About a year ago, Sports Illustrated and Travel + Leisure Co. proposed a sports-themed resort chain across college towns, with the first one in Tuscaloosa. At the Riverfront Advisory Committee meeting Thursday, representatives of Sports Illustrated, Travel + Leisure, Lamar Johnson Collaborative and TTL, Inc. shared plans for the resort and its 9-story and 137-key hotel, 150 condos, and 250 timeshare units.
Sports Illustrated Resorts launched last year in Cap Cana, Dominican Republic, as an “all-inclusive luxury resort that is an ideal spot for adventurous guests who are looking for an action-packed getaway.” A second site is set to open in Orlando, Florida, this year.
SI OnCampus is one of the three categories of Sports Illustrated Resorts, and according to the company’s website, it is a “chain of hotels that will be located on or near university campuses and will reflect a school’s heritage and pay tributes to the players, coaches, and fans that continue to keep the spirit alive.”
The current proposed location is 105 Rice Mine Road North, which is located by the Black Warrior River next to the Cypress Inn. The plans to build the resorts are in two phases. The first phase is building a 9-level hotel and its restaurant, one timeshare and condo building, three standalone retail buildings, and a central services building. Phase two includes four additional multistory buildings with timeshares below and condos for sale above.
The developers plan to start construction in the first quarter of 2025 and complete it no later than the first quarter of 2027.
“We begin any project with trying to understand the place and the culture,” said Elias Vavaroutsos, a principal at the Lamar Johnson Collaborative, which is designing the resort. “In looking in this place and trying to understand what opportunities are here, we were looking into things like campus gameday, the arts scene, trying to understand what ‘Druid City’ means.”
When designing the resort, Vavaroutsos said the designers looked to be consistent, but not mimic, the architectural tradition of the University, including use of materials like red brick and concrete and extensive detailing in buildings.
The Riverfront Advisory Committee met to provide recommendations and draft a report about the proposed development to be provided to the Planning and Zoning Commission, a city body that provides recommendations to the city councils for developments in the Riverfront Development District.
The committee voiced concerns about issues like traffic around the resort site, which is currently located on a two-lane road, although Chris Crawford of TTL said that a traffic study done on the site predicted that traffic would not worsen significantly as a result of the project.
Austin Bolton, a UA graduate who said he works with University and Community Partnerships for Sports Illustrated Resorts, told the committee that Tuscaloosa was an easy choice for the first location.
“So why Alabama? The University of Alabama, as you all know, has a rich athletic history across all sports. There is no city more passionate and supportive of their university athletics quite like Tuscaloosa,” he said. “So when it came time to choose where we wanted to launch Sports Illustrated Resorts, the choice was obvious. We could not have picked a better city, University and community for our flagship resort.”
