Portsmouth, NH Shakes Off Pandemic-Era Rust & Shows Promise for Future

Erich Baum | April 20, 2023

By Erich Baum As recently as the 1980s, Portsmouth, New Hampshire, was a rowdy military town with empty storefronts. Construction of the Sheraton Harborside (completed in 1988) required subsidies to pencil out, and another twenty years passed before the Hilton Garden Inn followed, without help from the public. In the years since, the downtown hotel market has continued to mature, adding affiliates of Residence Inn by Marriott in 2010 and Hampton Inn in 2014, followed by an AC by Marriott, which had the bad luck to open in January 2020. Three years and one pandemic later, the AC by Marriott has been absorbed, and the market thri...