A 91-room Tru by Hilton hotel is set to open in Ashland in early 2020. (Photo courtesy Joe Topham)
Joe Topham, Ashland’s business retention and expansion manager, says there’s a simple reason that this 161-year-old town of about 7,800 residents has survived the march of time.
“All the main arteries have come through us, whether it was the railroad, when the railroad was at its peak, or the highway system, when U.S. 1 was one of the most traveled roads in the country. Today, we have Interstate 95, which is the artery of the East Coast,” Topham says.
For Ashland, I-95 brings travelers whose lodging and meals taxes are a lifeline. In the recently adopted 2019-20 local budget, for example, lodging and meals taxes produce nearly 61 percent of what are called “other local taxes,” the largest source of revenue for the town. Hotel and motel taxes tally $815,000, and restaurant and food taxes total $2,750,000.
Ashland has committed itself to protecting those assets. That’s why the construction of a five-story, 91-room Tru by Hilton hotel represents a significant marker. A Red Carpet Inn and vacant restaurant property were demolished to make way for the new hotel.
Slated to open in early 2020, Tru is the first property to benefit from Ashland’s I-95 Corridor Hotel Incentive Program, adopted in 2016 by the town’s Economic Development Authority (EDA). The EDA offers a rebate of up to 50 percent of lodging taxes over six years and up to $550,000 to businesses that demolish a dilapidated or underused property and build a new hotel. To qualify for the program, a new hotel must have at least 85 rooms, generate $100,000 in lodging taxes each year, and be located in the townʼs hospitality zone, an area west of I-95 that stretches to South Washington Highway (U.S. 1).
The Town of Ashland's Hospitality Zone (Image courtesy Joe Topham)
Topham explains that when the interstate was extended to Ashland in the 1960s, hotels and other businesses began springing up to serve the traveling public. Over time, those early hotels and motels have aged out.
“When they hit that 30-year or 40-year mark, they become a less desirable property,” he says. That means travelers may pass them by, taking the dollars generated by Ashland’s lodging tax (8%) and meals tax (6%) with them.
In early 2015, the town’s stock of hotel rooms stood at 1,002. Now, it’s dropped to about 760, Topham estimates. The town has 11 hotels open for business: seven interstate hotels, three U.S. 1 hotels and one downtown hotel. Two interstate hotels have closed.
Local officials hope that the hotel incentive will invigorate the market. In recent years, the town administration also has offered training to help businesses update their public information on the internet, so they can better compete for travelers’ attention.
“It’s a dramatic departure from the days of whoever could get the tallest sign you could see from the highway was most successful,” Town Manager Josh Farrar says.
