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Date: 6/13/2023
HATFIELD — During its meeting on June 7, the Hatfield Planning Board unanimously decided to pass the special permit for a three-story hotel on 16 West St.
The vote, according to the board, comes with the caveat that no one staying at the hotel can make the place their personal residence.
The process
According to the proposal, Kirit Patel of Shield Hotels sought a special permit with site plan approval from the Planning Board to build a three-story hotel with a size of 6,200 square feet per floor and about 35 guest rooms.
The proposed hotel, which was introduced early last year, is also expected to house 20 self-storage units located in two buildings on either side of the property.
During a previous hearing in March, Jeff Squire — a principal land architect from Berkshire Design Group who spoke on behalf of Patel — noted how the existing structure on 16 West St. was originally constructed as the Howard Johnson Ice Cream Shop and Grille and more recently was used as office space.
The site, a small distance from Exit 27 off Interstate 91, is located between Pioneer Valley Indoor Karting to the south and the Hatfield Inn motor lodge to the north. The existing parcel holistically is around 60,000 square feet, according to Squire, and the hope is to build the hotel where the existing building is.
“The parking lot and the expansive pavement have been shrunk a bit because there’s a lot of unusable and unnecessary space out there now with the way the parking lot is set up,” said Squire, who added that there will be 38 spaces provided on the site for the project.
The Planning Board asked the applicants to return in May with more lights and a building design that fits the Hatfield landscape better.
During a presentation at the May 3 meeting, Doug Serrill — the landscape designer at Berkshire Design — said that additional lighting was added in the parking lot for security purposes, while other lights were added around the building.
Other subtle architectural changes were made to the building to fit in more with the rest of the town’s landscape, including a pitched roof instead of a flat roof. The plan itself, however, generally stayed the same.
Although Patel explained in March that most people will probably use the hotel for an overnight stay, a few members of the public raised concerns about the idea of an extended stay at the hotel, and whether the hotel would draw enough people to Hatfield.
“I think the hotel is a fine idea if on the surface that’s what it shakes out to be,” said Peter Langlois, who owns Smithsonian Chowder House on 1 West St. “But, is there that kind of demand for that kind of a unit in that section seeing as we’re not really a tourist attraction on Route 5 in Hatfield.”
Because the proposed hotel would be near the highway, Patel said he believes that it will draw tourists since the location is surrounded by the five colleges in Hampshire County.
“We want to build this as a boutique hotel,” Patel said. “I’ve lived 30-40 years in this town…we have maximum tourism in Western Massachusetts.”
Shield Hotels is a hotel development and management company that provides professional services to a collection of hotels in the New England area and beyond. Their current properties in the area include the Courtyard in West Springfield, the Fairfield Inn & Suites in Holyoke, the Hampton Inn in Westfield and the Quality Inn & Suites in Northampton.