York Beach Union Bluff Hotel expansion: Owners seek to add 48 new rooms, parking garage

YORK, Maine — One of York’s landmark hotels could see a major addition in the pipeline as its owners seek approval for doubling its size.

Giri Hotel Management is seeking to add 48 new rooms to the Union Bluff Hotel overlooking Short Sands Beach, bringing the total to 88. It also seeks to build a multi-level parking garage with 111 spaces in a beach town where parking is scarce in the summer.

The Union Bluff’s restaurant space will also be expanded as part of the addition. The owners, technically listed as Giri York Union Property Inc., were scheduled to go to the town's Planning Board on March 28 for the start of their approval process.

The Union Bluff is one of York’s historic hotels, built in 1868. The hotel’s website states it was built by Moses French, who noticed an explosion of tourism in the area following the Civil War.

The hotel changed hands over the years between several different owners. The original building was destroyed in a fire in 1987, according to the site’s history. It was rebuilt two years later by the father one of the most recent owners, Mary Jane Merritt.

Merritt and her husband Brett owned the hotel for more than three decades, then sold it in 2021 to Giri Hotel Management for $23 million. The Merritts were looking to retire from the hospitality industry.

Giri Hotel Management, based in Quincy, Massachusetts, had already owned properties across New England. They own properties in several other places in Maine, including Ogunquit, Kennebunk, Bar Harbor and Portland. The group also bought the Anchorage by the Sea hotel in Ogunquit last year.

Giri looking to double Union Bluff’s units, add parking

The project proposed this week to the Planning Board would include a new 28,980 square feet building addition, according to a cover letter for its sketch plan application. It would involve demolishing a structure at 19 Freeman St. to make way for the proposed parking deck.

Currently, the hotel has a mixture of pavement and gravel parking. The project’s cover letter states the addition will not result in additional stormwater runoff onto adjacent properties.

David Bridges, chairman of the Ellis Park board of directors and former York Beach fire chief, recalled that Brett Merritt considered building parking at the Union Bluff underground. He said parking at Short Sands Beach is highly coveted.

“There’s never enough parking,” Bridges said. “Parking is very valuable.”

This article originally appeared on Portsmouth Herald: York Beach Union Bluff Hotel eyes major addition, parking garage