Image courtesy of DGH Partners
As Boston’s convention activity increases, another hotel project is in the works to capture demand near the Boston Convention & Exhibition Center.
DGH Hotel Partners notified the Boston Planning Department of its proposal for a 15-story, 438-room hotel at 391-403 D St.
The 5.6-acre site is owned by the Massachusetts Convention Center Authority and leased to developers of the Aloft and Element hotels under a 2014 ground lease. The 160,000 square-foot hotel would be built on a vacant portion of the same development site.
DGH Partners includes Global Hospitality Investment Group, a Los Angeles hotel investment firm founded in 2019 by former Starwood Capital Group executive Kevin Colket.
The project would include changes to the Element Hotel’s layout that would add capacity for an additional 20 rooms, according to a notification letter submitted by attorney Joseph Hanley.
“The MCCA plays a pivotal role in our economy, attracting visitors from around the country and internationally and the demand for hotel rooms remains extremely strong. The DGH Hotel Partners team looks forward to working with the city and the community to advance this project and support the MCCA with much needed additional hotel keys,” the developers said in a statement.
Boston’s hotel market has rebounded strongly from the COVID-era travel downturn, but large-scale development activity has been slow to reemerge because of higher project costs and interest rates.
Existing hotel operators have benefited from the limited new competition.
Boston hotels’ average revenues per available room, a key measure of a hotel’s profitability, ranks third in the U.S., according to hotel researchers HVS, after Manhattan and Oahu, Hawaii.
Braintree-based hospitality researchers Pinnacle Advisory Group project average room rates in the Boston-Cambridge market will rise 2.9 percent in 2025. The average daily room rate in 2024 was $301.
Bookings at the BCEC, located across D Street from the hotel site, are on the upswing. The 516,000 square-foot meeting hall is hosting 49 events this year projected to generate 575,000 hotel room night bookings.
