Southbridge Center Struggles Under DOD's Thumb | Conference facility fails to live up to its initial promise
Photo/Matthew L. Brown
The Southbridge Hotel & Conference Center isn't as busy as some hoped it would be when it opened.
If not for a 20-year, $9.6 million-per year contact with the U.S. Department of Defense, the hotel and conference center would not exist. It never would’ve been built. And if the DOD terminated its contract today, it’s unlikely that the center would survive. The DOD, which runs a management program at the center, accounts for about 60 percent of the hotel and conference center’s business, according to its owner, Franklin Realty Advisors of Boston. The DOD also occupies about 60,000 square feet on the second and third floors of the center.
Because of the DOD contract, the 203-room hotel loses civilian business when scheduling around the DOD is impossible, and it often is.
“We were told that the hotel and conference center would be much more utilized by the federal government than it is, and we expected that there would be a lot more conferences and meetings,” Acly said. “There’s less third-party business, and that’s really disappointing.”
What’s not disappointing is the appearance of the hotel and conference center and the fact that it’s in Southbridge at all. The facility is beautiful. Its façade, which for generations belonged to an American Optical mill, was painstakingly refurbished, and neither its interior nor the amenities and services the hotel provides would be out of place in a big city, never mind a former factory town of about 15,000 residents.
And despite sometimes difficult scheduling, the hotel “is used more than people think it is” Acly said.
That sentiment was echoed by Dick Whitney, a local historian and long-time AO employee. He said too many townspeople think the hotel, which includes a public gym, fitness center and pool, is “totally empty.”
Starving For Attention
A pessimist could be forgiven for thinking that way, however. From Route 131, which directly abuts the massive brick AO factory wall behind which the hotel was built, it doesn’t look like much is going on.
That is in stark contrast to the hype surrounding the development’s beginning stages nearly 10 years ago. The center opened in 2002 after the town won the DOD’s approval to site a training center there.
Back when the center was being planned, Lorraine U. Martinelle was editor of the Southbridge Evening News. “When the project was in development, officials promised big things for the center, like hundreds of jobs, and those big things were supposed to trickle over into Southbridge’s economy,” Martinelle, a Southbridge resident, said. “As the project progressed, that job number kept declining.”
Still, many locals were delighted to have the center there. It looked great and included a nice restaurant, a bar and lounge and provided folks with a classy place to go without leaving town. But it didn’t last. “After a couple years, they stopped serving food at the bar, and the music stopped. I haven’t been there in years, so I don’t know what it’s like there now, and whether the food has returned,” Martinelle said.
During a tour one recent afternoon, the center’s parking lot was nearly full. Its bar was being used by an area social group holding a meeting at the facility and staff was busily preparing the restaurant for dinner service.
Franklin Realty says it’s doing more these days to market the hotel and conference center to civilians. But it’s worth remembering that the hotel and conference center makes up less than half of the Southbridge Business Center. And the collection of office and industrial properties that make up the business center are as much as 60 percent vacant, said Ronald M. Recchino, Franklin Realty Advisors property manager. Of the Southbridge Business Center’s 1.2 million square feet, 400,000 square feet belongs to the hotel and conference center. Another 500,000-600,000 square feet is leasable, Recchino said.
All told, the center is between 55 and 60 percent occupied by a mix of office, warehouse, industrial and manufacturing tenants.
There are two entire old mill buildings on the site that Franklin has mothballed, but may develop as 120 to 150 units of housing for a U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs program that would give returning vets a place to live as well as a call center at which to work and train for two years before being placed in private sector jobs.
No matter who the business center’s commercial tenants are, they’re critical to the success of the hotel, Franklin “Chip” Norton of Franklin Realty Advisors said.
But it’s a double-edged sword, he said. “If not for that (DOD contract), we wouldn’t have the facility. They also use it in the winter. There are some good weeks and some not-so-good weeks. The challenge is developing our non-government business.”
And even though the government is “as accommodating as they can be,” the hotel does lose some business because of the DOD’s schedule, Norton said.
Laurel Caouette knows the havoc the DOD’s schedule can play on the hotel. Caouette is a Southbridge resident and did marketing and event planning for the hotel and conference center until about two years ago. She now leads marketing and event planning at the Sturbridge Host Hotel & Conference Center.
She said at times during her tenure, 80 percent of the hotel and conference center was booked by the DOD.
“It’s a whole different ballgame with them because of the contract with the DOD,” Caouette said. “We book out three or four years in advance, and you’re not able to do that there.”
“The place is beautiful, the food is phenomenal and the place is clean as a whistle, but the DOD...” Caouette said. When she was there, civilian guests could buy out space reserved by the DOD, she said, but the DOD rate was greater than the normal rate.
It was particularly frustrating for Caouette when the hotel would turn away guests they were unable to accommodate only to have the DOD leave sufficient space for those guests unused. The hotel would “still get paid, but you can’t build a reputation for consistency if that’s the way you have to do it,” she said.
Still, Caouette finds herself sending business the Southbridge Hotel & Conference Center’s way. The conference center’s audio, video and computer technology, she said, is far beyond what many area facilities offer.
“It works well for local companies and some larger companies,” Recchino said. “They use it for training for a week or three days, and it’s doing better. We keep trying to sell it more and more…Christmas parties, weddings, all that kind of stuff.”
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