Here newly created development districts, which were designed to preserve the Cape's fragile environment and limit development to the town's center, have sparked a condo boom along Hyannis' busy Main Street that is enveloping restaurants and office buildings as well.

"The new redistricting and rezoning of Hyannis has really opened a lot of opportunities for developers," Margo Pisacano, with Seaport Village Realty, tells GlobeSt.com.

One of the first projects to be built under the new regulations will be located on the Centre Street site of the Storyland miniature golf course, which will be turned into a 36,000-sf mixed-use development, including 12,000 sf of ground-floor retail and 16 condominium units. Two more projects are also planned for Main Street. One calls for 22 condos to be built atop the single-story Hibel Museum. Another will be a mixed-use project that will include 29 units.

Along Craigsville Beach in Centerville, the 46-room Trade Winds Inn has already been converted into luxury beachfront units that are selling for between $500,000 and $1 million, Pisacano notes.

Whether all those units will find buyers anytime soon remains unclear but Cusack and Pisacano are optimistic. They say both the lower-end hotel conversions, which start in the $200,000s, and the higher-end luxury units, are selling briskly.