"That building is an architectural gem," Paul L. Palandjian, president of Intercontinental, tells Globest.com. "It really wants to be a hotel, and a high-end one." Palandjian and Intercontinental are no strangers to the high-end hotel business themselves, having transformed 90 Tremont St. into a four-star luxury hotel, Nine Zero. The 19-story, 190-room boutique was voted the number-one hotel for design in the country by Conde Nast magazine, and "Best Boutique Hotel" by Boston magazine in 2004.

Designed by the architectural firm of Shepley, Rutan & Coolidge and built in 1889, the Ames Building is listed on the National Register of Historic Places and was one of the city's first skyscrapers. The 14-story structure was purchased by Intercontinental from the Zoppo family at the end of 1997 for $9.6 million as part of their Fund II investment portfolio, the same fund that spawned Nine Zero. The building was 60% occupied at the time of the purchase, and Intercontinental at one time had entertained plans to redevelop the asset as a 162-room hotel themselves.

"We were marketing it for sale and would have done it ourselves," Palandjian says. "We had vacated the building by letting some leases expire and buying out the rest, and we went through the permit process, but rather than complete the development, we decided to market it and sell it to someone with a fresh vision for the property."

The fresh vision came in the person of Noel O'Callaghan, an Irish hotelier who had developed four luxury hotels in Dublin as well as one in Gibraltar and Annapolis, MD. "I don't think we could have found a better buyer for the property than Noel O'Callaghan," says Palandjian. Globest.com was unable to get extensive details on the new hotel's design before press deadline.

The addition of the hotel will carve another notch in the belt of the city's recovering hotel industry. The BRA approved this project and final designs for the 470-room Marriott Renaissance Boston Waterfront Hotel on the South Boston waterfront last week. These are in addition to the Battery Wharf hotel, the Westin Boston Waterfront Hotel and Richard Friedman's recently announced plans for the Charles Street Jail conversion as well as others in various stages of development.

"From the city's perspective, it's a real positive," adds Palandjian. "We're adding rooms to the inventory, which is an important part of our long-term goal to meet the convention center's mandate."