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Hopes grow for hotel in New Bedford
Natalie Myers
Providence Business News
 After
nearly 40 years without a hotel downtown or along the
nearby waterfront, it looks as though New Bedford might
finally get one.
Lafrance Hospitality Co. is in the process of
negotiating a purchase and sale agreement for the
Finicky Cat Food property at 16 Front St. on the city’s
waterfront.
“We haven’t finalized anything at this point,” said
Richard Lafrance, CEO of the Westport-based hospitality
company, which owns and operates four Hampton Inn hotels
in Massachusetts and one Comfort Inn in New Hampshire.
“In a month we can probably announce the whole thing.”
But LaFrance did say the plan is to build a 90- to
100-room hotel on the 2-acre property. The company hopes
to start construction by next spring. Lafrance said he
estimates it will be a $9- to $10-million project.
If it happens, the hotel deal would come none too soon
for the small seaport city.
New Bedford needs a hotel closer to downtown, said Matt
Morrissey, executive director of the New Bedford
Economic Development Council. The number of tourists
visiting the city has increased 11 percent from 2005 to
2006 to a total of 800,000. Morrissey said, however, the
there has been a 25 percent growth in the number of
visitors in the past few years.
A surge of arts and cultural events and organizations is
attracting people, and with that more restaurants and
new businesses are opening.
But there is no place for out-of-town visitors to stay,
unless they want to stay at the Days Inn off Interstate
195, about four miles from the heart of downtown, or the
Comfort Inn, the extended-stay Marriott Residence Inn or
the Dartmouth Motor Inn, all of which are about five
miles away from the city’s attractions.
The property on Front Street, on the other hand, sits
about 300 yards away from historic downtown New Bedford,
Morrissey said.
“[The hotel] will be a tremendous asset to overall
economic development in the city,” he said. “It’s the
missing link.”
Katherine Knowles, executive director of the Zeiterion
Theater, which is about 500 yards from where the hotel
would be located, used other words to describe the
hotel’s contribution to economic development.
Especially from an arts and culture organization’s
perspective, Knowles said, a hotel within walking
distance is “vitally important” to the economic health
of the city.
About 20 percent of the theater’s audience comes from
Providence, she said. A smaller percent comes from
Connecticut and upstate New York. But Knowles thinks
more would come and stay the night of the show if there
were a more accessible hotel.
“There is a whole day of activities available downtown,”
she said, listing the New Bedford Whaling Museum, the
New Bedford Art Museum and a number of galleries,
restaurants and the working waterfront. “The hotel would
change the dynamic. More people would come for the day.”
In addition, Morrissey said, 33 percent more people are
taking the fast ferry from New Bedford to Martha’s
Vineyard. He hopes the hotel would sway them to stay in
the city a bit longer before or after they take the
ferry.
“We have to explain why we don’t have [a hotel] at this
point,” he said. “Individuals coming to the city, they
look for the hotel … and not having a national brand
hotel like a Hilton or Marriott or a high-end boutique
hotel … it doesn’t accurately reflect our development
activity.”
Since 2000, New Bedford has experienced more than $80
million in renovations to commercial and residential
property downtown, though some projects are under way or
in pre-construction.
Other hotel deals had been announced and then fell
through since then, Morrissey said. But he would not
comment as to why.
He did say, however, that Mayor Scott Lang made
attracting a hotel developer to the downtown a priority
shortly after taking office in January last year.
Around the same time, the NBEDC commissioned a hotel
market demand study with Pinnacle Advisory Group. The
study concluded that New Bedford is “an emerging market
that’s clearly expanding,” Morrissey said. “It said a
hotel downtown/waterfront is warranted.”
The NBEDC used the results of the study to attract about
a dozen hotel developers to visit the city.
“Lafrance was the most aggressive in creating a sense of
understanding of the market,” Morrissey said. “And in
understanding what we were hoping would be developed.”
August 2007 |
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