May 9--The developers who are building a 190-room hotel on Tremont Street plan to announce the name today: Nine Zero. 

The unusual name, supplied by sources, was guarded as a secret in advance of today's unveiling. It plays off of the Boston hotel's 90 Tremont St. address, the site of the former Dini's Seafood restaurant. 

Developer Paul Palandjian was teasingly opaque in discussing the name yesterday while declining to reveal it. He said it is "as unique as the hotel will be. It will be timeless yet exhibit the edge and respect to modern ideals that we think the design of the guest rooms represents." 

The $60 million luxury hotel, being developed by Intercontinental Real Estate Corp., is scheduled to open next May. 

Palandjian said he expected it to rate four stars and rank just behind the Four Seasons and the Ritz-Carlton. 

In news that Palandjian was open to discussing, he said that Intercontinental will convert the vacant Ames Building at 1 Court St. into a 130-room hotel. That $30 million project is expected to go into construction in September and open in November 2002. His firm bought the former office building in 1999 but has not said until now that it would definitely be a hotel. 

The two hotels are the first developed by Intercontinental since the firm was founded by Palandjian's immigrant father, Petros, in 1963. Since the elder Palandjian's death in 1996, the company has been run by his sons, with Paul as president and Peter as chairman and chief executive. 

Four years ago, the brothers tried to make a hotel and multiscreen cinema out of the former Don Bosco trade school on the edge of the Theater District. But the project succumbed to neighborhood opposition. Another developer later opened a Doubletree hotel at the site. 

Patrick Moscaritolo, president of the Greater Boston Convention & Visitor Bureau, said the Palandjians' current projects show that even in a slowing economy, demand for hotels remains strong in the city. 

"The right project in the right location with the right development team will get done," he said. 

The city is eager for new hotels, both to serve existing visitors and to prepare for the $800 million convention center that's being built in South Boston. It is supposed to open in May 2004. 

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(c) 2001, The Boston Globe. Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News.