The company planning an Aloft Hotel at the Coastline Conference and Event Center property in downtown Wilmington has formally submitted plans to the city.

"We've gone through some review with the city up to this point on the plans, but this is the formal submission," said David McLamb, executive vice president of Laurinburg-based Poteat Hospitality, a family-owned company.

The plans, by Isom-Ham Design Group and Norris & Tunstall Consulting Engineers, are expected to be discussed by the city of Wilmington's Technical Review Committee at the panel's Dec. 28 meeting, according to the city's project tracking website. The 7-story hotel at 501 Nutt St. is expected to have 125 rooms and make use of existing historic structures.

Poteat officials had hoped for construction to start sooner on the hotel, which was announced in December 2015. But delays included waiting for Marriott, which concluded its purchase of Starwood hotels and the Starwood brand Aloft last year, to tweak the Aloft design to do some updating, McLamb said.

"We held off moving forward at that point so that we could basically be the first of the new instead of the last of the old," McLamb said.

He said Marriott, which became the largest hotel chain in the world with the Starwood acquisition, is also able to bring to the table changes that will help with construction costs.

"We're hoping to start construction sometime toward the end of the first quarter," McLamb said.

Nearby, the new 186-room Embassy Suites by Hilton Wilmington Riverfront, located at 9 Estell Lee Place at the Wilmington Convention Center, is nearing completion, with a soft opening expected Dec. 20.

McLamb said Poteat officials consider the Embassy Suites another asset of the city, along with the Aloft Hotel, and both will be generating business and filling a need for rooms for visitors and events.

"We look forward to being a big success," McLamb said.