Developer: Worcester hotel would help meet business demand
PHOTO/COURTESY
An artist's rendering of a hotel proposed for Washington Square, which would be housed on the former KJ Baaron's site.
A proposed six-story, 120-room hotel next to the Washington Square rotary in Worcester would fill a need in the city and complement its downtown economic development strategy, the hotel’s developers told a neighborhood group Thursday night.
The hotel would be located on land that once housed KJ Baaron’s liquor store. (Baaron’s moved last year to West Boylston Street in Worcester’s Greendale section.) The developer for the proposed hotel, First Bristol Corp. of Fall River, has reached an agreement with the Worcester Redevelopment Authority to buy the land – which is just less than an acre – for $150,000. A formal purchase-and-sale agreement would be signed pending the outcome of soil and environmental testing of the site.
James Karam, president of First Bristol, said his firm will pay for testing and site cleanup.
Karam, who said his firm has built six hotels, with a seventh under construction next to Logan International Airport in East Boston, told about 25 people at a meeting of the Shrewsbury Street Neighborhood Association that the Worcester hotel would target “extended stay” business travelers seeking a place to stay for several nights. “It’s really for people who are on the road quite often,” he said.
The site would also accommodate parking for about 120 vehicles that would enter and exit the site away from the already heavy traffic at the rotary separating the site from Union Station, Karam said.
The hotel, which would cover about 16,000 square feet at street level, would cost between $15 million and $18 million to build and could open by the middle of 2016 if there are no delays, he indicated. The site would generate 17 full-time and 30 part-time jobs, and more than $200,000 in annual property tax revenue for the city, plus thousands more in hotel taxes, Karam added.
The hotel will likely carry the Hilton brand, one of only two brands – the other being Marriott – that First Bristol works with, Karam said.
Karam said First Bristol also likes the location, right between downtown and Shrewsbury Street’s “restaurant row.”
“As you know, people are moving back (to) downtowns,” he told the meeting. “Downtowns are becoming more active.”
While some attendees at the meeting had questions about the proposal, no one raised objections. Gary Vecchio, president of the neighborhood group, asked for a show of hands from anyone who had objections. There were none.
Vecchio told the gathering he had seen the plans last week and “I was very excited about what I saw,” he said. “I hope you are too.”
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