ELKINS — Elkins City Council has voted to allocate 40 parking spaces in the Seneca Mall parking lot for the Tygart Hotel, which is undergoing a $16 million renovation.

When a resolution for the parking space allocation came before City Council at the Nov. 4 meeting, Councilman Clinton Higgins asked, “What are we allocating? Is that street parking?”

City Clerk Jessica Sutton responded, “There’s a total of 79 spaces in the Seneca Mall parking lot now. Fourteen of those will remain free, but they will be restricted to three-hour parking but no charge during that time. Twenty-five of them will remain as permitted parking, where people buy monthly permits to park there from the city, and then 40 will be reserved for the Tygart Hotel.

“Now the resolution does indicate that that changeover won’t happen until 60 days prior to the opening of the hotel. They don’t need them before then. We were fine with that timeline as well. ”

“Will there be signs in those parking spaces reserving them for the hotel?” Councilman Rob Chenoweth asked.

“There will be some indication,” Sutton said. “It hasn’t been determined yet exactly what that will be, if it will be in the space or a standing sign. We’ve yet to determine that.”

The motion passed with all council members present voting in favor of it. Councilman Chris Lowther and Councilwoman Linda Vest did not attend the meeting.

Officials said a total of 110 parking spaces will be sought for the Tygart Hotel.

• During the public comment section of the meeting, Dr. Jerry Metheny, co-owner of the Seneca Mall, asked questions about the downtown parking situation.

“I’m here concerned about the parking,” Metheny said. “I know on the agenda tonight they’re going to talk about the new hotel and parking for it, which we’re all for. I think it will be a big asset to downtown. I think it will bring more business.

“But our concern is, with that needing parking for the hotel, and also with more business downtown, we’re going to need more parking. And I just wonder if council has thought anything about this or talked about it. You know, parking garages or vacant lots becoming parking lots. I don’t know the solution.”

Metheny said he would provide council with “a history of how the parking lot at Seneca Mall came about. Back in 1981 or ’82, the City of Elkins was granted a HUD grant and the landowners that resided in the block of Kerens and Davis and Third and Second, for every $3 they put into remodeling or new construction, the City of Elkins got a dollar. And that’s how the City of Elkins bought the property, tore the houses down and built the parking lot. So it was really landowners that got together and put it together, through the HUD grant.”

After purchasing the Tygart Hotel on Davis Avenue for $700,000 in 2017, the Woodlands Development Group came up with a plan to restore the historic building and turn it into a boutique hotel. Soon after the purchase, Woodlands, a nonprofit organization and a certified Community Housing Development Organization, began renovating the six-story building, built in 1907, early in 2018.

Once the project is complete, Taylor Hospitality will take over operations of the hotel. Taylor Hospitality is based out of Lexington, Virginia and is a leading regional hospitality management company.

The proposed makeover is driven by loans and investment from the state and local banks, including Davis Trust Company, Freedom Bank and Pendleton Community Bank. Led by Woodlands, the $16 million project will result in a facility that will serve families, institutions and the tourism in the region, a Woodlands press release states.

Woodlands Executive Director Dave Clark projects that financing for the project will be complete by the end of 2021 and anticipates that an 18-month construction period will get under way in early 2022.