Renovation of Hotel Weyanoke in Farmville to receive grant incentive

The renovation and expansion of the Hotel Weyanoke in Farmville will receive a state incentive grant to help finance the project.

The $12.2 million investment in the hotel is expected to create 76 new jobs, according to Gov. Terry McAuliffe. The hotel, across from Longwood Univerity’s campus, is scheduled to open in spring 2018. It previously had two restaurants and housed Longwood students on its second, third and fourth floors.

The project will receive a grant from the Virginia Tourism Corp.’s Tourism Development Financing Program (TDFP), a gap-financing program for large-scale tourism projects. The program allows projects to temporarily retain a portion of state and local tax revenue generated from the project, with a matching contribution from the developer, to provide gap financing for up to 30 percent of a project’s total cost.

The Hotel Weyanoke, Farmville and Virginia will share matching contributions toward the project, based on 1 percent of the hotel’s quarterly revenue. Each entity will contribute an estimated $916,700 over a 10-year period.

The developers of the Hotel Weyanoke are rehabilitating and converting the existing 27,000-square-foot building at 202 High Street into a high-end hotel and building a 30,000-square-foot addition on the property. When completed, the hotel will have 70 guest rooms and four food and beverage venues: Campagna, an Italian trattoria and tasting room; Sassafras, a bakery and market; Humble Pie, a pizza grill and market; and The Bridge, a rooftop restaurant.

“The Hotel Weyanoke will fill a … void of lodging, dining, entertainment and meeting space, and is itself, a historic attraction,” Ross Fickenscher, co-owner of the Hotel Weyanoke said in a statement. “Located in downtown Farmville, the Weyanoke will host guests who can easily walk to nearby Main Street shops, Green Front Furniture, the Moton Museum, Longwood University, the Sarah Terry Trail, High Bridge Trail State Park, The Longwood Center for the Visual Arts and more.”