"We really like what we see happening in Boston," Gemini managing director Atit Jariwala tells GlobeSt.com in explaining the firm's inaugural investment in the market. Gemini is especially upbeat about securing the Shawmut Inn at 280 Friend St., he says. The hotel not only serves a clientele frequenting the Boston Garden sports and entertainment complex across the street, but also the leisure and business sectors, all areas offering promising growth going forward, he says. Boston's Financial District is a five-minute walk from the property, which also is close to Faneuil Hall Marketplace.

The Shawmut Inn opened in 1995 after a $2-million conversion from a five-story office building. At the time, North Station was a gritty commercial district darkened by two hulking viaducts, one the Central Artery and the other an elevated transom for the Green Line subway system. A difficult economy had resulted in numerous vacancies amongst the district's office buildings. Despite the struggling environment, the Shawmut Inn boasted impressive occupancy levels early on, with rents of $100 to $150 per night serving a constituency not willing to pay double and triple that commanded elsewhere in the city.

Gemini does hope to push the rate from a budget range to mid-priced product, Jariwala says. Although details are still not hammered out, the firm will make some physical upgrades to the property, with capital improvements to the rooms and common areas, plus a repositioning of the ground-floor retail. Several national brands are being considered that could lead to a re-flagging of the hotel as well, but Jariwala says no decisions have been made in that regard.