It’s mostly known as a suburban business hotel brand, but Four Points by Sheraton is breaking into the resort marketplace. Yesterday, the chain opened its first resort hotel, a 106-room property on the Charlotte Harbor waterfront in Punta Gorda, FL. Two additional resorts (in China and Thailand) are in the pipeline and will open in 2011.

A partnership led by Interdevco & Christopher Companies owns the newly constructed property.

The Punta Gorda Four Points is also the chain’s first with its Getaway interior design package. The resort-like design, which Four Points likens to “a lake house or breezy beach cottage,” features white and honey-colored woods with blue and green accents. Other design packages include City View and New Homestead. Guestrooms in the new hotel, as well as other new and renovated Four Points, feature 32-inch flat-screen TVs, free bottled water, complimentary high-speed Internet access and a signature bedding package.

Four Points’ entry into the resort market is another step in a five-year program to reinvent and grow the brand. During that time, parent company Starwood and its partners have invested more than $1 billion on the brand, while the chain’s portfolio has seen a 70-percent turnover through property renovations, conversions and new-build hotels.

On June 11, the first of the new Four Points by Sheraton prototype properties opens in San Antonio, followed by openings in Columbus, OH and other markets.

The Four Points brand has 135 properties in 22 countries, with 22 openings scheduled for this year. North America has the greatest concentration with 92 hotels and more than 15,000 rooms.