by Steve Wolf

Trilogy developer Steve Samuels and a developer of the Backy Bay’s Mandarin Hotel plan to build stores, restaurants and a 275-room Hilton on the site of the West Fens Howard Johnson’s Hotel. Samuels and Steve Weiner signed a deal with HoJo’s owner Sage Hotels to redevelop the motor lodge, which opened in 1959. No plans have been presented publicly, but Sage president Robert Sage told The Boston Herald that Hilton Hotels would be the new operator. The Boston Globe quoted Adam Weiner, Steve Weiner’s son and business partner, as saying plans for the project would reflect talks with West Fens residents. “We want to do something very appealing, in a more modern style,’’ Weiner fils told the Globe, but one that would be shaped in “a collaborative process with the BRA and all of our neighbors.’’

Meanwhile, renovation of the old WBCN studio has finally gotten under way just next door as the Jerry Remy Sports Bar & Grill tries to make a March 1 opening date. The 330-seat operation had been scheduled to open last spring, but financing vanished during the economic crisis. The Herald’s Tom Grillo reports that Remy’s backers paid $165,000 for a beer-and-wine license freed up by the closing of a South Boston restaurant—less than 5% of the project’s reported $3.7 million budget. Watch for hearings on the license transfer as March 1 approaches.