A PITCH FOR FENWAY LOT
Eight-story hotel to replace Shell station
A 184-room hotel could replace the Shell gas and service station in Boston’s Fenway neighborhood.
OTO Development hopes to redevelop the property at 1241 Boylston St., at the corner of Ipswich Street, into a hotel with an independent restaurant, |according to a letter of intent to the Boston Planning & Development Agency.
The South Carolina-based hospitality development and hotel management company, as reported by the Herald in July, has an option to lease the nearly half-acre site from owner Patra Fenway LLC. The property is across from a CVS store and next to Boston Arts Academy/Fenway High School, and a short walk from Fenway Park.
OTO did not return calls for comment yesterday.
“Our intent is to develop an elegant, first-quality new hospitality facility that will supply badly needed additional hotel rooms to the area and contribute meaningfully to the fast-transforming Boylston Street,” Donald Wiest, OTO’s Boston attorney, said in the letter of intent. “The proposed hotel use will complement the primarily residential nature of this important urban thoroughfare, helping to sustain a lively pedestrian realm.”
The proposed 105,244-squarefoot building is expected to be contemporary and eight stories high, with a maximum height of 90 feet. It would include lounges, a small amount of meeting space, other “typical customer amenities” and 82 underground parking spaces.
“Traffic studies conducted in connection with the project indicate that, due to the change in use at the site from gas station to hotel, the project will cause the overall traffic to and from the site to lessen,” Wiest said in the letter.
OTO and its predecessor company, Extended Stay America, have developed more than 530 hotels, according to its website, which says OTO “thrives in challenging urban environments.” OTO currently manages 61 selectservice and extended-stay U.S. hotels and has four more under development. Its partners include Marriott’s Residence Inn, Courtyard, SpringHill Suites, Fairfield Inn & Suites and AC Hotels brands. Its closest hotel to Massachusetts is the Hampton Inn & Suites Hartford-Manchester in Connecticut.
Boston’s Fenway/Longwood Medical and Academic Area currently has seven hotels totaling 844 rooms. Those hotels had an 84.5 percent year-to-date occupancy rate through October and a $245.65 average daily room price, according to the most recent report by Boston hospitality consulting firm Pinnacle Advisory Group.