CAMBRIDGE - Plans for a boutique hotel in the works for the Cambridge waterfront were presented Monday, Aug. 26 to Cambridge City Council.
If approved, the hotel would likely be located near the old Governor’s Hall at Sailwinds Park, according to Mayor Stephen Rideout.
“It may not be there exactly, but in that general location which will also be near/next to Yacht Maintenance,” Rideout wrote in a follow-up email query.
In another positive move related to the waterfront’s future development, Pinnacle Hospitality Group founder and CEO Tauhid Islam spoke about the project, highlighting his professional credentials as a successful creator of niche Eastern Shore hotels.
Speaking to Council, Islam first presented an overview of his twenty years of national and international hotel experience with Choice Hotels, owners of Comfort Inns, Sleep Inns, Clarion Hotels, Cambria, and others.
Islam gained familiarity with the Eastern Shore, especially, having eighty hotels between Annapolis and Ocean City in his territory.
This experience helped Islam gain expertise on what pieces of the hospitality industry were missing locally, giving him the incentive to start his own enterprise in 2016.
Beginning by investing his own savings and refurbishing the 20-room Anchor Hotel in Chincoteague, Va., Islam was next able to purchase a neighboring property which had been approved as a 76-room hotel. His first feat of original hotel construction, the successful Marina Bay Hotel, gave him the expertise to locate and order a preconstructed sewer plant and comply step by step with local regulations.
Since 2017 Pinnacle has steadily increased its portfolio, building one hotel each year, with a Hilton Hampton Inn and Suites and Country Inn and Suites in Ocean City and Dewey Beach, and Cambria Hotels in Ocean City and Rehoboth Beach.
Through working with organizations like Hilton and Cambria, Islam has been able to create his company’s own unique touches at each location for a niche experience, and what he hopes to bring to Cambridge, including a rooftop dining area overlooking the Choptank River (similar to his Cambria Ocean City’s rooftop wine bar Spain.)
While constructing his Rehoboth Beach location, he heard from someone at Gillis Gilkerson Construction who forwarded him information about CWDI’s RFP (Request for Proposal) in Cambridge.
Several months following his expression of interest Islam met with CWDI’s former Executive Director Matt Leanord and Treasurer Frank Narr, giving them tours of Pinnacle properties in Ocean City.
“I think they were fascinated,” Islam said, and he was equally impressed with the possibilities at the Cambridge site and its unique character.
Heather Morrison and Matthew Parsons of Fisher Architecture of Salisbury have begun “capturing the flow” of Islam’s initial drawings to bring the first images of the project to life. Though initially reluctant to share such preliminary views, Islam immediately reconsidered and okayed running a virtual rendering of the project following Rideout and Council President Lajan Cephas’s expressions of interest and gratitude for his efforts.
Commenting on Councilman Brian Roche’s statement that the hotel would contribute to efforts to maintain the City’s working waterfront heritage in that area, Islam concurred, adding his desire to do “something really creative based on the fabric of Cambridge, something really beautiful for the waterfront.”
Rideout announced the presentation in last Friday’s press release disclosing the dismissal of the City’s pending lawsuit against Cambridge Waterfront Development, Inc. (CWDI) and Yacht Maintenance Company, initially brought because of alleged irregularities in the acquisition of several acres of land by Yacht Maintenance.
According to the press release, Yacht Maintenance has received the go ahead to purchase the additional land it had originally leased from the city from CWDI.
While details had been in dispute, the city will now provide a clearly designated lot line drawing for recording purposes while the real estate settlement transaction is pending.
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