EAST TAMPA - The city council has postponed a decision to approve an extended-stay hotel on Columbus Drive to allow developers to meet with residents.

The next hearing is scheduled for 5:45 p.m. Feb. 14.

The council gave initial approval in November, but residents last week pushed again for the Value Place hotel to be rejected, saying other area motels have reputations for attracting drug activity and crime.

"We don't want unsavory people in our hotel," said Bob Smith of Liberty Investment Properties. "We're not like the other hotels. We want to be a good neighbor."

The four-story, 121-room hotel is proposed on a 2½-acre site on Columbus, east of 50th Street and an Interstate 4 exit near Seminole Hard Rock Casino and the Ford Amphitheatre.

The project requires several waivers, including for four stories and an 80-foot sign. The sale of the property is pending the council's vote.

Smith said no single-night stays will be allowed, and long-term guests would have to check out and back in weekly.

The meeting with residents likely will be scheduled by mid-January.

Resident Manuel Gutierrez said the developers should have come to the neighborhood before the zoning hearings. Motels "create too many problems," he said.

Councilwoman Linda Saul-Sena, who voted against the zoning in November, said the hotel would encroach into the neighborhood.

"If it was a food place, I'd be 1,000 percent for it," she said.

She said developers could build a smaller hotel and avoid the neighborhood.

Smith said the hotel is part of a national franchise and could not be scaled down. Similar hotels have been built in Boston, Phoenix and Salt Lake City, he said, and the investors who founded Value Place also developed Residence Inn and Summerfield Suites.

Councilman Thomas Scott said there are businesses in the area, which is a prime spot for redevelopment because it's near I-4.

Although there have been crime problems, Scott said, "You will not clean up an area if you don't do development."

Reporter Kathy Steele can be reached at (813) 835-2103 or ksteele@tampatrib.com.