Processing Your Payment

Please do not leave this page until complete. This can take a few moments.

May 12, 2021

After pause, developer moves forward with Windsor hotel plans

Photo | Contributed Renderings of the Holiday Inn Express & Suites hotel in Windsor.
By Matt Pilon

A Groton-based developer whose plans to build an approximately $14 million extended-stay hotel on Windsor’s Day Hill Road were delayed by the emergence of COVID-19 says he’s moving forward with the project, hoping the hospitality market will begin to rebound by the time construction is complete.

”We are moving forward with the project,” Jignesh “Jimmy” Patel said Tuesday. “We put it on hold for a little bit with everything going on. We didn’t know how things would play out.”

The pandemic decimated the U.S. hotel sector more than most, with the American Housing and Lodging Association (AHLA) calling 2020 “the most devastating year on record in 2020, resulting in historically low occupancy, massive job loss, and hotel closures across the country.”

In Connecticut, there have been a number of hotel closures and distressed sales.

The industry is not expected to recover to its 2019 levels until 2024, with modest upticks in corporate travel and overall occupancy predicted by AHLA for this year.

Patel now wants to build a larger hotel at 777 Day Hill Road. He will appear before the town’s planning board on Wednesday night seeking approval for 120 rooms, up from the 106 rooms officials had approved last February, just prior to COVID-19 hitting Connecticut.

If the amendment is approved, the floor area of the hotel would increase from approximately 75,400 square feet to 88,000 square feet, according to application materials.

Patel said he hopes to start construction late this year or early next and will take about 14 months to complete.

“Hopefully by then the market is back to normal a bit,” he said.

Patel would lease the land for the hotel from developer-landlord Mark Greenberg, who is building an indoor soccer dome -- located behind where the hotel would be built -- approved by the town last fall. The Day Hill Dome will join several outdoor fields at the site, which is adjacent to the FastPitch Nation softball facility that debuted in 2019.
 

Sign up for Enews

Most Recent

Most Recent

0 Comments

Order a PDF