MIDDLE TOWNSHIP – A soon-anticipated state decision on a municipal center designation requested by the township might advance plans for a Hampton Inn in Court House, the mayor says.

At the Township Committee meeting Nov. 18, Mayor Chris Leusner was asked by a resident about the hotel. Leusner said one holdup for the hotel project, which was first presented to the township in 2019, has been a delay in state approval of the township’s municipal center designations.

Designated centers within municipalities are part of the state planning process. They represent different types of mixed-use development that, when recognized by the state, are eligible tor certain types of funding and permitting. The proposed hotel is within such a proposed center.

Leusner said he recently had a talk with an official from the state Department of Environmental Protection in which he was told the township’s long-delayed center designations should soon be decided upon.

For at least one resident at the meeting from the residential community that backs onto the hotel site, the news meant the project the resident had long resisted could be back soon.

The Township Committee first heard a presentation from Cape May Hospitality, LLC, on the proposed Hampton Inn in 2019. The hotel would be on land that long housed the Design Collaborative off the Garden State Parkway access road at Exit 10 in Court House.

The estimated $17 million project called for a 100-room, four-story hotel that would bring the Hilton brand to Cape May County. Amenities discussed included a fitness center, indoor pool, lobby bar and meeting space that could accommodate up to 70 people.

The reason for the 2019 presentation was the desire of the developer for a zoning change. The property’s rural conservation zoning was an obstacle to the project, and the developer was seeking to make the area part of the municipal center. The company argued that the property is adjacent to the center but separated from it by the Parkway.

Cape May Hospitality originally hoped to have the facility constructed and open for business by the spring of 2021.

But it was not until May of that year that the Township Committee approved the rezoning of the 4.5-acre parcel from rural conservation to town center.

Property owners in a residential neighborhood behind the hotel site objected to the change throughout the process. They argued that the tight access ramp was not a safe location for added traffic and that the development would endanger adjacent wetlands.

Contact the reporter, Vince Conti, at vconti@cmcherald.com.