Mobile firm buys Rivercane lot for new lodging establishment
By DON FLETCHER
News Staff Writer
Atmore City Council members approved during their Monday (June 27) meeting the sale of about 1.72 acres of land in the Rivercane retail and industrial development area to a Mobile firm that plans to erect a micro motel, or microtel, on the site.
The council gave its collective OK to the transaction, under which WYN Atmore LLC — a Mobile-based company that Alabama Secretary of State records show has been in existence only since June 13 — will pay the city roughly $671,000 for the land, just off Interstate 65 and behind Taco Bell.
“They’ll be buying 1.72 acres, more or less, to put up a micro motel,” said Mayor Jim Staff. “They might come out another 20 feet, so it could be a little more than that before it’s over. The city will get $9 per square foot for 74,557 square feet of property.”
The new lodging establishment will reportedly be owned by a group that already owns Microtel Inn & Suites by Wyndham in Saraland, Daphne and Gulf Shores. The company’s registered agent is Ashley Patel.
According to travelawaits.com, microtel rooms are “small on size and big on personality.” Most are less than 200 square feet, and some are less than 100 square feet. Rooms in most micro motels are priced at a fraction of a full-size motel or hotel but feature few, if any, amenities beyond the basics
No one from WYN Atmore attended the meeting.
In the only other business dealt with by the council, the panel approved a plan by West Escambia Utilities to sell the former landfill property it bought for the city two decades ago, on which part of a new state mega-prison will be built.
Staff said the move could be taken as an indicator that construction of the prison will begin in the relatively near future.
“West Escambia is selling the old landfill site they bought for the city around 20 years ago,” the mayor said. “It’s west of the old warden’s house, an old barn building that’s falling in, and it’s where the new prison is going. It looks like the prison is finally coming to fruition.”