Williston VT gets another hotel, and as it turns out there’s probably a demand for it

WILLISTON ― Williston is getting another hotel, on Market Street behind L.L. Bean. Construction is in the early phases on what will be a Townplace Suites by Marriott, set up for extended stay with kitchenettes. If you’re wondering why we need another hotel, Williston Director of Planning and Zoning Matt Boulanger has some insights.

“There is quite a bit of demand (for hotels),” Boulanger said. “We’ve seen a couple of different things driving that. Some existing hotels have converted to temporary shelters, even around here. That’s part of it. There’s also some aging hotel stock.”

Aging hotels can start running into trouble filling their rooms, Boulanger explained. As an example, he cited the Sonesta Extended Stay Suites in Williston, where Boulanger discovered an entire block of suites is listed on the Airbnb site.

“It’s not getting booked as a conventional hotel, so they’re looking for other options,” Boulanger said.

Sometimes a hotel gets purchased by Champlain Housing Trust and turned into apartments. That happened to a hotel on Zephyr Road in Williston. Now room opens up for another hotel because that one is gone.

Then there’s the housing crunch and the lack of workforce housing.

What else is driving the demand for new hotels in Chittenden County?

Boulanger pointed out that both the Townplaces Suites now being built and the nearby Hilton Home2 Suites are extended stay with kitchenettes.

“It’s seeming like it’s taking longer for people when they’re between homes to get into the home they’re buying,” Boulanger said. “Some of that logjam shows up as not a lot of houses available to buy, but also the amount of time transactions take.”

So if you find yourself between homes with nowhere to go, or you found a house and it’s taking forever to close the deal, extended stay hotels come in handy. Now, let’s turn to that workforce housing problem.

“Some of the hotels in Williston, you’ll notice on Tuesday afternoon a lot of white vans and trucks with Texas plates or other out-of-state plates,” Boulanger said. “Clearly work vehicles.”

And let’s not forget good old tourism, which does still happen in Vermont.

“I think all those things together are driving some of this demand,” Boulanger said.

The Project

Project Cost: $4 million.

Developer: Redstone, Burlington

Contractor: Opechee Construction, Belmont, New Hampshire

Architect: In-house at Opechee

Engineer: Snyder Group, Shelburne

Address: 281 Holland Lane, Williston

Progress:

• The first-floor steel and wall sections are partly constructed.

Features:

• 115 extended stay rooms with kitchenettes in a four-story hotel totaling 59,034 square feet, Townplace Suites by Marriott.

What’s in the neighborhood:

• Everything from Chili’s to REI.

Contact Dan D’Ambrosio at 660-1841 or ddambrosi@gannett.com. Follow him on X @DanDambrosioVT.