Jun. 13--TAMPA, Fla.--An Orlando developer has signed a deal to build a nine-story Renaissance hotel at International Plaza. 

Construction of the 300-room, four-star property is scheduled to begin in early 2003 with an opening in 2004. 

The hotel, which will sit between the outdoor restaurant district and Neiman Marcus, will be Tampa's first Renaissance and the third Marriott property within a mile of Tampa International Airport. It's also the first hotel CNL Financial Group Inc. has built in the Tampa Bay area. 

"We love hotel projects that serve several markets and this one certainly will," said Charlie Muller, chief operating officer of CNL Hospitality Corp., which owns 54 hotels. 

Hotels that are wings of regional malls are somewhat rare. Few have been built since the early 1980s. There's a Westin hotel at the Florida Mall in Orlando. Hotels are part of the Galleria malls in both Dallas and Houston. 

"Shopping can be good draw card for a hotel, but in this case the real drawing cards are being so close the airport and all that first-class office space in the West Shore district," said Chuck Ross, a principal with Atlantic Hospitality Group in Valrico. 

The West Shore market is second only to the Gulf Beaches in the number of hotel rooms it supports. 

CNL said it has been proved in South Florida that many people pick their vacation spots based on upscale shopping opportunities. 

"With a mall of this quality next door, we think we can penetrate the leisure travel market even deeper," Muller said. 

A hotel has been envisioned at International Plaza since the upscale shopping mall was proposed years ago. The building's height is expected to fit the limit already approved by the Hillsborough County Aviation Authority, the mall's landlords. Mall developers with Taubman Centers Inc. think the hotel will be a big draw for people who fly private and corporate jets that land at Tampa International Airport's nearby general aviation terminal. 

"When big events such as the Super Bowl come to Tampa, I think you'll see the high rollers and top executives check in at this hotel," said John Simon, Taubman's senior vice president of development. 

Budgeted to cost up to $50-million, the hotel will be next to Bay Street, the mall's outdoor plaza that has restaurants ranging from the Cheesecake Factory to Blue Martini. 

The hotel itself would have a restaurant, pool, fitness center and club level with a lounge. Marriott officials envision putting a signature restaurant there. 

While many Renaissance hotels are known for their reliance on the meetings and convention business, this one will have only a small 9,500 square feet of meeting space. That's because Renaissance and CNL see the Tampa property filling up with enough leisure and business travelers without a lot of meeting and conference facilities. 

Marriott bought the Renaissance chain several years ago and has tried to differentiate the brand from the nine others Marriott owns. Priced below the luxury Ritz-Carlton chain, Renaissance fits in the full-service hotel level around Marriott and newer J.W. Marriott brands. The International Plaza Renaissance would become the fifth in Florida. The only other one in the Tampa Bay area is the Renaissance Vinoy Resort in St. Petersburg. 

"Renaissance serves a different customer," Marriott International spokesman Roger Conner said. "We try to make them more individualized and stylized. We want them to have a boutique hotel feel to them." 

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(c) 2002, St. Petersburg Times, Fla. Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News.