Hilton Garden Inn

On January 27, 2005 the City of Worcester and developer Paul C. Picknelly celebrated a groundbreaking for a $20 million dollar 200-room, eight story Hilton Garden Inn hotel to be built adjacent to the DCU Center. The hotel is to have a 100-seat Pizzeria Uno Restaurant, a pool and fitness center, as well as 7,000 square feet of meeting space.

The Hilton Garden Inn opened in October 2006.

“This project will complement the DCU Center and provide a valuable connection between the two facilities which will enhance our ability to attract new convention and hotel business. The construction of a first-class hotel adjacent to the Convention Center will help to draw multi-day conventions to our great City – to the benefit of restaurants, other hotels and hospitality related industry throughout the region,” City Manager Michael V. O’Brien said. “This is a signature project for downtown Worcester and clearly represents the tone we wish to set in encouraging future investment in our City, as well as the physical prominence of spectacular design we envision throughout our downtown.”

Mayor Timothy P. Murray agreed, noting, “This is an exciting project that will further leverage the economic success of the DCU Center and convention hall which will expand our tax base and create jobs. Moreover, with our local building trades doing the construction on this hotel and skywalk we will add another quality eye-catching building and visual for Worcester's skyline.”

The hotel is to be linked by pedestrian skybridges to the DCU convention center and the City’s 970-space Worcester Center Boulevard parking garage. As designed, the $4 million dollar skybridge will connect to the third level of the parking garage, slope gently down to the second level of the hotel, and gently rise again to connect to the second level of the Convention Center. The proposed 10-foot wide, fully conditioned, pedestrian bridge will be a cable-stayed structure with a single 150-foot pylon structure situated near the middle of its 274-foot curved span.

As the DCU Center and the Hilton Garden Inn development continue to become a more active public destination in the City, the new skybridge will be a significant focal connection that will celebrate the synergy of convention and hotel activities. At the City scale, for those arriving in Worcester from Route 290 along Central Street, the mostly glass and steel skybridge will serve as a gateway to the City.