The Inn is out: Former shelter closes after reopening as hotel
The building was the subject of public health complaints during its shelter days due to a cockroach infestation and other issues.
The Inn at Historic Acton has quietly shut its doors after a short stint as an independent hotel.
Ashok Patel, an executive at Jamsan Hotel Management, said Jamsan tried to reopen the former Best Western under a new name after the site spent more than two years as a state emergency shelter.
He said they weren’t making enough money and closed November 1; staff plan “future renovations.”
“We need to improve the hotel and just relaunch it,” he told The Acton Bridge.
The building at 740 Elm Street dates to 1960. It was the subject of public health complaints during its shelter days due to a cockroach infestation and other issues.
The state paused new shelter placements last November after The Bridge started asking questions about the roaches. Massachusetts stopped using hotels as shelters altogether this year and left the property on July 31.
Patel was initially optimistic that hotel guests would return, but he said staffers hedged and reopened only some of the building’s 105 rooms. “We didn’t know what the demand was going to be like,” he said.
Public Health Director Melanie Dineen said town staff inspected 43 rooms in mid-September and gave the go-ahead to open them. The building’s septic system also passed inspection.
Dineen said the hotel reopened September 25. She told The Bridge that the Board of Health wasn’t formally notified of the closure just over a month later, but town staff saw new fencing that blocked off the driveway in recent weeks.
The site sat silent one morning earlier this month, with a “no trespassing” sign on the hotel door.
Under current plans, Patel said crews won’t demolish the hotel and will instead rehab the structure.
If renovations proceed, he said, they’ll probably start in February, and the work will take six to eight months.
Jamsan’s portfolio includes hotels throughout New England, plus two in Florida. The company also boasts retail and commercial holdings and two Massachusetts urgent care centers.
Patel told The Bridge this summer that the team had suitors look at the Elm Street building for possible redevelopment.
He said they hoped to connect to the town sewer network, but that might be a tall task given Acton’s limited capacity.
He said during his latest conversation with The Bridge that redevelopment was still on the table, “but the hotel is what we’re leaning toward.”
