A Washington County developer is moving forward with a $10 million renovation that will bring an upscale Doubletree Hotel to a long-shuttered hotel property in Moon.
"We expect the hotel to be open by December," said Lucas B. Piatt, director of development for Millcraft Industries, of Southpointe in Cecil. Millcraft also may take on the revitalization of Downtown's Fifth-Forbes retail corridor.
The new hotel, which will offer 135 rooms -- five of them suites -- will be located off University Boulevard in an area where Moon officials have been seeking to spark new development since the closing of the Greater Pittsburgh International Airport terminal in 1992.
The building, which last housed a Radisson Hotel 10 years ago, will include a Jacksons Restaurant-Rotisserie-Bar, similar to the Jacksons open at Millcraft's Hilton Garden Inn/Southpointe, Piatt said.
The restaurant will seat between 200 and 300 people, and combined, the restaurant and hotel and will employ about 120 full- and part-time workers.
The company is considering expanding business using the Jacksons' concept, seeking to sell franchises for free-standing restaurant outlets, Piatt said.
Millcraft also is considering a 40,000-square-foot, mixed-use project at the Moon site, with retail shops or small offices located on land in front of the hotel along University Boulevard, Piatt said. Construction could start in the spring.
The company also is considering building some apartments or condominiums on part of the property.
"We hope to breathe some life back into that area of Moon," Piatt said.
That is exactly what is happening, said Jodi Noble, assistant township manager.
"Construction just started on a new Sheetz (convenience store) and Robert Morris University continues to invest in their campus as well," she said.
The area suffered loss of business in the wake of the opening of the Pittsburgh International Airport terminal in Findlay in 1992.
But Moon developed a master plan for the area, and in 2003 that led to the renaming of the former Beers School Road and Narrows Run Road as University Boulevard in an effort to tie in with the Robert Morris expansion.
"It's obvious that some of the work and the things that have grown out of that study are starting to bear fruit," she said.
