By Richard Campbell
A new hotel 159 Room, 20,000 square feet hotel has been approved for 248 Dorchester Avenue on the location of the current Enterprise Car Rental site. The hotel that is within walking distance of the West Broadway T Stop will be eight stories, include a restaurant, roof garden, fitness center, swimming pool, and event space. Covered at grade parking for 60 vehicles, and landscape area around the hotel are also included. The proposal submitted by Evergreen Property Group has been under review since October 2017, and the architectural firm is Utile Design, whose work on the residential building 25 West Broadway is already known to South Bostonians.
What you would see is the beginning of a significant rezoning of the end of Dorchester Avenue from an industrial zone to a commercial residential one. At this point the project is simply called a Boutique Hotel, and there doesn’t seem to be a brand associated with it. While a significant improvement over what is on the site currently, the building, though filled with amenities is not going to be winning architectural awards for thinking outside the box. By the shape of the building one can see the architects were working within some pretty tight space restrictions. The city will no doubt want to turn this street into more of a pedestrian boulevard than an industrial zone. 
