Developers broke ground on a new hotel at The Summit at Fritz Farm Thursday. The $24 million dollar development is only the second of its kind so far.
On the Origin website, the destinations are billed as a “culture of the creative,” catering to travelers with a passion for exploring local culture. To that end, developer Walker Thrash says the hotel plans to effectively crowdsource its own visitors.
"If we could create a really authentic local Yelp inside the hotel, I mean that's the goal," he says, moments after turning over the first pile of dirt in a space tucked toward the back of the Summit.
Thrash says Origin will amass a "menu of experiences."
"And on a daily basis, they're creating this daily menu of activities and then they're asking guests, hey, if you enjoyed it, let us know. Or if you didn't enjoy it, you know, if it's not what we thought it was, tell us," he explains. "So the longer this product's here, the more perfected that that list would become. And there are always new experiences popping up in a city like Lexington."
That urban growth played a factor in attracting the boutique hotel in the first place, he says. The Lexington location will be the second of four planned Origin hotels, with the first scheduled to open near the Red Rocks Amphitheatre in Colorado in May.
The Origin at The Summit is slated for completion in Winter 2018.
