Developer Proposes Four-Story Hotel Across From Hyannis Harbor

By: James Kinsella
Published: 02/18/11

A four-story, 105-room year-round Marriott hotel is being proposed for the corner of Ocean and Nantucket streets across from Hyannis Inner Harbor.

Douglas D. Cohen, principal of the Newport Hotel Group of Middletown, Rhode Island, and his attorney, Michael Ford of Harwich, came before the Barnstable Planning Board at its meeting Monday night for an informal discussion of the proposal.

The 69,720-square-foot hotel would be built in part on the property occupied last summer by the Hyannis Anglers Club at 235 Ocean Street.

The club building was seriously damaged in a fire last August and has not reopened.

Mr. Cohen said he has a purchase-and-sale agreement to buy the club property.

The new hotel would be built next to an existing Newport Hotel Group property, the Hyannis Harbor Hotel at 213 Ocean Street, which is open on a seasonal basis.

The Hyannis Harbor Hotel, which has 136 rooms, sits on a 3.8-acre parcel with parking in its rear.

Mr. Cohen said the current Harbor Hotel parcel would help provide parking for the proposed year-round hotel.

He anticipates sufficient space will be available at the existing and proposed hotel site to provide the needed on-site parking.

Mr. Ford said he plans to submit an application for a regulatory agreement this month to the planning board, with the goal of opening a public hearing next month on the hotel proposal.

The new hotel would be built on the site of the Anglers Club building and two neighboring lots—one vacant, one with a house—at 22 and 24 Nantucket Street.

Mr. Ford said the three parcels together comprise about a half-acre.

A tentative elevation of the proposed hotel was submitted in packets provided Monday to the planning board.

Mr. Cohen said he has been in touch with George Jessop, chairman of the Hyannis Main Street Waterfront Historic District Commission, and while Marriott has guidelines concerning their hotel exteriors, a final design has yet to be determined.

Separate management teams would operate the existing and proposed hotels, according to Mr. Cohen.

The Newport group bought what is now known as the Hyannis Harbor Hotel in 1999, and has renovated the property.

Planning board member Felicia R. Penn said the Newport Hotel Group has done a “tremendous job” in enhancing Hyannis Harbor Hotel.

Planning board chairman Raymond B. Lang said the proposed hotel looks like “an exciting project,” the sort of development that the Hyannis Growth Incentive Zone was intended to encourage.

“Let’s make it good, let’s make it work, and let’s do it,” Mr. Lang said.

At present, the Newport Hotel Group owns and operates seven hotels.

In addition to the Hyannis Harbor Hotel, the group runs the Inn On The Square in Falmouth, the North Conway Grand Hotel in North Conway, New Hampshire, the Newport Beach Hotel and Suites in Newport, Rhode Island, the New Haven Hotel at Yale University and the Courtyard by Marriott at Yale University, both in New Haven, Connecticut, and the Holiday Inn Express in Middletown, Rhode Island.