Developer Outlines Plans For New Cambridge Hotel

A Cambridge developer announced plans yesterday for the construction of a 500-room hotel on Memorial Drive that will provide accommodations for many of the tourists the Kennedy Library will draw to Cambridge.

Graham Gund, owner of the riverside site adjoining the MIT campus, unveiled plans for a hotel which ranges in height from 6 to 15 stories and includes a swimming pool and a 375-car parking lot.

He said that realization of the plans is contingent upon the defeat of a proposal before the Cambridge City Council to rezone the property for low-and moderate-income housing.

Gund called the design "architecturally interesting" and said construction costs will be $11 million. The Hyatt Regency Corporation, owners of the world's eighth-largest hotel chain, will manage the hotel when it is completed in mid-1975, he said.

New Jobs, Tax Money

"The hotel will bring over 400 new jobs to Cambridge and $350,000 in added tax revenues," Gund said. The site presently holds a warehouse used by the Abcor Corporation.

Saundra Graham, a city councillor and community leader, said yesterday that the community has not been consulted about plans for the hotel and that she would fight for the new zoning regulations.

Gund, facing Graham at a news conference held yesterday, replied that housing constructed on the site would be cut off from the rest of the community. He noted that his property is bounded by warehouses, railroad tracks and the Charles River.

MIT, which owns the property adjoining the hotel site, today issued a statement saying that the university is "pleased with the prospect of the proposed new development." It also said it hoped that the developers will receive cooperation from City officials.