Proposed resort in Tinsboro gets liquor license

Town Spirits Inc. principals Malay and Himansu Patel’s rough concept drawings for part of the resort’s entertainment precinct are being proposed near Middlesex Road in Tinsborough. (Courtesy Town of Tinsborough)

TYNGSBORO – In the near future, the small town could be home to a multi-million dollar, 60-room hotel and entertainment park resort on 11.5 acres off Middlesex Road in the new Behind the Best Friends Pet Hotel.

While still in concept development, the project was approved by a selection committee on Monday, granting the business a full alcohol licence.

Attorney Peter Nicosia submitted the proposal on behalf of his clients Malay and Himansu Patel, principals of Town Spirits Inc. The Patels ran the Kastore restaurant in North Chelmsford and had other experience in liquor sales, Nicosia told the select committee.

“A resort would be like the Great Wolf Lodge (in Fitchburg) or the Red Jacket Inn (in North Conway, New Hampshire) without the water park,” says Nicosia. Instead, the Tyngsboro resort will build a massive entertainment complex modeled after Marlboro’s Apex Entertainment.

Nicosia said the hotel and entertainment park will become a destination resort, bringing people to Tinsborough to enjoy its amenities. That would make the as-yet-unnamed hotel the second resort in town. Chateau Merrimack, on the Pawtucket Boulevard side of the river, opened last year as a resort.

The Patels are committed to working with the town at every stage of the process. “We want it to be a true public-private partnership,” Nicosia said.

Nicosia acknowledged that he brought the proposal to the select committee early in the process. He said the Patels needed to have the license in hand when negotiating with national hotel chains to come to Tyngsboro.

He was acting on the shared opinion of the Board members that there was only one such license available in Tyngsboro.

Board member Katarina Kalabokis had reservations about granting the license so early. She worries that if there is a license, there may be another business that can open quickly.

Mayor Matt Hansen explained that the town actually has more all-alcohol licenses. Some permits are limited to the city center, but there is an additional unlimited permit available.

Eric Eldridge, the new select board chairman, said he would support the granting of licences, but called for a “roadmap to more licences”.