Coast Rehoboth Beach hotel eyes late-July opening

After nearly 18 months of renovations, Coast Rehoboth Beach is nearing its opening.

A sign was recently added to the hotel’s Rehoboth Avenue entrance announcing it will open soon and it is now hiring for all positions.

As of press deadline June 28, an online search for the hotel says reservations are being accepted beginning Tuesday, Aug. 15.

For nearly 40 years, the property, which has an address of 123 Second St., was known as the Sandcastle Motel. New Castle County developer Harvey Hanna purchased the property in late 2021 for about $13 million and began a top-to-bottom $5 million renovation soon after. 

Robin Lattinville, TKO Hospitality sales and marketing vice president, said the scheduled opening of the property and Sirocco, the hotel’s full-service Southern Mediterranean-style restaurant, is Tuesday, July 25. There will be more information coming soon, she said.

This isn’t Harvey Hanna’s first hotel project in the Cape Region, as it also built the Hyatt House Lewes/Rehoboth Beach on Route 1 near Lewes and the Hyatt Place in Dewey Beach.

As it’s done with the other local hotels, Harvey Hanna will own and operate the downtown Rehoboth hotel with business partner TKo Hospitality. The new hotel will be part of Hilton’s Tapestry Collection, which is described as, “hotels that are woven into the local community.” Fenwick Shores, which opened in December 2020, is also part of the Tapestry Collection.

The venture with Hilton continues a growing trend of hotel operators in downtown Rehoboth working with large firms. In early 2020, the Bellmoor Inn & Spa was sold to EOS Investors LLC, a privately held real estate investment firm based out of New York City that has hotels across the country, including Bethany Beach Ocean Suites. Earlier this year, the developers of the proposed Belhaven Hotel said they are also working with Hilton, but under the company’s Curio Collection.

The multimillion-dollar renovation project may be coming to an end, but it has blocked a portion of the Second Street sidewalk for nearly the whole time and did spur changes to city code related to demolitions after a portion of the former motel was demolished in the middle of last summer. Code previously placed a moratorium on demolitions from May 15 to Sept. 15, on structures with a square footage of at least 750 square feet. Code also previously allowed city staff to grant an emergency demolition permit without permission from city commissioners.

During a meeting in December, city commissioners removed the 750-square-foot minimum to say the demolition of any commercial and residential building or structure shall be prohibited during the moratorium. Emergency demolition situations are still be part of the code; however, the mayor and city manager now have to make a written finding that an emergency exists and state the reasons why the public health and safety require a more expeditious demolition.