By Rita Savard, rsavard@lowellsun.com
LOWELL -- Business owners once worried about UMass Lowell taking over the DoubleTree Hotel are now singing a different tune, as university officials promise an adrenaline shot for a sluggish downtown economy.
Meeting with local businesses at the Middlesex Community College Federal Building yesterday, UMass Chancellor Marty Meehan said the university's plan to buy the 252-room hotel will help pump a portion of $41.4 million in student spending into local restaurants and retail stores. And with plenty of space to accommodate large-party conferences and functions, Meehan urges brides and others not to cross the building off their list as a wedding or event destination place.
Meehan anticipates UMass Lowell will sign on the dotted line by the end of the month, officially buying the hotel from Rhode Island-based The Procaccianti Group for $15 million. The move, said Meehan, means UMass Lowell now has a strong economic interest in downtown.
"We're invested now, we can't afford to have a business close," Meehan said.
When downtown business owners peppered the chancellor with questions and concerns about losing a hotel, Meehan said the new UMass Lowell Inn and Conference Center will still provide rental rooms and function-hall accommodations to the public while sending a score of graduate students into downtown businesses.
"It will be a jolt to the economy," Meehan said.
By this fall, the university plans on having 200 to 350 students housed at the building. About $4 million in renovations are slated to begin by Aug. 1. Design plans show two separate entrances, including a second-floor entrance that leads students onto their own private floor with a lobby and activity areas.
The university is also hoping to introduce a downtown shopping debit card that can be used at participating businesses to encourage student spending.
"There's a misconception that students don't spend," Meehan said.
An economic and community impact study of student spending in the region, showed students spending an estimated $41.4 million in 2007, according to the Edlink Consortium, a group comprised of area colleges including UMass Lowell and Middlesex Community College, along with Appleseed Inc., a New-York-based economic development consulting firm.
While most business leaders speaking at yesterday's forum voice support for UMass' takeover, Cobblestones owner Scott Plath didn't seem convinced that converting the hotel was the best idea for all downtown businesses. He said his restaurant settled into downtown about 15 years ago because he thought he could offer something different other than the bars, diners and pubs that mostly filled up the city's center at that time.
"Students do buy, but they buy burritos and records," Plath said.
While Meehan joked that kids don't buy records anymore, UMass Lowell professor Bob Forrant said "their parents do."
Forrant told the crowd he recently took a group of students into downtown.
"They said, if they knew all this was here, they would have come down sooner," he said, adding that the university taking up residence downtown will be a merger with that strengthens business, academia, arts and entertainment in the city.
Deb Belanger, executive director of the Greater Merrimack Valley Convention and Visitors' Bureau, said when she first learned about UMass taking over the DoubleTree, she wondered how Lowell can be a destination city without a hotel.
Now Belanger said she believes having a conference center, student housing, function halls and public room rentals under one roof will bring people in and filter down to area businesses.
As it stands now, the DoubleTree has about a 29 percent occupancy rate. Even if UMass hadn't stepped in, the building would have been sold either way and it wouldn't have remained a hotel, Meehan said at a recent City Council meeting. A private medical company eyeing the property was interested in turning it into an assisted living facility.
Saying he has a big stake in the outcome as a downtown resident and business owner, Richard Rourke, owner of Ricardo's Cafe Trattoria on Gorham Street, admits being a skeptic at the start. Those thoughts have changed.
"I see it as a rebirth in an area in this city that for many years has been under appreciated," said Rourke, who lives behind the hotel. "I like what I see."
Although UMass plans to keep 30 to 60 rooms for public rentals, Meehan told the crowd that he understands psychologically, the idea of not having a hotel. He said he would be looking for a private developer to build a boutique hotel on a parcel of land next to the Tsongas Arena.
Parking continues to remain a problem area. While the 987-space garage was additionally constructed to be built up if needed, that's an area that still needs ironing out.
Helene Loiselle, chair of the Salvation Army, said the local nonprofit -- which has held its annual holiday fundraiser kick-off at the hotel for 18 years -- received a call from the DoubleTree about where to return their deposit for a function hall.
Meehan said UMass will honor all events currently booked, and looks forward to hosting many more in the future, including weddings. The chancellor said he was disappointed to hear that bride-to-be Alise Hamilton, whose story was recently published in The Sun, had to relocate her wedding after receiving a call from the DoubleTree. The wedding, Meehan said, could have gone on.
"We are going to do a lot more events there and I venture to say the food will be better and the service will be better," Meehan said. "We're married to downtown, we have to make this work."
UMass officials said the sale of the building will have no effect on those planning to book rooms at the hotel during the Folk Fesitval in July. Meehan said any one with questions about space already booked at the hotel in upcoming months can contact Executive Vice Chancellor Jackie Moloney at (978) 934-2943.
This story appeared in the Lowell Sun on Saturday, May 16, 2009