The DoubleTree Suites by Hilton Hotel Detroit Downtown - Fort Shelby is a restored historic high-rise hotel, located at 525 West Lafayette Boulevard (at First Street) in Downtown Detroit, Michigan. It was originally named the "Fort Shelby Hotel" when it opened its doors in 1917. In 1951, the Albert Pick Hotels Company purchased the property and renamed it the "Pick Fort Shelby". It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1983.
In 2008, the restored historic hotel opened with 203 guest suites and 56 apartments on the upper floors. The hotel features a 21,000-square-foot (2,000Â m2) conference center with two ballrooms and 17 Breakout rooms.
Architecture
At a news conference on June 26, 2007, Ann Arbor Architectural firm Hobbs + Black Associates Inc. announced it would oversee renovations to the property which reopened under the name "DoubleTree Guest Suites Fort Shelby/Detroit Downtown" on December 15, 2008. The hotel features a 21,000-square-foot (2,000Â m2) conference center with two ballrooms and 17 breakout rooms.
Preliminary preparation for renovation work began in June 2006. It consisted of structural evaluations, asbestos removal and environmental tests. The main ballroom was restored to its original state. Financing for renovation closed in early May 2007, construction work on the hotel started later that month.
History
In 1917, a group of investors sought to build an affordable hotel near Fort Street Union Depot. They hired Schmidt, Garden & Martin of Chicago to design the 10-story, 450-room hotel which opened that year. The hotel was so successful that in 1926 they broke ground for the first of two planned 450-room expansions, the 27-story Albert Kahnâ€"designed addition opened in 1927. However, the Great Depression halted plans for the second addition.
An original mural by Louis Grell of Chicago was commissioned for the hotel lobby during the Albert Pick years. In the late 1960s and early 1970s, more business opted for newer suburban accommodations and the Pick-Fort Shelby struggled with low occupancy. Pick closed the hotel in 1973 and sold the building to three twenty-something investors who reopened it as The Shelby Hotel, a hotel/apartment complex geared toward youth in 1974, however, this was short-lived and it soon closed again. For many years, the Anchor Bar, a popular watering hole for workers at the nearby Detroit News and Detroit Free Press remained the only tenant until it relocated in 1994.
MCP & Associates, a real estate investment and development firm, started work on this hotel in the spring of 2007, and finished construction in December 2008. The renovations are led by Detroit based L.S. Brinker, with the first floor Bar & Grill completed by Farmington Hills-based Mccarthy & Smith Inc.
References
External links
- Fort Shelby Hotel DoubleTree Guest Suites official website
- Fort Shelby Hotel at Skyscraperpage
Posting Komentar