Hotel construction boom whets Worcester's appetite for visitors
WORCESTER - City officials hope that the opening of a new hotel early next year will bring Worcester one step closer to attracting conventions to the DCU Center that could bring thousands more people to lodge here and to spend money at local businesses.
A 100-room Hampton Inn, a Hilton hotel, is under construction. The hotel will open for business in early 2016, said Mark R. Stebbins, managing partner at Hooksett, N.H.-based XSS Hotels, a development and management company.
The new hotel on 65 Prescott St. abuts the Courtyard by Marriott on 72 Grove St., which has been part of XSS’ portfolio of 2,000 hotel rooms throughout the Northeast since 1999.
“We felt that there is some growth and that these brands were needed,” said Mr. Stebbins, of the demand for hotel rooms in the city. His company is also planning to build a 150-room Renaissance Hotel, a Marriott hotel, on Front Street in CitySquare. A construction date has not been set.
A 110-room Homewood Suites hotel, in Washington Square across the rotary from Union Station, is also due to break ground by end of the year.
Though the 360 additional rooms are a great sign of progress for Worcester, for now all they will do is generously replenish the 243 rooms lost when the Crowne Plaza Hotel in Lincoln Square closed in 2010 when its owners defaulted on a mortgage. That building has since been converted into dorms and classroom space by MCPHS University.
http://www.telegram.com/article/2015...09714/0/SEARCH
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WPI considers razing Alumni Gym
WORCESTER - For nearly 100 years, Alumni Gymnasium has been a prominent fixture in the heart of the Worcester Polytechnic Institute campus.
Located in the northeast corner of the campus quadrangle, the five-level, three-story high brick building, which is the college’s original gymnasium and among its oldest buildings, has been a long-time home to WPI athletics and student recreation.
But when the college’s new Sports and Recreation Center opened in 2012, Alumni Gym was vacated for athletic and recreational purposes and has pretty much remained empty since.
While several efforts have been made in recent years to explore how the historic building could be re-used, WPI officials have found potential options to be too costly and an inefficient use of the building.
As a result, the college is considering razing Alumni Gym and putting up in its place a versatile new facility for academic purposes that would serve as a new icon for WPI.
http://www.telegram.com/article/2015...29160/0/SEARCH
I disapprove, and I think it would be a terrible mistake to demo Alumni Gym, but it really does need a lot of work to be useful again.