Developer Drops Plans For Boutique Hotel In Doylestown

DOYLESTOWN BOROUGH, PA — A developer has told the borough that he will not be pursuing plans to build a boutique hotel at 57 West Court Street, the former site of the now-demolished Doylestown Borough Hall.

Borough manager John Davis confirmed in an email on Tuesday that the borough had been notified by property owner Larry Thompson of his decision not to pursue the 47-room hotel project.

Davis said Thompson did not go into a great deal of detail about his decision, but did say that he was “disappointed, but in the end just could not make the numbers work due, in no small part, to rising construction costs.”

Davis said the borough has subsequently heard from The First National Bank of Newtown, which has expressed an interest in acquiring the site, but Davis said he has not heard if they have and nothing formal has been submitted to the borough.

The borough sold the property in 2021 for $2.3 million to Larry Thompson, who owns several key Doylestown properties, including the Lenape Building at the intersection of Main and State streets and McCaffrey’s Simply Fresh market on West State Street.

After a series of lengthy and sometimes contentious meetings with neighboring residents, court actions and a settlement agreement with opponents of the project, Thompson won final land development approval last October for a 47-room boutique hotel.

A rendering of the boutique hotel at 57 West Court. (Doylstown Borough)

In addition to the guest rooms, the multi-story hotel was proposed to include a 100 seat event venue, reduced through a court-stipulated agreement from 200, and a 70-seat restaurant that had not changed in size from the original plan.

When Thompson proposed the hotel project in 2023, he said that it would fill a need in the town for much needed hotel space.

“Initially, I wanted to do apartments, but that was not a permitted use (in the zoning district)," he said. "The hotel idea came about after speaking to a lot of business owners in town and knowing people in the hospitality business ... We have everything else - the walkability, the shops, the restaurants, the train. But we don't have the hotel rooms," he said

Thompson said when speaking with Visit Bucks County, he learned that the tourism board finds it “next to impossible”9 to push Doylestown as an event venue due to its lack of hotel rooms.

The hotel proposal, however, met with resistance from neighboring residents who felt that what was being proposed was too big for the site and the neighborhood. They took the project to court, which ended in a settlement agreement with a reduction in the size of the event venue and other stipulations.

Davis said the borough is aware that some of the closest neighbors, despite settling with the developer, “will no doubt be pleased” the project is not moving forward. “That said, the broader borough community will no doubt be disappointed.

“Additional hotel space is a definite economic development need and something the majority of the Borough was excited about,” said Davis.

The site originally housed the Methodist Episcopal Church built in 1838. In the early 1900s, the building was converted into an armory, then a sports venue, and eventually the Doylestown Garage. In 1915, a fire destroyed much of the original structure except for the building's exterior walls. The exterior walls were subsequently taken down, and the current structure was built to house the new garage.

Sometime between 1959 and 1979, the front of the building was renovated to reflect a new use. The front facade was replaced with a hall-like pedestrian entrance. A second story was also removed.

In 1979, the building was sold to Doylestown Borough. It served as the Doylestown Borough Hall from 1979 to 2022, when the borough relocated its offices to its current site on Doyle Street.