Orchards Renovation Likely to Add Tax Revenue in Williamstown
WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. — This winter's renovation of a defunct Main Street hotel is the kind of commercial development that town officials are hoping will generate non-residential property tax revenue.
But it is unknown whether it will bring the kind of boost that other big projects have provided in recent years.
Recent work on the Orchards Hotel, which was acquired last summer by Garden Properties and Development LLC, was mentioned at Monday's joint meeting of the Select Board and Finance Committee at Town Hall.
"I would prefer to see our growth not come from adding new infrastructure, but using the infrastructure we already have in place, whether that's the Orchards or the [Williamstown Theatre Festival] and the tourism industry in general," Select Board member Stephanie Boyd said.
"I was very happy to hear that we finally have some funding to design the next several miles of the bike path. So soon we'll have a bike path that goes from, pretty much, the Vermont border all the way to the Connecticut border. I think we should start thinking now on how we leverage those types of things to build economic development more toward tourism in town."
Tourism — including the world-renown Clark Art Institute and Tony Award-winning theater festival — and education are the town's most prominent industry.
Williams College, although by far the town's largest single taxpayer, is tax exempt for most of its properties, including the new art museum under construction on the Field Park rotary at the former site of the Williams Inn.
The "new" Williams Inn, which opened in 2019, is taxable. It, along with the Fairfield Inn on Main Street, which opened the same year, added significantly to the tax base.
The Orchards, meanwhile, shuttered in March 2020 and did not reopen after the COVID-19 pandemic. After a couple of aborted public auctions, the hotel sold in August for $1.5 million.
The buyer, Garden Properties and Development, is registered with the commonwealth with an address on Wendell Avenue in Pittsfield and lists Muhammad Zia as its manager.
The new owner has multiple building permits on file with the town, according to Williamstown's community development director.
"They are involved in a complex process of troubleshooting building systems," Andrew Groff wrote in an email. "They are seeing what works and what needs to be restored or replaced in addition to conducting numerous repairs and upgrades."
Renovation work on the property commenced in the fall in the expectation of a reopening in early summer.
The 2.7-acre parcel with 49-bedroom hotel, which has an appraised value of $1.8 million, will not be a new addition to the tax rolls, like the Fairfield Inn six years ago. But renovations likely will add to the property value. And new visitors would add to the town's rooms and meals tax receipts.
In the current fiscal year, the property has a tax bill of just more than $26,000.
Any increase in revenues would be welcome to town officials, who have long expressed concern that the only recent significant "new growth" in the tax base is in the residential sector, and even that cannot keep up with rising expenses for the town of 7,400.
In November, the town manager told the Fin Comm he was not sure how much the change in ownership will add to the tax base.
"I don't know what their plan is, but they could either go all-in with an expensive rebirth or they could put a few Band-Aids on it," Robert Menicocci said. "And that would help, but it wouldn't be a big rainmaker type of thing."
That said, there are signs of potential growth in the town's tourist sector, and they go beyond the planned bike trail expansion.
"The team that is building the mountain bike trail just received a grant for $50,000," Boyd said on Monday night. "So that's another attraction in our town."
Tags: motels, hotels,
