Linchris Hotel Corp., another veteran Massachusetts lodging company, is buying the assets in a joint venture with Strategic Capital Partners of Chicago. Besides the Brookline operation, properties changing hands are the 227-room Hampton Inn Boston Logan Airport and the Holiday Inn at Mansfield/Foxboro in Mansfield, a 202-key full-service facility. The two Maine hotels are in the state's capital, Augusta, near the Augusta Civic Center. Fine's Comfort Inn Civic Center has 99 rooms while the adjacent Holiday Inn has 102 rooms.

"We're excited about the opportunity to acquire this portfolio," Linchris CEO Christopher Gistis tells GlobeSt.com in acknowledging his Hanover-based firm has committed to the deal, with a closing anticipated by the end of the month. Until then, Gistis says he cannot discuss specifics such as pricing, and efforts to obtain a precise figure were unsuccessful. Calls to Fine Hotels officials at the firm's Wellesley headquarters were not returned by press deadline.

The transaction apparently involves Fine's remaining hotel portfolio, which according to company documents reached 10 properties after being founded by Gerald Fineberg in 1990. The most recent divestment came in May 2006 when the Holiday Inn Newton was bought by Normandy Real Estate Partners for $14.6 million. That 40-year-old hotel has since been recast as a boutique inn run by InterContinental Hotels Corp. Known as Indigo, that hotel is slated to open in January.

According to one document, the six-story Brookline property was last renovated in 2001, while the Mansfield Holiday Inn was overhauled last year. Gistis says a $7-million capital improvements campaign will be undertaken at the trio of Massachusetts properties during the next 18 months, with $11 million to be spent on those facilities over a five-year span. Linchris has also been switching some of its hotels to smoke-free operations, but Gistis says no decision has been made whether the Fine additions will be converted.

Concentrated in New England, the Linchris hotel portfolio presently has 20 lodging assets stretching as far a field as West Virginia. Independents include the Anchorage in Tilton, NH; the Ocean Park Inn in Eastham, MA; and the Surfside Hotel & Suites in Provincetown, MA. Linchris owns Comfort Inns in Hyannis, MA; Concord, NH; and St. Johnsbury, VT. Founded in 1985, the firm runs four Holiday Inns, including one in Falmouth, MA, and two in southern New Hampshire in Salem and Manchester. Linchris has two Best Western hotels, including one acquired in 2004 in Brighton close to the Holiday Inn Brookline. "It has done well for us," Gistis says of the Brighton hotel, adding he anticipates a similar result for the Holiday Inn Brookline, which caters to the Longwood Medical Area and schools such as Boston College and Boston University.