Harbinger Development may have plants add hotel supply to Boston’s Seaport District. According to Pat Moscaritolo, president of the Greater Boston Convention & Visitors Bureau, the area is in need of midmarket and extended-stay hotels, and a report released by the Massachusetts Convention Center Authority found the Boston Convention & Exhibition Center ranked dead last among the city’s competitors when measuring the number of hotels within walking distance.
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This lack of rooms near the convention center is most likely the cause of the city’s decline in convention bookings, but Harbinger Development’s project in the city could release some of that pent-up demand. Harbinger plans on building a dual-branded complex with more than 400 guestrooms, and the development will be midway between the convention center and the city’s cruise ship terminals.
Construction is expected to start spring 2017 on what Harbinger is calling Marine Wharf. The project will consist of a 253-room Hampton Inn and a 166-room Homewood Suites in one building. The hotel will occupy 1.2 acres of land owned by the city at the corner of Summer Street and Drydock Avenue.
“It’s a great opportunity,” Harbinger’s owner, Eamon O’Marah, said in a statement. “We can serve a bunch of different markets: the convention center, the Seaport, the airport, the cruise port.”
“A lot of people are looking for exactly this kind of product,” Moscaritolo said in a statement. “As an exhibitor you don’t really need all the extra amenities of the four- and five-star hotels.”