A developer seeking to construct a 35-room hotel on Flagstaff Mountain in Jim Thorpe received conditional preliminary approval from the borough on Thursday night.

Tim Markley, president of Surreal Properties and the owner of Flagstaff Ballroom, told council the three-story project is scaled down from the original goal of a five-story, 78-room condominium hotel.“This is more of a boutique hotel,” he said. “It will have balconies on some of the rooms. It just fits the community better than a larger hotel.”Markley had the plans for the smaller, roughly 23,500-square-foot, project before the Carbon County Planning Commission in February 2014, when they were rejected for not meeting a number of requirements within Jim Thorpe's land development ordinance.After addressing the issues, Markley and engineer Kevin Strunk said there is more work to be done, but they hoped Thursday's conditional preliminary approval would be a positive sign to investors that things are moving forward.“There are other reviews that need to be completed such as the borough engineer, county and the Department of Environmental Protection, but we feel we're coming fairly far along with this,” Strunk said.Kim Mazur, Jim Thorpe Borough's engineer, said he has been heavily involved with the project over the last few months.“There has been a lot of progress made,” Mazur said. “Ivan (Meixell Jr.) with the county planning office said when he gets the next set of plans, he anticipates conditional approval as well.”More details on the plans will be available in the Times News print edition.