Long-planned Key Road Hotel set to open in July
Jun. 13—A long-planned hotel on Key Road is scheduled to open in July, pending a final building inspection, the facility's developer said Monday.
The Hampton Inn & Suites previously was slated to be done in summer 2020, but Ashok Patel, vice president of development for Jamsan Hotel Management, said COVID-19, supply chain issues and contractor schedules caused its delay.
And before that, the hotel at 126 Key Road planned to open in May 2019. Patel said later that year that delayed material deliveries and project revisions had pushed that date back.
The 58,000-square-foot building will have 100 rooms across four floors, as well as an indoor pool, a fitness center, breakfast area and a meeting room, Patel said Monday.
Plans for the hotel have been in the works about 15 years, since Guru Nanak Hotels pitched the idea to the city in 2007.
But progress for the site stalled in 2008 after Gurdeep Nagra, the company's former president, was convicted and fined $10,000 for employing undocumented workers at one of the group's hotels and conspiring to make false statements in connection with a bank loan. He was then removed from the Key Road hotel project.
Several liens were placed on the property and after the building permit expired, the city refused to grant another extension in 2009.
The following year, city officials said they wanted to demolish the incomplete structure, stating it was abandoned and had become a safety hazard.
The unfinished building was torn down in 2011, after the property was purchased by Keene Key, a company that wanted to build a La Quinta Inn for the site, but never solidified plans for it.
The site changed hands again in 2015 when Lexington, Mass.-based Jazzlyn Hospitality II LLC purchased it for $1.5 million, renewing hopes in Keene for a hotel there.
Jamsan Hotel Management, also based in Lexington, will oversee operations for the Hampton Inn. The company runs more than 50 hotels in Massachusetts, Connecticut and New Hampshire, according to its website.
Patel said he's eager to finally see the project come to fruition.
"It will be some achievement," Patel said Monday. "The project has met all adverse conditions it can meet."
On top of delays, Jazzlyn Hospitality, alongside Connecticut-based construction contractor Union Power Stucco, were fined for workplace safety violations in 2020 after a worker employed by the contractor fell 20 to 30 feet when some scaffolding collapsed in February of that year, causing the man to be hospitalized.
The Occupational Safety and Health Administration originally fined Jazzlyn Hospitality $28,336, but that was reduced to $8,000 when the company agreed to address the workplace hazards, OSHA spokesman Ted Fitzgerald told The Sentinel at the time. Union Power Stucco was cited for nine violations and fined $35,276.
Hunter Oberst can be reached at 355-8585, or hoberst@keenesentinel.com.