The Planning Board last Thursday approved a plan to construct a Residence Inn by Marriott adjacent to the Northshore Mall at 0 Prospect St., the site of the Logan Express shuttle service, with a number of conditions imposed by the city’s Office of Community Development in place.
Among those conditions are that any change of use for the site requires approval by the Planning Board, any proposed residential use on the site requires approval from the Planning Board and the City Council, and the installation of a “robust landscaping strip” along the Prospect Street property edge. Each of the first two conditions were called for by Mayor Ted Bettencourt in a letter sent to the board in July.
Attorney Damon Ankeles, who is representing the developer, said the applicant agreed to each request as a condition of approval.
The city’s senior planner, Andrew Levin, said the Department of Community Development was comfortable with approval of the project with the conditions in place. And, any building permit for the project will not be issued until each condition set out in a memo from City Engineer Robert Langley is satisfied.
The Residence Inn would have an entrance on the eastern side of the Northshore Mall on Andover Street, and the mall owns the land the hotel would sit on. The developer, PEG Companies, is proposing 142 hotel rooms on the site, with no restaurant, bar, or function hall at the hotel. The hotel would feature an indoor pool and a small gym, Ankeles told the Planning Board in May.
The new building would be approximately 42 feet tall, and take up slightly more than 25% of the existing lot with more than 100 parking spaces in place for those staying at the hotel. During his presentation to the board, Ankeles repeatedly emphasized that the hotel would not be used as a long-term solution for housing due to the prohibitive cost of paying a nightly rate for a hotel room and Marriott disallowing any renting or leasing of a hotel room as an apartment.
Should the hotel need additional parking, an agreement was in place with the mall to loan out spaces.
Ankeles said the goal would be for the hotel to boost businesses at the mall, particularly given the adjacency between the two properties. He estimated that build-out of the hotel would take a year or more.
