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Hotel proposed for New Bedford waterfront
By Aaron Nicodemus
Standard-Times staff writer
 NEW
BEDFORD — After years of false starts, a major, national
hotel chain is apparently coming to downtown New
Bedford.
Lafrance Hospitality Co. of Westport, the owner of four
hotels, including the Hampton Inns in Westport and
Fairhaven, is in the process of buying the Finicky Cat
Food property at 16 Front St. on the city's waterfront.
Company CEO Richard Lafrance confirmed Wednesday the
company is actively negotiating with the owner of the
property, the Nanfelt family, for the 2-acre parcel that
is located directly across from the Bourne Counting
House on Merrill's Wharf. The purchase and sale has not
been finalized, but a verbal agreement has been reached
and the purchase and sale is being negotiated, he said.
"We've talked to some major hotel companies, and they're
very interested in granting us franchises for hotel
property in the area," Mr. Lafrance said. "We've been in
the market for 20 years, we know the market pretty well,
we live in the market, and we know the people who
generate business in the market."
Mr. Lafrance could not say which major hotel chain might
grant the company a franchise for the site.
Once the purchase is complete, Lafrance Hospitality will
propose building a hotel with 85 to 100 rooms and some
conference space. He said the company will be looking to
save the historic Baker-Robinson Oil Works Building
located on the property as part of the new hotel. In
2002, the former whale-oil processing plant was named
one of the 10 most endangered historic buildings in the
state by the nonprofit group Historic Massachusetts.
"We'd like to incorporate that structure into our
design," he said.
In addition to the hotels it owns locally, Lafrance
Hospitality owns Hampton Inns in Franklin and Plymouth
and operates a Hampton Inn and Comfort Inn in Dover, N.H.
The firm is building a Comfort Inn in Farmington, Maine,
and has plans to build another national hotel in Dover.
Lafrance Hospitality also operates three restaurants:
White's of Westport, Rachel's Lakeside in Dartmouth and
Bittersweet Farms Restaurant and Tavern in Westport.
The owner of the property at 16 Front St., the Nanfelt
family, could not be reached for comment. A clerk at
Finicky Pet Foods referred a reporter to Scott Nanfelt,
who did not return a call for comment.
Mayor Scott W. Lang said the development of a hotel is
"an extremely important project so people can stay near
the downtown." He said the conference space will be
helpful to all the businesses in the area, from tourist
spots such as the Whaling Museum and Zeiterion Theatre
to the fish processing plants along the working
waterfront.
"We were very bullish to get a hotel," Mayor Lang said.
"I think this hotel will be very popular very quickly."
The hotel deal came together after a study by a
nationally-recognized hotel marketing group concluded
that there was room for an 85- to 120-room "boutique"
hotel in the downtown area.
Matthew A. Morrissey, executive director of the New
Bedford Economic Development Council, said the city
aggressively marketed the report and brought about a
dozen hotel developers to various sites throughout the
city.
"There were a lot of people who said we would never have
another hotel in downtown New Bedford," Mr. Morrissey
said. "This was about persistence."
There are still some stumbling blocks to the completion
of the deal.
Finicky Pet Foods will have to be moved. Mr. Morrissey
said Finicky has signed an agreement to buy the vacant
MISB fish processing plant on the South Terminal
waterfront and will move there.
Finicky is owned by to W.F. Schofield and Co., the
largest supplier of fish and animal food supplies to the
pet-food industry in the United States. The Nanfelt
family rents the space to Finicky and still owns the
building.
NStar owns a small office on what would become the site
of the hotel, and negotiations to move that office and
sell the property are in the early stages. Mr. Morrissey
could not comment on the status of those negotiations.
And, finally, Lafrance Hospitality will have to
negotiate with Mass Highway regarding access from a
rebuilt Route 18, which will run directly adjacent to
the property.
It has been many years since the downtown had a hotel.
In 1969, after years of hosting presidents and movie
stars, the grand old New Bedford Hotel shut its doors.
Three years later it reopened as 112 units of public
housing.
The city has had lots of false starts with a downtown
hotel since, including any number of negotiations that
failed to produce a replacement.
In 2000, then-Mayor Frederick M. Kalisz Jr. announced
the city was in negotiations with a major hotel
developer considering building atop the Elm Street
Garage.
In 2001, Scott Nanfelt announced that the Finicky Pet
Foods plant would be closed, in the hope that a hotel
developer would purchase it. At that time, the hotel
would have complemented the New Bedford Oceanarium that
was planned for the former NStar power station located a
few blocks away.
In 2004, a boutique hotel developer from Philadelphia
was reportedly close to purchasing the former New
Bedford Institute for Savings building on Union Street,
with plans to convert it into a small hotel. But, like
proposals before it, that plan also fell apart.
Contact Aaron Nicodemus at
anicodemus@s-t.com
Publication date: May 31, 2007 |
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