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KEVIN GUTTING

The Lord Jeffery Inn in Amherst will close next month, but owner Amherst College has postponed its planned $20 million renovation project because of the economic downturn.

AMHERST - The planned renovation and expansion of the Lord Jeffery Inn is now on hold, but the inn will close as scheduled early next month.

Amherst College President Tony Marx announced Tuesday that the more than $20 million project, which had been slated to begin in mid-November, has been shelved until at least next June because of the economy.

"Like most other colleges, universities, businesses, and households, Amherst is operating in a different world than it was just a few months ago," said Marx, in a statement.

"Our endowment, like many of our peer institutions, has been negatively impacted. That means the college faces difficult choices about spending priorities, and decided it was in our best interest to postpone the renovation of the Lord Jeffery Inn until a clearer picture emerges about the state of the economy and the college's ability to take on this project without sacrificing its fundamental commitment to its academic mission."

The college will still close the inn Nov. 10 and has given notice to its employees, said college spokeswoman Caroline Hanna.

"We have already stopped taking room and function reservations for the winter, which is a traditionally slow period, and keeping the inn open would result in a significant financial operating loss for the college," Hanna said in an email.

The physical condition of the inn and the expiring contract with the inn's management team also contributed to this decision, Hanna said.

In September, the Planning Board voted in favor of the plans for the inn, which was scheduled to be overhauled and modernized during a more than yearlong project. The plans called for demolishing and rebuilding an entire wing of the 1926 building, with only the section of the Lord Jeffery Inn on Boltwood Avenue facing the Town Common to be preserved.

Site preparation work behind the Alumni House for a geothermal heating and cooling system at the inn has already begun. Hanna said the drilling of 50, 500-foot geothermal wells will continue to completion, but all other work will either cease or not begin.

In the memo to the college community, Marx said that the college's trustees this past weekend discussed the economic conditions and argued that preserving education, and the well-being of students, faculty and staff, should take precedence over non-core projects. He noted the endowment has lost about one-quarter of its value since June.

"The board of trustees will continue to review the inn investment as part of the normal capital budgeting process at future board meetings, and we expect to revisit this decision by June 2009," Marx wrote. "Other ongoing planning vital to the academic mission of the college, such as that related to Merrill Science Center and Frost Library, will continue in depth."

The Amherst Select Board Monday had been scheduled to take up a request from the college to prohibit parking on both sides of Spring Street for the duration of the project so that the college and its construction manager Daniel O'Connell's Sons Inc. would have space to do its work and both lanes would remain open to through traffic on the street. This item was removed from the agenda.

Town officials have seen the renovation of the Lord Jeffery Inn as a potential benefit to the downtown economy. Amherst College was instrumental last fall in getting Town Meeting to rezone Spring Street to make it part of the commercial district.

Scott Merzbach can be reached at smerzbach@gazettenet.com.