Motwani’s Flagler Village hotel to break ground by the end of this year

Updated 1:45 p.m., May 26: Dev Motwani’s Flagler Village hotel will break ground by the end of 2016 and is in talks with multiple flags, the developer told The Real Deal. 

Motwani, of Merrimac Ventures, received plat approval from the Broward County Commission on Tuesday allowing him to develop up to 220 hotel rooms, 120 residential units and 7,000 square feet of commercial space.

The developer plans to develop a 195-room hotel with up to 2,000 square feet of ground-floor retail space – for the time being – on the development site at 315 Northwest First Avenue. Motwani told TRD he’ll partner with Coral Gables-based Driftwood Hospitality.

315 Flagler, LP purchased the four-parcel development site in January for $1.9 million. It is currently bordered by multifamily residential units, a parking lot and railroad tracks where All Aboard’s new Brightline station is being built. The high-speed train service will run along the Florida East Coast rail line from Miami to Orlando beginning in mid-2017.

The Flagler Village neighborhood, which stretches from Broward Boulevard to Sunrise Boulevard, and from Federal Highway to the Florida East Coast Railway. More than 40 projects will come online in the neighborhood, which is often compared to Wynwood. A group of Israeli developers recently launched Flagler 626, a 12-story, 97-unit condo project at 626 Northeast First Avenue.

 Correction: An earlier version of this story incorrectly stated that the developer plans a 220-room hotel, 120 residential units and 7,000 square feet of commercial space on the site. Motwani has approvals for all three, but is only planning to build a 195-room hotel.