Mass Vaccination Site To Open At Danvers DoubleTree Hotel

DANVERS, MA — A mass vaccination site at the DoubleTree Hilton Hotel in Danvers will open Feb. 3. The vaccination site will be in the ballroom, which has a separate entrance and its own parking area, said Kevin Varr, the hotel's general manager, in an interview with Patch Monday. The hotel will be able to operate at its normal capacity, even while the vaccination site is set up.

“The beauty of our ballroom is we can pretty much cut off the rest of the hotel and have no impact from the ballroom area, again because it has its own entrances and exits, and parking on that side of the building is typically dedicated for the ballroom anyway,” Varr said. “So we don't anticipate any negative impacts or any impacts at all for our guests staying at the hotel.”

In addition to having its own entrance and parking, the ballroom is inside, meaning vaccinators won’t have to worry about temperature or weather like they might at an outdoor or semi-outdoor site.

There are now five planned mass vaccination sites in Massachusetts: Fenway Park, Gillette Stadium, the DoubleTree Hilton Hotel, the Eastfield Mall in Springfield, and the Reggie Lewis Center. Gov. Charlie Baker announced the opening of the last three at a news conference Monday afternoon.

Varr said that representatives from Danvers and Middleton—including the chiefs of police and fire, and heads of the Department of Health—examined the hotel property and said that parking and traffic control would be handled by the towns.

Varr said the hotel is excited to begin operating as a vaccination site.

“Our industry was one of the ones that was heavily impacted by COVID-19 and I think we’re very pleased to be part of this process, just having been so affected by this pandemic,” he said.