Washington Square Hotel Plans Revealed in Worcester

Friday, November 21, 2014

Patrick Sargent, GoLocal Worcester Contributor

James Karam, President of First Bristol Corporation

On Thursday night at Mount Carmel Recreation Center, representatives from First Bristol Corporation and Ventry Associates presented plans for a hotel at Washington Square to the Shrewsbury Street Neighborhood Association.

"We want to make sure the project comes under budget and becomes a reality for the community," said James Karam, President of First Bristol Corporation. "We hope to start construction in second quarter next year. Hopefully sometime between April and June."

First Bristol is a 35-year-old company based in Fall River. They only seven hotels, and are currently building a Hilton Garden Inn in Boston.

Hotel in Worcester

State Representative Mary Keefe said, "There's a strong need for more hotels in the city. Most of my district is downtown and seeing a lot of development."

Karam said, "The demand is here in Worcester. People are moving back to downtown. Downtown is becoming more vibrant and active."

The hotel will be an extended stay hotel. It will feature 120 rooms (including six or seven handicap accessible rooms), 120 parking spaces, a large fitness center and a pool. There will be no restaurant in the hotel but it will offer breakfast and light hors d'oeuvres. Each hotel room will have a small kitchen area with a convection oven. There will be two meeting rooms that hold 25 people each.

"It's really good for people who are on the road quite often," said Karam. "It attracts a segment of the market that is not being treated as well as they should be." Karam noted the Residence Inn on Plantation Street is an extended stay hotel, but their market studies showed a demand for an additional extended stay hotel.

The building will be six stories high to not block the view of Union Station from Interstate 290 and will cost between $15-$18 million to build. The presence of the hotel will generate as much as $350,000 a year in property and hotel taxes for the city.

First Bristol purchased the land for $150,000. Of that total, $100,000 is going into a labor fund for the city, and $50,000 will go towards Worcester Redevelopment Authority's operations.

The entrance for the hotel will be on Summer Street.

Response from Worcester Community

Possible Lobby of Proposed Hotel

The hotel will provide at least 30 new jobs in the city. 17 of those jobs will be full-time positions. Karam said, "We will use the same parameters to hire local people that we always have. We not only say that we are going to do it, but we prove it to the community."

"We have been well-received to date," said Dennis Murphy, President of Ventry Associates in Worcester, and spokesperson for First Bristol Corporation. "We were sent here to listen first, rather than barge into the community. We are all anxious to get this project underway. Unfortunately, there are just some hurdles we need to do."

Next week, First Bristol will begin to drill to test the ground at the hotel's future site. Murphy said,"We don't know if it's a $100,000 job or not to clean it up. Nobody knows what's underneath that ground." The city will authorize First Bristol a temporary access permit to begin the drilling.

Beyond checking the ground of the site, First Bristol also has to figure out the budgeting of constructing the hotel. "By no means is it an absolute ready to go project," said Karam.

City Councilor Phil Palmieri said, "We need to keep some type of momentum going. The momentum of the entire city and the development. We are anxious to see shovels in the ground."