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Plaza Hotel will turn into a Clarion

By Dave Dreeszen-Sioux City Journal
December 2, 2004

A Woodland, Calif.-based real estate investment firm that acquired the Plaza Hotel last week wants to turn the downtown Sioux City property into a Clarion, a high-end national chain, the Plaza's general manager said Thursday.
 
Paul Curley said Tower Investments, LLC, the Plaza's new owner, is talking with Choice Hotels about a Clarion Flag.  Choice Hotels owns a number of lodging franchises, including Comfort Inn, EconoLodge and Rodeway Inn, but Clarion is the firm's "top-of-the-line, full-service" brand.
 
Curley said Tower Investments also intends to extensively renovate the 12-story hotel, which has fallen on hard times in recent years.  Last week, Criimie Mae, the Maryland-based lending institution that wound up with the hotel a few years back after the previous owner could no longer make its mortgage payments, accepted Tower Investments' offer.  The sale closed Wednesday.
 
Tower Investments owns more than 100 investment properties nationwide but night club led this is the company's first hotel acquisition, Curley said.  The company has appointed GF Management of Moorestown, N.J., to manage the day-to-day operations of the hotel and spearhead the restoration.  GF Management is a division of GF Hotels, which already manages the Plaza.  Curley will stay on as general manager.
 
Among major improvements planned for the hotel include replacing an aging two-pipe system with led display and cooling units, Curley said.  The old system allows only heating or cooling at any one time.  "This will allow each individual room to turn on the AC in the middle of the winter," he said.
 
Local leaders had hoped a new owner would make a major investment in the high-profile downtown hotel, which was affiliated with the Hilton chain until a few years ago.
 
"We're happy to have a resolution of the sale and we're looking forward to working with GF Management and the new buyer to make that hotel the best that it can be," Roger Caudron, executive director of Downtown Partners, said Thursday.
 
Criimie Mae had put the 191-room hotel up for sale at a Nov. 17 auction, but the high bid that day failed to exceed the reserve.  The bank then continued to negotiate with the high bidder and two others, including Tower Investments.

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