Downtown Ocala is one step closer to adding a hotel. City staffers this week agreed to recommend that the City Council allow Downtown Ocala LLC to build and operate a hotel on the former chamber of commerce site.
Downtown Ocala LLC is owned by Ocala hotelier Danny Gaekwad, who already owns several area hotels and other businesses. Developer Albert Peek’s Broadway & First of Ocala LLC had also submitted a proposal, and gone through a nearly three-month negotiation, but recently pulled out. That left Gaekwad as the sole remaining applicant.
Tiffany Kimball, Ocala’s director of procurement and contracts, who was on the city’s negotiation team, said that although Peek’s team pulled out, the negotiators weren’t pressured. They could have recommended against Gaekwad if his proposal been unfair toward the city.