Workers were feverishly vacuuming floors, wiping down door frames and learning how to operate the computer system as they prepared for today's scheduled opening of the Hampton Inn & Suites in Cape Coral.

The Hampton's arrival represents a milestone for the city: It's the first hotel to open in the Cape in more than 20 years.

The four-story, 75-room hotel at 619 S.E. 47th Terrace will officially open for business at noon, said Fred Hirschovits, one of three business partners who helped make the hotel possible.

The hotel is important to Cape Coral for several reasons. It adds much-needed hotel rooms to the region's largest city, which had only 370 hotel rooms until today. More hotels are planned in the next few years as part of the city's Community Redevelopment Agency, which takes in the downtown area of southeast Cape Coral.

It cost $6.9 million, including a 20-year $250,000 loan from the city. That loan came from Cape Coral's federal community block development grant funds.

The Cape's Hampton also is the first Hampton Inn in Southwest Florida — and one of the first in the country — to open using Hampton Inn's new 128-point program designed to make the hotels more appealing to guests. Those changes include making the front desk similar to a department store checkout counter, allowing hotel associates to meet guests in front of the desk, rather than being separated from them. The new Hampton, like many newer hotels being built these days, is capable of accommodating wireless Internet computers and has Internet hookups in every guest room, as well as a business center where guests can use a computer, bring their own computer, and send and receive faxes.

"I think we're the catalyst" to downtown Cape Coral development, Hirschovits said. "Now

there are two or three other big developments coming."

Mike Jackson, Cape Coral's economic development director, agrees.

"This is the first of the new breed of hotels in Cape Coral," Jackson said. "It's the first new hotel in a long, long time. It has the potential to invigorate further development in the west end of the downtown CRA."

Sal Lanzieri, owner of Sal's Pizza on Cape Coral Parkway near the hotel, said he is glad to see the Hampton Inn open. His pizza parlor was among the first restaurants to be listed in the hotel's directory, which is placed in guests' rooms.

"It's great to have a nice, big, legitimate hotel in Cape Coral," Lanzieri said. "If you're going to bring a (spring training) baseball team, if you're going to develop the downtown, if you want to attract retailers, you need places like the Hampton Inn."

Hirschovits, 53, of Naples owns Twenty/Twenty Worldwide Hospitality, which manages the Cape Hampton. Greg Eagle, a real estate agent based in Cape Coral, and Elmer Tabor, 53, a Cape resident who owns Wonderland Realty, are partners with Hirschovits. Tabor owns Cape Hotel Suites, which owns the Cape Hampton Inn franchise.

"It's something Cape Coral really needed," Tabor said of the hotel. "It's not like it's another grocery store on the corner. We're real short of hotel rooms. We're giving back to the community that has been so good to us."

On Friday afternoon, Hirschovits and several workers, including general manager Linda Mulch and assistant manager Dominic Soricelli, were doing last-minute inspections and cleaning to make sure the hotel was ready to greet its first customers today. A high-definition television set was tuned to the Olympic Games in Torino, Italy, as Hirschovits, a native of Finland, tried to keep up with the progress of his country's men's hockey team while feverishly preparing to open the hotel.

The hotel's 75 rooms include 22 suites. Each of the suites has a kitchenette, couch and 32-inch television set. All rooms have a work desk with an Internet hookup for computers. The entire hotel also can accommodate wireless Internet.

Hirschovits pointed out several small amenities that guests may not notice, but that they will probably appreciate. One includes the shower, which has the curtain arc away from the tub so that a person standing inside does not bump into the curtain. He added that hotel staff will always clean all of a room's bedding materials between guest stays. In recent years, some travelers have been repulsed by news reports of hotels washing only bed sheets and not bed covers.

As proof of that, the bed covers are white, meaning any dirt would readily show up. Many other hotels' bed covers are dark colors.


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