July 28, 2005

Manchester inns fight chain hotel
Project backers: ‘We’re not going away’

Note:  Vermont is gaining a new Independent Business Alliance, originating in the Manchester area, as this issue is being raised locally.  Find out more about the new Vermont IBA.

By ANDREW McKEEVER Herald Staff

MANCHESTER — Owners of local inns and lodging establishments are in an uproar over the prospect of a new 54-room chain hotel coming to town.

A vision of Manchester transformed from a unique, welcoming New England getaway location to a haven for more franchise-brand lodgings and restaurants has local motel owners and innkeepers hoping to nip this possibility in the bud.

Despite a steady drumbeat of opposition at two preliminary meetings of the town's zoning and planning boards, the project's backers say they are not discouraged.

"Any market a new hotel is built in is resisted by the local hotel and motel owners," said Jonathan Redmond, vice president of Shield Management in Massachusetts. "If I owned a motel in Manchester, I'd be concerned with something new coming in."

Like a rising tide that will lift all boats, the expansion of the lodging mix will not only draw more visitors to this tourist-dependent town, but will offer a place for corporate travelers who are looking for less expensive places to stay, he said.

But so far, that argument hasn't gone far with existing hospitality businesses here, most of which are small, mom-and-pop operations that say they are struggling through a soft period in occupancy rates.

A preliminary proposal floated by 66 Manchester LLC, a holding company that would own the hotel if it is built, calls for a 10,000-square-foot building formerly used as a bowling alley to be torn down and replaced with a new structure on the same spot. The foundation would be replaced as well.

Opponents of the idea have criticized the location — 50 feet from the west branch of the Batten Kill and behind a shopping mall — as the wrong place for the wrong business.

If there was no existing building there, it wouldn't be a permitted use, said Neil Humphrey, owner of the Barnstead Inn, a small bed and breakfast in town.

But the arguments against the project go beyond that, he said.

A new chain hotel of that size would threaten the ability of their business to survive, he said.

"This is our home, it's not just rooms — this is where we do our laundry," he said. "Our kids grew up here. I don't think Manchester realizes how much change can occur."

It could be the start of a future of cheesy restaurants, lodgings and other outlets, he said.

"You would lose the uniqueness of Manchester," he said.

That refrain was sounded by other concerned owners in the lodging trade at the two public meetings, but it was not simply a question of being opposed to free enterprise or more competition, said Pat Barnett, an owner of the Manchester View Motel and a former president of the Manchester and the Mountains Chamber of Commerce.

There are other types of businesses that could go in there that would be more community oriented. National franchise chains tend to have little local involvement in their communities, she said.

"As lovely as a developer could make it, they can't do the Vermont experience," she said.

And it will cut down on occupancy, worsening an existing decline in business due, in part, to the state's failure to invest enough dollars in marketing the state, she said.

That view is not supported by the latest data on tourism in the state, said Jason Aldous, communications director of the Vermont Department of Tourism and Marketing.

Tourism is a hard business to measure and the state doesn't track occupancy, but by most indicators, the industry seems to be holding its own, he said.

Rooms and meals tax collections, considered one of the best ways of assessing the health of the travel industry, were running ahead of 2003 by 4.2 percent, according to the most recent statistics available, he said.

Revenue numbers aren't broken down by region either, so one part of the state might be doing well while another struggles. But overall, business is no worse than last year. And Manchester may be the victim of its own success when it comes to the hotel, he said.

" Manchester has established itself as a popular destination," Aldous said. "It's not surprising that Manchester would attract the interest of a chain hotel."

What is different is that most chains elsewhere in the state have located in larger towns such as Burlington or Rutland, and so far have avoided relatively smaller towns such as Manchester, he said.

That thinking is echoed by Lee Krohn, planning director for Manchester.

"Part of the reason it's creating angst is that we've never dealt with it in the hospitality industry before," he said. "It represents a real and perceived challenge to the existing base."

When chain outlet stores emerged as the retailing rage two decades ago, those shops weren't competing head to head with many local businesses, he said.

"No one else was selling Polo in the 1980s," he said. "But this proposal for a hotel gets to the heart of the clear difference in a locally owned and operated base as opposed to a franchise chain."

In Manchester, most of the lodging businesses are locally owned and is a factor that has merit in a town where tourism is a leading industry, he said.

However, a hotel is a permitted use for that spot in the town's commercial core. Whether it will be allowed — assuming the backers of the hotel want to continue to move forward — is another issue, Krohn said.

"Clearly it conforms in some respects to the town plan," he said. "But it raises other issues — is it the right thing for the community?"

Redmond said their group is mulling over the feedback it heard from the two meetings where they presented their proposal.

"It's premature to say if we're optimistic or not," he said. "But we're not going away."

©Rutland Herald 2005

 

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