteat built his first hotel in 1989, and the company operates eight hotels across the state.

Poteat and McLamb recently met with state officials at the Wilmington site about the possibility of applying for historic preservation tax credits for the project, but the hotel will be developed with or without them, McLamb said.

He said the company's engineering and design drawings are being finalized now with the expectation of having a complete set of plans to put up for bid to a potential contractor in the next 45 days. The start of construction isn't set in stone, but once it begins, Poteat officials expect it will likely take more than a year to complete.

The carpet and lighting inside the conference center will be updated, but the characteristic exposed beams and large doors that used to open to freight cars along the side will remain in place, and 9,000 square feet will continue to be reserved for meeting space. One of the aims of the preserved meeting area will be to help provide room for break-out sessions for those attending conferences at the Wilmington Convention Center, McLamb said.

In more ways than one, the project has special meaning for McLamb, whose grandfather retired from the Atlantic Coast Line Railroad.

"When I walked up to the building for the first time, I thought, 'I guess it's come full-circle,'" he said.

Aloft Hotel guests will enter the lobby from the existing parking lot, through the first entrance in the warehouse building, according to the latest plans. On the other end of the building close to the Cape Fear River, the deck facing the river will stay in place and be part of a new restaurant in a portion where a popular restaurant used to operate many years ago, McLamb said.

The hotel is expected to include an outdoor pool, indoor-outdoor spaces in a rooftop bar, a catering kitchen and event space for weddings and other gatherings.

Officials with Poteat Hospitality had been looking for several years in Wilmington for the perfect spot for a hotel. The company bought the Best Western Plus Coastline Inn at the Coastline complex -- plans call for the Best Western to remain open -- and the warehouse-freight office property for more than $7.3 million in March last year.

"We see this as very much an emerging marketplace, and we're excited about what's happening here," McLamb said.

Aloft is one of at least four hotels on the way to downtown Wilmington, including a Hampton Inn on Grace Street, the Embassy Suites at the Wilmington Convention Center and a nearby Hotel Indigo.

“These are private individuals that are looking at Wilmington saying, ‘This is a market I want to be a part of,’” McLamb said. “I think that bodes well for what the leadership has done here ... All of a sudden you have a significant shift in rooms within foot traffic of the convention center.”

Although the development companies are separate businesses, “we’re also a combined asset and when you start seeing the combined asset, it opens a lot of doors,” he said.

For more on the current uptick in area hotel construction, pick up the Feb. 10 issue of the Greater Wilmington Business Journal.