Family buys historic Des Moines hotel, plans renovation
DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) - The first time Raj Patel stepped foot inside the Hotel Fort Des Moines, he knew he wanted to buy it.
“I walked into the lobby, and I could just see the potential,” the 23-year-old son of an eastern Iowa hotel developer said. “At that moment, you could have told me the hotel was sinking at a rate of a foot a year, and I would have still bought it.”
Patel’s family bought the downtown landmark last week for $4 million through a subsidiary of its Burlington-based company, Hawkeye Hotels. It plans to begin a $40 million renovation later this year.
The project marks the intersection of two businesses on divergent paths.
The Hotel Fort Des Moines was the city’s marquee place to stay for decades. It hosted presidents, celebrities and foreign leaders. But in recent years, it has suffered slow decline, attracting only a few guests a night and accumulating a growing list of needed repairs.
Hawkeye Hotels, meanwhile, has grown by leaps and bounds. It has more than tripled the number of hotels it owns in the past five years and has become one of the state’s dominant hotel developers.
Earlier this week, Patel took The Des Moines Register (http://dmreg.co/1zCZbyA ) on an exclusive tour of the 11-story hotel, 1000 Walnut St., and detailed its renovation plans.
Construction will begin in six to nine months to refurbish the historical aspects of the first and second floors, while gutting the upper floors. Patel hopes to remove part of the second floor to expose the lobby’s original two-story ceilings.
During the project, the hotel will close for the first time since it opened 95 years ago.
If all goes to plan, it will reopen in late 2016 or early 2017.
Hawkeye Hotels is negotiating to operate the hotel as a Hilton- or Marriott-brand property. Under Hilton, half of the building would become a Homewood Suites extended-stay hotel and half would be a boutique hotel called the Hotel Fort Des Moines. Under Marriott, the entire property would be a boutique hotel. It would retain the Hotel Fort Des Moines name.
“This is by far the biggest deal that I’ve been involved in, and in a lot of ways the most passionate,” Patel said.
His parents, Bob and Angie Patel, got into the hotel business in 1982, two years after they emigrated from India. They saved their money to buy a roadside motel in Mena, Ark.
His father, 23 at the time, renovated the motel himself. His mother managed the books and cleaned the rooms.
The Patels later bought a hotel in Hannibal, Mo., and eventually built a Comfort Inn in Burlington.
Reported by: WashingtonTimes.com
“I walked into the lobby, and I could just see the potential,” the 23-year-old son of an eastern Iowa hotel developer said. “At that moment, you could have told me the hotel was sinking at a rate of a foot a year, and I would have still bought it.”
Patel’s family bought the downtown landmark last week for $4 million through a subsidiary of its Burlington-based company, Hawkeye Hotels. It plans to begin a $40 million renovation later this year.
The project marks the intersection of two businesses on divergent paths.
The Hotel Fort Des Moines was the city’s marquee place to stay for decades. It hosted presidents, celebrities and foreign leaders. But in recent years, it has suffered slow decline, attracting only a few guests a night and accumulating a growing list of needed repairs.
Hawkeye Hotels, meanwhile, has grown by leaps and bounds. It has more than tripled the number of hotels it owns in the past five years and has become one of the state’s dominant hotel developers.
Earlier this week, Patel took The Des Moines Register (http://dmreg.co/1zCZbyA ) on an exclusive tour of the 11-story hotel, 1000 Walnut St., and detailed its renovation plans.
Construction will begin in six to nine months to refurbish the historical aspects of the first and second floors, while gutting the upper floors. Patel hopes to remove part of the second floor to expose the lobby’s original two-story ceilings.
During the project, the hotel will close for the first time since it opened 95 years ago.
If all goes to plan, it will reopen in late 2016 or early 2017.
Hawkeye Hotels is negotiating to operate the hotel as a Hilton- or Marriott-brand property. Under Hilton, half of the building would become a Homewood Suites extended-stay hotel and half would be a boutique hotel called the Hotel Fort Des Moines. Under Marriott, the entire property would be a boutique hotel. It would retain the Hotel Fort Des Moines name.
“This is by far the biggest deal that I’ve been involved in, and in a lot of ways the most passionate,” Patel said.
His parents, Bob and Angie Patel, got into the hotel business in 1982, two years after they emigrated from India. They saved their money to buy a roadside motel in Mena, Ark.
His father, 23 at the time, renovated the motel himself. His mother managed the books and cleaned the rooms.
The Patels later bought a hotel in Hannibal, Mo., and eventually built a Comfort Inn in Burlington.
Reported by: WashingtonTimes.com
