Community Board 7’s Executive Committee recently voted unanimously not to support the building of a small hotel on Webster Avenue.

“It’s not the type of development we want to see there,” said CB7 Chair Greg Faulkner. “We’d like them to build it somewhere else.”  

Last fall, the prolific McSam Hotel Group’s plan to build a 48-room Comfort Inn on Webster Avenue, just a stone’s throw from PS/MS 20, met stiff community opposition (see photo). McSam has a right to go ahead without the Board’s approval, but McSam lawyer Pat Jones said the community’s hard stance forced them to put the project on the shelf for the past year.

This October, a half dozen McSam representatives, including Jones, returned to Community Board 7, saying they were adamant about obtaining community support for the project. They also said they were in the process of talking to some of the local institutions, including Fordham University, about supporting the hotel.

Father Joseph McShane, Fordham’s president, wrote a brief letter supporting the hotel, but quickly retracted it because it hadn’t gone through a proper vetting process, Faulkner said. He then wrote a follow-up letter saying he could not support the hotel, mostly because the plan only called for eight parking spaces.

McSam told the Board that they were working on a feasibility study (which they said they had already done when they came to the Board in October) and wanted the Board to see it before making a decision.

But, after a lengthy discussion, the Executive Committee cast its pre-emptive vote, essentially telling McSam to save its money on a feasibility study because they would not support the project regardless.

Faulkner said the Board appreciated McSam’s most recent efforts, but the Executive Committee ultimately decided not to support it because they feared it would turn into a hot sheet motel like several similar sized hotels across the Bronx River in Wakefield.

Despite this latest setback, Jones said McSam plans to go ahead with the hotel.  “We strongly believe that building this hotel in this section of the Bronx will be profitable and add value to the surrounding community,” Jones wrote in an e-mail.

The full Board will vote on whether to reject the hotel plan next Tuesday. (See “Public and Community Meetings” on this page for details.)