Rendering of a multi-story hotel complex on a waterfront, with a highway zipping through.

Boston’s incoming hotels, mapped

These eight Boston-Cambridge inns highlight the biggest jump in hotel-room construction in the cities this century

By Tom Acitelli@tomacitelli Feb 25, 2020, 5:54am EST

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By Tom Acitelli@tomacitelli Feb 25, 2020, 5:54am EST

1 comment / new

Perkins+Will

There are eight major hotels under construction in Boston and Cambridge as of the end of February. Together, the projects are due to add 2,398 rooms by mid-2022, and represent the biggest jump in hotel-room construction in both cities this century.

By the middle of 2022, too, a slew of other new hotels will likely be underway. The Boston Planning and Development Agency and Cambridge Community Development, that city’s planning agency, have approved 18 projects beyond the eight on this map.

These 18 include a 360-room component of the big redevelopment plans for Boston’s South Station, the 391-room Kenmore Hotel that’s due to resemble Manhattan’s Flatiron Building, and the 250-key Harvard Hotel and Conference Center in Brighton. But these are in the offing. The eight hotels herein are more imminent.

And they by themselves highlight the explosive growth in hotel development in Boston and Cambridge. The 2,405 room count for those hotels opening in 2020, 2021, and early 2022 is higher than the 2,082 rooms that opened in 2018 and 2019 in the two cities, according to Pinnacle Advisory Group, a consultancy.

The 6.6 percent annual increase in room supply expected in 2021, in fact, will be the largest such increase since 1999. See the chart below for more perspective.

The developments, too, belie the health of the hospitality market from an industry perspective (which, in turn, helps explain the construction). The Boston-Cambridge market is one of the strongest in the U.S., with an occupancy rate of 82.5 percent and an average daily room rate of $261.31 at the end of 2019, according to Pinnacle.

And as far as revenue per room—the big measure for hotel operators—that was $215.61 at the end of last year, similar to what it was at the close of 2018.

907 Main

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Central Square’s first boutique hotel, 907 Main, is due to open in the spring, the latest change in the Cambridge enclave off the Red Line.

The five-story, 67-room inn at Main and Columbia streets is already collecting plaudits, including for the eateries and the look that it will bring to a Central sometimes described as gritty and certainly caught between the posher environs of Harvard-dominated Harvard Square on one end and M.I.T.-dominated Kendall Square on the other.

“There was a time—let’s say 25 years ago—when the idea of a boutique hotel in Central Square would have made as much sense as a beauty parlor for salamanders,” Globe travel writer Christopher Muther wrote. “A lot can change in 25 years.”

The boutique, which Gensler designed, will include an outpost of Toscanini’s Ice Cream and a new restaurant called the Dial (rendered above). The 1871 building had hosted 12 apartments, and its current developers purchased it in 2008, with construction on the hotel starting in late 2017. The hotel will retain some of the building’s original features, including brick walls and bay windows.

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907 Main St, Cambridge, MA 02139

Rendering of a five-story, squarish hotel amid a city.

Raffles Boston Back Bay Hotel & Residences

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The Noannet Group, Saunders Hotel Group, and Cain International plan to open the $400 million, 33-story Raffles Boston Back Bay Hotel & Residences in early 2022.

It will include 147 hotel rooms and 146 Raffles-branded condos, and will be the first mixed-use Raffles property in North America.

It’s also due to have six dining-slash-drinking venues as well as expansion space for the adjacent University Club. There will be seven on-site affordable housing units, too, and the project will result in $13 million for additional affordable housing in Boston, according to the developers.

Saunders and Noannet have been trying to build on the Back Bay corner for years. They got the requisite permits for construction in 2016, and reached a deal with Raffles parent AccorHotels in late 2017. The developers announced the project in April 2018, and landed a $314 million construction loan that July. Demolition work started in February.

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40 Trinity Pl, Boston, MA 02116

Rendering of the exterior of the top floors of a shiny, glassy skyscraper overlooking a cityscape.

Home2 Suites by Hilton

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This 130-room extended-stay hotel with 77 parking spots is expected to open June 30, and will be adjacent to a Courtyard Marriott there.

It’s also part of a much larger development of part of the existing South Bay shopping center. South Carolina-based Edens is adding not only the Hilton2 Suites but 475 residential units, 120,000 square feet of retail, and a 60,000-square-foot movie theater.

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15 Jan Karski Way, Dorchester, MA 02125

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A hotel room with a large bed and luggage next to it.

Canopy by Hilton/Haymarket Hotel

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A joint venture between CV Properties, Harbinger Development, and Olshan Properties expects to wrap the $125 million, 212-key building in the third quarter 2021. Olshan will operate the six-story hotel as a Canopy by Hilton, a brand that the hospitality colossus launched in 2018 with a Washington, D.C., development.

Canopy by Hiltons are supposed to be more integrated into their surrounding neighborhoods than other hotels from the company. So that might mean on-site communal events as well as tastings that nearby businesses lead. The 111 North site straddles Boston Haymarket area and the city’s oh-so-historic North End, so it seems a solid location for that approach.

Aside from the hotel, the project is also due to include 12,711 square feet of retail and restaurant space. There will be a 2,000-square-foot bar and restaurant, too, with views of the Greenway and a glass wall that retracts.

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111 North St, Boston, MA 02109

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Aerial rendering of a six-story, rectangular building at night with the lights on in the windows.

Omni Boston Hotel at the Seaport

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This 21-story, 1,054-room hotel with 52 suites is scheduled to open in June 2021. It will be not only Boston’s fourth-largest hotel—with this city’s largest ballroom too, at 26,000 square feet—it will be the largest new hotel since the 1,144-room Boston Marriott Copley Place opened in 1984.

It’s set to host a run of attractions and amenities that parent Omni hopes capitalizes on a burgeoning surrounding neighborhood, that general boom in the Boston-area hospitality industry, and the possible expansion of the Boston Convention & Exhibition Center across the street—which the $550 million Omni Boston will be connected to via an underground pedestrian tunnel.

Aside from that ballroom—and a smaller 10,000-square-foot one—other amenities will include multiple restaurants and bars as well as an elevated lounge in the lobby for performances from local artists and 100,000 square feet of event and meeting space.

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450 Summer St, Boston, MA 02210

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Rendering of a large, block-long hotel meeting the busy sidewalk.

Marine Wharf hotels

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This 14-story complex in Raymond L. Flynn Marine Industrial Park will include two hotels: A 245-room Hampton Inn and a 166-room Homewood Suites, both under the Hilton umbrella.

The inns will be aimed in part at people arriving at the nearby cruise-ship port and those who might have business at the Boston Convention and Exhibition Center.

Developers Intercontinental Real Estate Corp. and Harbinger Development expect to open the hotels during the last three months of 2020.

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660 Summer St, Boston, MA 02210

Hyatt Place Boston Seaport District

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This 12-story, 293-key Hyatt Place is part of a larger complex on the so-called Parcel K that includes another 12-story building with 304 apartments.

Colorado-based developer McWhinney is also constructing 14,400 square feet of office space and 18,000 square feet of retail and restaurant space as part of the project. There will be underground parking for 420 vehicles too. (The development replaces a state-owned parking lot—part of a larger trend in Boston development.)

The hotel portion at least is expected to open in the spring or early summer.