OXFORD — Completion of the $15 million Hampton Inn on Route 26 is set for the end of the summer, an official said.
The 92-room, four-floor in across from Oxford Casino was originally expected to open by June. Groundbreaking was held in March 2014.
John K. S. Cleary, vice president for hospitality at Calamar in New York, said the project is in the final push to be completed, hopefully by the end of summer.
“The project has been moving along well, albeit not as quickly as we all would prefer,” Cleary said recently in an email.
It was expected to create as many as 50 to 90 temporary construction jobs and 23 part- and full-time jobs with salaries ranging from $25,000 to $80,000.
The roughly 4-acre property was sold by Suzanne Hall, owner of Crestholm Farms, to GIRI Oxford I LLC, a subsidiary of GIRI, in November 2013. The GIRI Hotel management group signed an agreement with New York-based Calamar to construct the hotel.
Cleary said the project was delayed by a local framer “who failed to perform as contracted and needed to be replaced. We provided the framer an opportunity to rectify the issues and the framer did not do so. We terminated his contract per our agreement and replaced him.”
Additionally, an occasional lack of manpower has also caused delays for the project, Cleary said.
“Due to the busy construction season and the overall number of projects in Maine the project has been occasionally slowed only due to a lack of available manpower as many of the contractors have had to split crews to cover multiple projects,” he said.
Cleary said the project’s completion is not off schedule by much.
“The project started just over a year ago and while it is taking longer than planned, it is only off slightly,” he said. “It is not uncommon for similar projects to take between 12 to 15 months. Weather, manpower, material deliveries all factor into the scheduling and length of construction.”
ldixon@sunmediagroup.net
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