It took less than 12 months about 20 months from when Mark’s Development Robert Korf first proposed this new hotel until it received city approval.
by village14 | Dec 17, 2019 | Newton | 10 comments
It took less than 12 months about 20 months from when Mark’s Development Robert Korf first proposed this new hotel until it received city approval.
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Gee, I hope the headline didn’t spur any trips to the cardiologist for anyone. You didn’t actually think I actually meant our city did you?
BTW, Watertown, another city where projects aren’t held hostage for years, is presently building three brand new elementary schools, without an override or state aid from the School Building Assistance program AND a brand new high school, also without an override.
I knew it wasn’t Newton, 29 Stories gave it away.
and “less than twelve months.”
Since I wild held fear I hear on V14 is that Newton will turn into another Watertown probably not the best comparison
391 hotel rooms.
Newton has a grand total of 891 hotel rooms. Currently on the property Mark Dev. will be developing there are 191 hotel rooms. An earlier proposal increased that to 194. The new proposal, negotiated on the city’s behalf by a few residents of the LFIA, who were not elected by anyone, includes 150 hotel rooms.
With a 6% room occupancy tax in Newton, each room provides net income to the city of $2,274 annually. As far as I understand, that number is up and above any commercial tax revenue on the property.
Newton hasn’t built a new hotel since 1971 (after much hand wringing about traffic, congestion, home values, urbanization… you get the idea). Needham is currently building its third in a matter of just a few years. That will give them four on a spit of land just over the Newton line. We get none of that tax revenue.
Our city should be ashamed of what it does to developers. It’s no wonder they all take their revenue-producing projects elsewhere.
See you at the fight about the override!
What Chuck said.
More hotels in Newton would be really nice. We don’t have a big enough house to accommodate overnight guests comfortably, so sometimes when we have out of town visitors they opt to stay in a hotel but only a few are convenient on the Northside – usually they end up finding better options in Waltham because they have a Hampton Inn, Holiday Inn Express, Hyatt House, etc. Not that I’m saying we need a cluster of hotels like Waltham has, but a few more hotels would be nice. Even some small ones like the Crescent Street Inn in Waltham would work. Add shuttles to Boston and Cambridge and we can get some tourism dollars right here in Newton.
@Greg – I am sure you know that Mark Development actually filed a project notification form with the BPDA in March 2018 (which started the process) – it is all documented online. How are you getting less than 12 months from that? If you are going to try to be sensationalist, at least be accurate.
http://www.bostonplans.org/projects/development-projects/kenmore-hotel
@Jennifer: Not trying to be sensationalist. I just got it wrong. I was going by the BBJ reporting. Thanks for the correction. Updated.
My first thoughts when I read the headline was excitement along with the hope that the hotel would be on the river, accessible by 128 and the river, would include suites and a convention center to bring business meetings here.
I should have known better!