A new look is coming to downtown's oldest high-rise hotel.
Jean Ortiz/Lincoln Journal Star | Posted: Saturday, March 15, 2008 7:00 pm
A new look is coming to downtown’s oldest high-rise hotel.
Designs are coming together to update the Holiday Inn, 141 N. Ninth St., bringing changes both inside and out.
Renderings of the planned exterior upgrades show red brick accents running up the tower, on the garage and dominating the hotel’s lower level.
The changes will add windows to the lounge area, new Holiday Inn signs and generally will modernize the property as they incorporate Haymarket influences, said hotel owner Rick Takach, president and chief executive officer of Vesta Hospitality Group of Vancouver, Wash.
“It’s a pretty substantially different look,” he said.
Lincoln architectural firm Davis Design developed the concept.
Inside, some of the work will include new artwork, flooring and lighting to common areas and meeting space, among other touches.
Takach bought the 231-bed hotel from Columbus Properties of New Orleans in August for $15.15 million. It was then he first publicly revealed his plans to upgrade the hotel’s exterior.
The renovations carry a $3.5 million price tag, $1.2 million of that going outside, he said.
That’s on top of the nearly $4 million Columbus Properties of New Orleans spent on improvements last year, including renovated guest rooms and the ballroom .
The changes will bode well for downtown and the Haymarket, said Terry Uland, president of the Downtown Lincoln Association.
“That is a very good thing to have an investment of that size in one of the hotels and especially trying to improve the property (in a way) that is sensitive to its environment.”
If the approval process with the city goes smoothly, work could begin as early as June and could be completed by the end of October — a schedule Takach acknowledges is a bit aggressive.
He had been considering the possibility of converting the property to a Crowne Plaza — another point he disclosed back in August. Crowne Plaza, like Holiday Inn, is a franchise in the InterContinental Hotels Group family.
Takach said he believes that is the route to go, but that change is a few years out yet. Crowne Plaza is at a slightly elevated caliber, he said, and it will provide an attractive product at a reasonable price point — one he believes could compete even if a new hotel comes to fruition as part of a proposal to build a new arena.
Franchise changes are not unknown at the site, which opened more than three decades ago as a Hilton. It would be the fifth name the hotel has operated under since the 1970s.
It also isn’t the first big exterior makeover for the hotel, which in 1999 went from white to beige.
Reach Jean Ortiz at 473-7107 or jortiz@journalstar.com.