The Carpentry hotel celebrates Dalton’s history

Published 5:00 pm Thursday, January 18, 2024

After six years of planning and work, The Carpentry hotel opened in downtown Dalton recently. and owner Kasey Carpenter said he’s excited to see people’s reaction.

“We did a soft opening last Friday (Jan. 12),” Carpenter said. “January is a slow time for the hotel industry, but given that, business has been pretty good. We’ve even had some local people come stay here just to see what it’s like. They’ve been very complimentary.”

Carpenter, a Dalton native, said that to the best of his memory, this is the first hotel in downtown Dalton since the Dalton Hotel closed 50 years ago.

The Carpentry is at the site of a former bank building at the corner of the 200 block of West Cuyler Street opposite of both of Carpenter’s restaurants, the Oakwood Cafe and Cherokee Brewing + Pizza Company. Carpenter had originally planned to renovate the bank building but he said as he got further into planning he found it made more sense to tear the building down and construct a new building. The bank that stood at that site was the Community and Southern Bank.

“It didn’t take us long to figure out that we would be better off just tearing down the old building and starting from scratch,” he said.

The hotel is a “boutique” hotel, smaller and more intimate with an eye on design, with more expensive furnishings and decorations. Carpenter said it has 41 rooms.

“We’ve worked with several local artists on the interior and the artwork that is displayed,” Carpenter said.

The interior shows off Dalton’s history as the Carpet Capital of the World and, before that, its fame as part of Peacock Alley, a stretch of Highway 41 in North Georgia where stores displayed the products of the area’s thriving bedspread industry.

When people come into the lobby, they see a photo of Catherine Evans Whitener, the woman credited with founding that industry.

There are peacock designs in the wallpaper, the front lobby desk and even in some of the tile work.

In the rooms are historical photos of the bedspread industry.

“We worked with the (Bandy Heritage Center for Northwest Georgia) on that,” Carpenter said. “We really appreciate that.”

Carpenter said he is proud that about 90% of the contractors who worked on the project came from “a 15-mile radius.”

“It was important to us to use local people,” he said.

Carpenter partnered with Steve Herndon, a Dalton businessman who owns and operates hotels across the Southeast, on the project. They have an $8 million investment in the project, Carpenter said.

The property as an empty lot was assessed at $90,000.

Because the hotel is in the downtown tax allocation district (TAD) it was eligible for tax increment financing. TADs freeze the value at which a property can be taxed for general revenue. Taxes that will be collected on additional value created by improvements to the property will go to the hotel for infrastructure improvements to the area that will be made as part of the project.

In December 2018 Carpenter reached a tax increment financing agreement with the city and the Dalton public school system to finance the hotel. That agreement called for Carpenter to finish the hotel on or before Dec. 31, 2019. Since Carpenter did not finish the hotel by that date the deal expired and Carpenter had to apply for a new deal. The city approved that deal last year. Under the terms of the deal, the hotel can receive a maximum of $970,664. Those payments are contingent on the assessed value of real property on the project site and in the TAD area increasing.

Additional revenue generated by the value created by the hotel will go to the owners for the next 10 years or until the maximum of $970,664 is collected.

“During that time, the local governments are collecting the hotel/motel tax revenue and sales tax revenue we generate,” Carpenter said. “They will also collect revenue from taxes from any development in the area that we help spur.”

Voters in 2014 gave the City Council the authority to create TADs. The City Council has created four. The others are the Hammond Creek area around the north bypass and Pleasant Grove Drive, the area around Dalton Mall and the West Walnut Avenue/Market Street area.

Whitfield County voters rejected TADs that year and again in 2021, but under state law the county has the right to join in city TADs if the county commissioners believe that is in the public interest. The county participates in Dalton’s TADs around the Dalton Mall and the downtown business district, which were created in 2018, and Hammond Creek, which was created in 2020. The county also participates in a Varnell TAD that includes the Patterson Farms residential/commercial development on Cleveland Highway.