Colby College said it will start construction on a 53-room hotel this summer as part of the college’s planned $75 million investment to revitalize downtown Waterville.
The four-story, 48,000-square-foot Lockwood Hotel will cost about $26 million when it is completed in late 2020, the college said Monday evening.
It will have a limestone facade that ties it to existing buildings using that material on Main Street.
The ground-floor restaurant, to be called Front & Main, will have glass walls and a seasonal patio abutting a public park and other outdoor spaces.
Parking for the hotel will be available on site, across Front Street in a dedicated lot and in a city-owned lot where spaces have been leased for the hotel.
The hotel is located across from its namesake, the Lockwood Mills complex, which at one point housed the famous Hathaway Shirt Company.
“We are already seeing positive signs of growth, and this beautiful, modern hotel and Maine-inspired restaurant will attract visitors and area residents, bringing additional activity and economic impact,” Colby President David A. Greene said in a statement. “By naming it The Lockwood, we are honoring Waterville’s deep history in the textile industry and the city’s tradition of innovation and reinvention.”
The Lockwood Mills complex was named for its architect, Amos Lockwood. His building designs were able to withstand the movement and vibrations caused by the thousands of spindles required for textile manufacturing.
The hotel will be built at 9 Main St., the former home to Levine’s, a landmark Waterville clothier founded in 1891 that closed in 1996. The building already has been demolished. Colby bought it for $200,000 in July 2015 as part of a broader downtown revitalization strategy.
The hotel also will occupy the adjacent lot at 33 Main St., which was home to a Camden National Bank branch. The college bought that property for $750,000 in June 2018. Camden National moved into a new Colby building on the other end of Main Street.
Baskervill, a Richmond, Virginia-based architecture and engineering firm, has been named the architect and designer of the hotel.
Charlestowne Hotels, a hotel operations management company from Mount Pleasant, South Carolina, will run the hotel and its bar and restaurant.
The hotel was delayed at least a year after Colby fired the original developer and prospective hotel manager, The Olympia Companies, in January 2018, and assumed oversight of the project.