A hotel plan straddling the Cambridge-Somerville line at McGrath Highway heads to the Zoning Board of Appeals on Wednesday and Planning Board on Thursday.
The revised, six-story Moxy Hotel is 145 rooms, down from the 199-room AC Hotel proposed in 2023 – though the first permits were in 2017, according to the Bldup real estate platform. The version three years ago still had a restaurant, bar and fitness center, while the Moxy being presented next week is guest rooms only, attorney Adam Dash said Friday.
“We’ve gotten this approved three times. None of it’s our fault – we just have to react to what’s going on,” Dash said, recounting a history of zoning changes, a Covid pandemic and plunging market for lab that undid an adjacent project that was supposed to be sharing a driveway and parking.
With that 15 McGrath Highway project on hold next door, “we’re applying to move away from their hole in the ground, and the hotel is getting smaller because we have to shift over in the lot,” Dash said. Future connections between the Community Path Extension and Grand Junction Path set another boundary. “We can’t move it over too far,” Dash said.
The Moxy is set to come to 1 McGrath Highway in Somerville and 263 McGrath Highway/Monsignor O’Brien Highway in Cambridge, with 95 hotel rooms in Somerville and 50 in Cambridge. The building will have a total 62,646 square feet with 33 parking spaces and bike parking, Bldup said.
About The Author
