News Room
Plaza under new ownership
By Dave Dreeszen-Sioux City Journal
March 6, 2005
The Plaza Hotel has a new owner and a new outlook on life.
Tower Investments, LLC, a Woodland, Calif.-based real estate investment firm, acquired the downtown Sioux City hotel late last year from Criimie Mae, a Maryland-based lending institution. Tower emerged with the 12-story hotel after making a winning bid in a nationwide auction that closed in December.
Tower, which added its first hotel in an inventory of over 100 investment properties nationwide, appointed GF Management of Moorestown, N.J., to manage the day-to-day operations and spearhead a major restoration of the hotel, which had fallen on hard times in recent years. GF Management is a division of GF Hotels, which previously managed the Plaza. Paul Curley stayed on as the Plaza's general manager.
As of early February, GF Management was negotiating to affiliate the hotel with Clarion, a national chain. Clarion is the top-of-the-line brand for Choice Hotels, which also owns Comfort Inn, EconoLodge and Rodeway Inn lodging franchises.
Curley said hotel officials also are working with city officials on a plan to finance major renovations to the 192-room hotel. The list of improvements under consideration includes installing a new roof, upgrading the heating and cooling system, renovating the kitchens and adding guest services that include high-speed Internet access and a new business center.
Local leaders have long pushed for a rehabilitation of the hotel, which was affiliated with Hilton until a few years ago. City officials have said that a lack of a name-brand, premiere downtown hotel has hurt business at the convention center, a short walk from the Plaza along the skywalk system.