Great Barrington — There is little to distinguish the Stockbridge Road commercial strip from others like it across America. While there are plenty of independent businesses up and down the road, there are a host of chains that have, over the years, plopped down cookie-cutter buildings that stray far afield from New England architectural aesthetics.
Holiday Inn Express is a family-run franchise, now presenting the town with a conundrum about how it should look and still keep the money and tourists flowing, even in what is considered by many to be the ugly part of town.
Owner Navin Shah is asking the town for a third floor and 20 new hotel rooms. He will only expand within the same footprint. Since the hotel backs up near the Housatonic River, and is a wetlands area, Shaw had to first get Conservation Commission approval for 22 new parking spaces to accommodate more customers.
But the Planning Board is divided about it, and so couldn’t issue a recommendation to the Zoning Board of Appeals (ZBA), which makes the final decision on September 9. Instead, the Planning Board sent a letter to the ZBA, noting points for and against and the gray areas between. The Selectboard issued a favorable recommendation, 4-1, with Selectboard member Ed Abrahams opposed.
A 45-room limit was passed by Annual Town Meeting voters in 2008, with an exception for historically designated locations such as the former Searles High School on Bridge Street. Abrahams said this was to keep the chains out, to maintain the town’s unique qualities. But the town finds itself facing this Holiday Inn expansion application now because the hotel was built in 2001, before the 45-room bylaw was created.
When attorney C. Nicholas Arienti presented Shah’s case to the Selectboard Monday (August 24), he said the expansion was necessary for two reasons.
“The franchise issued an ultimatum that they all have to be three floors or they would rescind the franchise,” Arienti said.
Holiday Inn is also demanding that the project be completed by the end of 2017.
“My client has cultivated relationships with the customers and the franchise over last 14 years,” Arienti said. It may be a franchise, he added, but Shah is a 30-year Berkshires resident.
“It’s truly a family business even though it has a Holiday Inn affiliation.”
He said that Shah is being forced to “upgrade” since he is “highly invested, not only with initial construction, but over the years to comply with quality standards of the franchise.”
The second reason for the expansion is Shah’s contention that 58 rooms “isn’t large enough to host full capacity for events — something that’s happening more and more in the Berkshires,” Arienti said, adding that Shah makes his money during the high season to support the slow season.
And if Shah loses his franchise he may also lose the 44 percent of his customers who are loyal to the chain through its reward point system.
“It’s pretty challenging to be an independent operator,” observed Board Chairman Sean Stanton.
“I don’t see how we recommend to ignore the bylaw,” Abrahams said, referring to the 45-room limit. “We’re ignoring that vote. To keep it a Holiday Inn, that’s ignoring it one more time.”
Arienti bolstered Shah’s case by handing Board members photographs of power lines, a radio tower, and all the other insults to beauty along the road.
“One of the worst aesthetic things is the power lines,” Arienti said.
In their letter to the ZBA, the Planning Board listed the good, the bad and the ugly.
The hotel already exists, so “neighborhood character and social structures” are not affected, the letter said. Traffic flow and safety were also deemed fine, as were “adequacy of utilities and other public services.”
There are some goodies to be had, namely an estimated $25,000 increase in property tax revenue from the property, $22,000 in room taxes, and three new jobs, according to Arienti.
The Planning Board noted that “there will be some impact on the environment” even though the Conservation Commission approved the permit for additional parking. The commission worked with Shah’s engineer to minimize that impact.
“Some mature trees will be lost and most of the proposed parking increase will be within the buffer zone,” the letter said.
What the ZBA must consider is whether there is more bad than good, and the Planning Board’s letter said that some of this was unclear, like whether more rooms would bring additional visitors to town, or simply compete with smaller inns and hotels.
The Board did agree, however that the architecture was not anywhere near New England vernacular, and even attempts by the architect to mitigate this “by adding a faux stone rusticated base, it would still remain out of character with most of the town.”
Board member Suzie Fowle told The Edge she had another concern. “The hotel is one of the first things you see from the north as you enter Great Barrington, and I think a 3-story Holiday Inn Express would send the message to residents and visitors alike that Great Barrington is a town that doesn’t value or work very hard to preserve its character. And it’s a misrepresentation of a town that recently passed a 45-room limit.”
That room limit was the sticking point for Abrahams, too. “It seems that if we are going go against the wishes of the town we should have a really good reason. They could come back next year for another 20, and another 20 the next year,” he commented.
“I just don’t see a good enough reason for it,” he added.
Planning Board Chairman Jonathan Hankin isn’t thrilled on that count either, and told The Edge that Stockbridge Road might start to look like the area surrounding an airport.
“All of these chain motels aren’t really good for our town, yet they provide places for people to stay. But anything that makes us like every other town in America is not good.”
Gaetan Lachance opened The Barrington bed and breakfast last July on Main Street downtown. He previously owned a bed and breakfast in Sheffield for 15 years. He told The Edge that while he has a “different clientele” than franchise hotels and would likely not suffer, he did not like the idea of going against the “vote of the town.” He said some bed and breakfasts have closed over the years, and that the chains have hurt smaller businesses.
“Mostly we are not at peak occupancy,” he said. “It seems like overkill to make this kind of change for a couple of busy weekends.”
Shah’s architect said that if the project isn’t allowed, around half of Shah’s customers will go to Pittsfield to get their Holiday Inn points. Robert Harrison of Bradley Architects said it was important to differentiate between “a broad general prohibition and a specific request.”
Planning Board member Jack Musgrove says he doesn’t know whether the town truly needs more rooms.
“But if we do it’s better to put them where we already have an eyesore than build something else,” he said, adding that he “thinks the thing should never have been built in the first place. Is the increase a detriment to the town? Not much more than it already is.”
Musgrove wasn’t on the Board when the hotel was built, but said that it’s important for towns to ask for the most aesthetically pleasing version of a chain — or any building.
“Towns can get what they demand. If you let [the business] run over you, they’ll run over you.”
He said he heard that this Holiday Inn Express was the cheaper version, though he said he could not confirm it. He said that in Chatham, on Cape Cod, a McDonald’s resides in a Victorian building sans branding on the outside. Musgrove wishes the town could ask the hotel to change its façade as part of the renovation.
Musgrove said neither of the two large hotels on Stockbridge Road would be allowed today, and that it is ironic that if the hotel had originally been built with 45 rooms or less, Shaw wouldn’t be able to ask for the permit to increase rooms.
“I didn’t write the law but that’s how it works,” he said.
He raised another point. “If [Shah] loses his Holiday Inn lease, do we want it to go to some podunk less known label with less occupancy, and maybe eventually be abandoned?”
Musgrove says he doesn’t like it, but is trying to roll with the complexity of this zoning puzzle.
“Am I jumping up and down saying, ‘whoopee?’ No. But if we need it, let’s put it where it already is, rather than ugly up another place.”
