Destination: Somerville

Not too long ago, the idea of booking a hotel room in Somerville would have been hard to fathom.

For years the city was known for several things -- a working-class housing enclave with some tough streets, crashpads for college kids, and funky sections full of entertainment and flavor -- but an overnight destination was not one of them.

But now Mayor Joseph A. Curatone believes Somerville has grown so much in the past decade that it has become such a healthy and interesting community in its own right that it can support several hotels.

He ticks off attributes: a growing economy, proximity to the region's top universities, diverse neighborhoods organized around squares with active retail and nightlife, particularly quirky Davis Square, which also boasts a vibrant club scene, and scores of restaurants.

"You no longer need to be in downtown Boston to enjoy certain urban amenities," he said. Curatone commissioned a study that in February concluded Somerville could support new hotels in short order, one each in Davis Square and along McGrath Highway near Interstate 93, and he said a third hotel may be feasible down the road, in Union Square, for example.

The city is sending copies of the $20,000 study by Pinnacle Advisory Group of Boston to hotel companies.

Curatone said hotels would help drive Somerville's economy by bringing in commercial tax revenue, which he hopes to build up to relieve the burden on homeowners.

The room and excise tax hotels charge would also provide revenue to the city.

Local businesses said there is no doubt Somerville could use -- and support -- new hotels.

"We worked with a number of developers over the past three or four years who all believe there's a market here," said John Cole, a principal of the architecture and design firm Arrowstreet, which is located in Davis Square.

"People want to be here. When there's this much of a need, developers will find a way to do it," Cole added.

For example, nearby Tufts University gets about 70,000 visitors a year, said Barbara Rubel, the university's director of community relations. Rubel said Davis Square would be "a very popular location for people to stay," in part because it's just a few blocks from the university. "I think a hotel in Davis Square would have an edge," she said. "There are enough times in the year we could use every bed we can find, we would make a serious contribution to an operation of a hotel."

The Pinnacle study suggested that any of three kinds of hotels with 100 to 125 rooms might work in Davis Square: a select-service facility such as Hilton Garden Inn or Courtyard by Marriott, a boutique select-service like the Starwood aloft brand, or a limited-service hotel.

One difficulty over the years has been finding a site for a hotel in Davis Square. But City Hall may have solved that problem by suggesting several of its municipal parking lots could be used as sites.

And for the Route 28 corridor, Pinnacle suggested an 80- to 125-room limited-service hotel would be suitable, identifying a privately owned site near Stop & Shop supermarket on McGrath Highway and city-owned land where a waste disposal business now sits.

The study cited hotels such as Hampton Inn and Holiday Inn Express as possible good matches.

Curatone would like to see hotels built as soon as possible, and certainly within five years. Pinnacle officials declined to comment, as did some of the hotel companies named in the study.

A spokesman for the aloft chain said the company doesn't have any immediate plans to open a facility in Davis Square but thinks it's an exciting area.

Over a longer term, 10 years or so, the study found, the city should consider hotels in Union Square, which is slated to undergo a dramatic makeover, and Assembly Square, where developers are scheduled to build an urban village of housing, retail, office, and the Inner Belt, a manufacturing area the city hopes to transform to a telecommunication, office, and biotechnology center.

Patrick Moscaritolo, the president of the Greater Boston Convention & Visitors Bureau, said new hotels in Somerville would also benefit from the spillover during those times of year when downtown Boston hotel rooms are full.

He said Somerville could also market itself as a destination for business travelers who need to be near colleges other than Tufts, like Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.