Ames Hotel closing to make way for Suffolk University dormitory

The Ames Hotel at 1 Court Street in downtown Boston is reportedly closing September 24 to make way for its conversion into a Suffolk University dormitory. The hotel does not appear to be taking reservations past that date.

News of Suffolk acquiring the 114-room inn in the historic Ames building broke in late August. The school hopes to have students moving in by the fall of 2020 and paid $63.5 million for the site, per the Globe’s Tim Logan.

Its very acquisition of the property for well over the $53 million its seller, a Texas investment house called Invesco, paid for it in 2015 speaks to how far some Boston’s universities and colleges will go to house their students. It also highlights the high cost of prime real estate in downtown Boston.

Suffolk is but the latest Boston-area university or college to make a major real estate move recently. Northeastern partnered with a developer to open a private dormitory in the South End this fall. The University of Massachusetts-Boston opened its first dormitories ever last fall in Dorchester.

Other schools, including Emerson College and Boston College, have opened dormitories in recent years. And then there’s all the M.I.T.-related development in Kendall Square.