PROVIDENCE — The Providence hotel boom isn’t over yet. Warwick Mall owner and former Cranston City Council President Aram G. Garabedian is partnering with Massachusetts and New Hampshire developers to build an extended-stay Residence Inn across from the Garrahy courthouse, on the site of several parking lots Garabedian owns.

The eight-story, 154-room hotel would rise from the corner of Dorrance and Clifford streets, across from the J. Joseph Garrahy Judicial Complex. The rectangular hotel would occupy a 12,543-square-foot footprint, and boast 22 rooms on each floor. It would have a pool and health club and some limited meeting space for hotel guests, but likely not offer a full-service restaurant or conference facilities.

The project would require the abandonment of a roughly 200-foot portion of Orange Street downtown, between Clifford and Friendship streets, Garabedian said. That proposal is scheduled to go before the City Council’s Public Works Committee tonight, though it may be postponed.

The hotel could cost $30 million to build, said Ara Aftandilian of Summit Hotel Properties, Garabedian’s Topsfield, Mass.-based partner in the project. Even with all the recent hotel development downtown, Aftandilian said, the Residence Inn will offer something different.

“Residence Inn is the leading extended-stay brand, and obviously it’s a recognizable brand and people know of it. Extended stay in urban environments is fairly new. Typically they’re in suburban environments,” he said.

“This would be the only true extended-stay hotel in the downtown.”

The Residence Inn is one of several mid-size hotel projects in various stages throughout the downtown. Just blocks away, a 115-room Hampton Inn is well under way on Weybosset Street, while a 164-room Sheraton Four Points is planned for Promenade Street behind Providence Place.

Another Garabedian project, a 161-room Sierra Suites Hotel on Washington Street, is expected to start construction this summer.

Sierra Suites was once an extended-stay brand, just like Residence Inn, but has moved away from that model, and the two Garabedian projects will not compete for the same customers, Aftandilian said.

There is a Residence Inn in Warwick, but Aftandilian said that is an older property and would not compete with the Providence hotel.

“That’s an older property and it’s a completely different market,” Aftandilian said.

The longer portion of the proposed hotel building will face Clifford Street, presenting its thinner side to Dorrance Street and the courthouse.

Right now, Clifford is a broken street, interrupted by Route 195, and looking out on the highway — but it will see major improvements over the next few years. When the highway starts to come down in 2011, a roughly 10,000-square-foot triangular park is planned for the area immediately in front of the proposed Residence Inn’s entrance, according to Robert Azar of the city’s Planning Department.

Aftandilian acknowledged that he sees the area near the courthouse, now covered with surface parking, as a budding neighborhood for development.

“I see the downtown growing in that direction,” he said.

If the project gets the street abandonment through the City Council, it would then begin the city’s planning process, requiring an entirely different set of approvals.

The project may require some zoning relief, as the hotel is expected to be roughly 90 feet tall, and the zoning allows 75 feet in that area. The hotel would not use the entire space of Garabedian’s parking lots, with the remaining space used for hotel parking.

Realistically, Aftandilian said, there’s no way construction would start this year, and he is planning on a 2009 start date. Once a shovel is in the ground, construction could take a year to a year-and-a-half.

The partnership, which also includes Norwich Partners of Lebanon, N.H., has not yet secured financing, but Aftandilian said he doesn’t expect it to be a problem.

dbarbari@projo.com