Boutique Hotel Plan Revised, No Bar, Smaller

AVALON – Developer Anthony Zurawski has just filed a new application for a boutique hotel, called the Peermont, in Avalon. 
What Zurawski is proposing is a combined 20-room hotel, high-end art, and antiques commercial establishment, along with what he is calling the Seven Mile Island Teaching Art Center.
In late 2014, Zurawski put forward plans for a boutique hotel on 21st Street. Those plans met with significant neighborhood opposition. Eventually, the effort faded, quietly disappearing from the planning/zoning board agenda.
A year and a half later, Zurawski is back with a proposal for a scaled-down version of the boutique hotel, and with several new twists in the plan. He filed his application with the borough two weeks ago and already is seeing the old lawn signs opposing the project dusted off and placed in the area of 21st Street.
Zurawski and his children own some businesses in the area of the proposed hotel including AJ Antiques, the Whitebrier and Sea Grill, and the Princeton Grill. 
He has a vision for the new project that he hopes will garner support rather than continued opposition. He took time recently to explain that vision.
His 2014 proposal was all about a hotel, a facility which would offer 37 rooms, dining, a rooftop pool and bar, banquet facilities and parking under a raised first floor for the hotel.
To build it he needed both height and use variances from zoning ordinances and transfer of a liquor license. Neighbors complained about potential noise and traffic problems. Some also opposed the scale of the proposed building.
He described his new plan as a center for art as much as a more modest-sized hotel. Reduced from 37 rooms in the original project to 20, the latest proposal contains no restaurant or bar, and thus no need for a liquor license.
The first-floor front, on 21st Street, would include commercial retail space with a focus on higher-end art. The open space would support art teaching programs which, he said, would vary so as to appeal to a variety of audiences.
The hotel rooms are designed to give Zurawski flexibility with the potential to connect a series of rooms into four-bedroom condo units or to keep them separate for individual nightly room rentals.
Zurawski pointed to the location of the proposed hotel as supportive of the Avalon central business district.
“Guests can come out the front door and walk to any restaurant or shop in the area,” he said.
The plan, Zurawski hopes, will address many of the objections to the original one.
It has a minor four-foot decorative cupola that is the only thing requiring a height variance. “If they don’t like it, we can just take it off,” he says.
There is no commercial dining in the proposed hotel and no bar.  
The proposal contains an outdoor pool, but it is no longer proposed for the building’s roof, rather it is located at ground level before the outdoor rear street-level parking spaces for 39 vehicles. Adjacent is a barbecue pit rather than a bar. 
The proposed complex runs 240 feet from 21st to 22nd streets with its front entrance on 21st. The parking lot facing 22nd Street is to be partially hidden from view by an open green area with plans for trees and natural vegetation separating the street from the hotel.
The newest aspect of Zurawski’s proposal is the teaching art center, which he hopes will become an attraction for local and regional artists, offering hands-on teaching opportunities for the public.
He wants to support a variety of art genres including painting, sculpture, and music and food preparation.
He likes programs that would attract class trips from the island’s schools as well as those that would appeal to adults and seniors. He sees the center as something that would bring people to the island who might then patronize other businesses as well.
“I could build the same old thing, retail on the first floor and condos on the second, but I’m trying to put something here that moves the borough into the future,” he said.
Will the new plan meet with greater support than the proposed 2014 hotel? Zurawski hopes it will when neighbors, borough officials, and the public at large understand what he is proposing, and the potential for what he feels will be a positive impact on the community.
To contact Vince Conti, email vconti@cmcherald.com.