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A proposed hotel design with a distinctive shape is up for its final design review.
The Montford Group will be bringing its plans for a 191-room flatiron-shaped project back to Charleston’s Board of Architectural Review for another vote. The lodging, slated for a triangular lot at 810 Meeting St. and first unveiled in late 2018, already has two design approvals and needs its third.
Plans submitted to the city show a restaurant on the first floor and a cafe with an entrance on Morrison Drive.
The ninth level would have a bar, meeting space and outdoor terrace.
Montford has said the project is the “first flatiron-shaped hotel to be developed in the Southeast,” and company founder Sunju Patel has said he wants it to be an “architectural landmark” for the city.
The hotel is one of a few that Montford has in the works on upper Meeting Street.
Last year, the group broke ground on a Moxy property at 547 Meeting that will be the Marriott flag’s first foray in Charleston. The hotel will have 131 rooms and a bar on the sixth floor.
A flatiron shaped hotel planned for 810 Meeting St. will be up for its final design review. Rendering/LS3P Asssociates Ltd.
Montford also has approval for another hotel on Meeting Street and one just off Meeting on Huger Street.
The flatiron hotel, called The Thompson, will be built on a lot where Meeting and Mount Pleasant streets and Morrison Drive meet on the upper peninsula.
The parcel backs up to the former Tattooed Moose bar and restaurant, which recently closed and is relocating to a Park Circle location that will open Feb. 8. The triangular lot where the hotel will rise is vacant.
The BAR is scheduled to review the plans for The Thompson at its next meeting, which starts at 4:30 p.m. on Feb. 9.
The Gibbes Museum of Art. File
Forward pass
Two downtown Charleston museums have teamed up on a deal that offers three months of admission to both cultural attractions.
The South Carolina Historical Society Museum and the Gibbes Museum of Art are launching the “Good Neighbor Pass,” a joint ticket giving access to both sites from February through April.
The passes cost $20 for adults and $18 for seniors and military. They can be purchased at either museum.
Regular admission for a single visit is typically $12 each at the Gibbes and the Historical Society Museum.
Both museums front Meeting Street, close to its intersection with Queen Street, and are about about a two-minute walk apart.
The 21-room Wentworth Mansion housed an insurance business before it was converted into a luxury inn in 1998 after a $6 million renovation. File/Brad Nettles/Staff
Love is inn the air
A historic Charleston lodging has been named to a list of the top 25 hotels in the country for a romantic proposal.
Historic Hotels of America put the Wentworth Mansion on its list released last week in advance of Valentine’s Day.
Properties were ranked by age rather than the quality of their romantic vibes, and Wentworth came in as the ninth-oldest, having been built in 1886.
The luxury 21-room getaway, which is part of the locally owned Charming Inns portfolio of intimate downtown lodgings, “exudes a sense of history, grandeur and romance,” the list says.
Hotel staff will work with the ring-bearing guest to create an itinerary or set up a special moment. The inn’s “Over the Top” package is popular with couples who get engaged on the property, the list says. It can come with a helicopter ride, a five-course dinner and a private carriage tour of downtown sites.