Hotel, Conference Center To Be Built At Foxhall Resort In Douglas County

DOUGLAS COUNTY, GA — Foxhall Resort will be adding a branded hotel, conference center and more villas to its existing 1,100-acre resort in south Douglas County, anticipated to generate $32 million for the county and $17 million for the Douglas County School System over 15 years.

At its Tuesday meeting, the Douglas County Board of Commissioners unanimously approved an intergovernmental agreement to finance the development of a five-story, 250-room FoxhallWestin hotel with an attached 50,000-square-foot conference center and other amenities. This is part of a larger expansion that included the recently-built clubhouse, which spans 20,000 square feet, as well as two restaurants, 200 unbranded rooms in the villas, a market and light retail.

Construction on the hotel and conference center is expected to start in the third quarter of 2022 with the intent of opening no later than September 2024, according to county documents.

The newly-approved agreement with the county is updated from one that was approved in 2016. The new agreement reduced the project acreage from 95 acres to 50 acres; will allow the roads built for the project to remain private and maintained by Foxhall rather than turned over to the county to become public roads; and will now allow the Board of Commissioners to use the conference center twice per year upon availability.

“The new proposed agreement provides a much stronger benefit package for not only District 4 citizens but all of Douglas County as a whole,” District 4 Commissioner Ann Jones Guider said in a news release. “All local sales tax will be paid to the county and schools as opposed to the old 2016 agreement where the sales tax went to Foxhall to cover bonded indebtedness. Overall, the details in this year’s agreement provide a stronger financial package which outweighs the old agreement and all of Douglas County should be proud of what the Board of Commissioners accomplished.”

The county granted a 15-year tax abatement on the hotel, villas and clubhouse, and redirect the hotel/motel taxes generated by the project to cover debt service and offset marketing costs. Property taxes would start being paid within six years of operation.

Similar tax abatements in the county were granted to companies such as Microsoft and Google.

“I believe this new deal will bring a significant economic boost to Douglas County that will leave citizens proud of our special community,” Douglas County Commission Chair Romona Jackson Jones said. “The Douglas County Development Authority agreement will provide a 15-year tax abatement to Foxhall Development and redirect hotel/motel taxes generated by the Westin Hotel and conference center project to cover debt and marketing costs.”