January 14, 2010 09:34 am
The group planning to bring the Baker Hotel back to life say they will keep it largely as it was when it opened 80 years ago – a destination hotel and spa. Representatives from the Baker Hotel development group presented the hotel renovation project plans to a packed room of community members Wednesday afternoon at a Rotary Club meeting and asked for continued community support.
The group is looking to turn the long-empty Baker Hotel into a four-star destination spa and convention center, Chad Patton, vice president of Investment and Marketing Relations with Hunter Chase, told the crowd. “We want to bring back the glory of the hotel with the modern day amenities of the 21st century,” Patton said. “It really started from driving down [U.S. Highway] 180 and seeing [the hotel],” Patton said.
Laird Fairchild of Hunter Chase has ties to the nearby Rhodes Ranch and Patton said he sometimes hunts in the area.
Hunter Chase first approached the renovation of the historic hotel as a mixed-use condo or apartment-type project, according to Patton, but when the PKF study came back in March, they realized it should be a hotel and spa, “essentially what is was at one time.” They were told a hotel could sustain a 70 percent hotel occupancy rate after it stabilized over five years and charge about an average of $170 a room each night.
After doing studies, they believe the hotel will employ between 80 and 120 people, as well as anybody brought in to help during the construction phase.
The first member of the development team to be brought on board was Thiel and Thiel of Southlake, the architect and design company.
“Shortly after, we interviewed a ton of operators,” Patton said. They decided on Jeff Trigger, founder of La Corsha Hospitality Group and current operator of the Stoneleigh Hotel and Spa in Dallas. He has operated or managed the Aldophus and the Mansion on Turtle Creek in Dallas, the Driscoll Hotel in Austin and the St. Anthony in San Antonio, according to Patton. Trigger and La Corsha had a close relationship with HHCC, a contractor out of Austin, so they were also added to the development team, Patton said. “They’ve been at the hotel countless times with flashlights, digging around, trying to figure out what those old bones look like,” Patton said.
“Over the last year, we’ve been trying to figure out the best mix,” Patton said. Original plans and blueprints have been very difficult to find, according to Patton. Patton said they are pursuing a wide variety of things to finance the expensive project.
The $46 million dollar project will likely have a value of $35 million once it is finished, Patton said.
At one point they estimated the project at $57 million but have pared the cost down without compromising quality, according to Patton. They are also hoping and planning on between $20 million and $25 million in incentive financing, such as $6 million in new market tax credits, $4 million in historic tax credits, $8 million in tax increment financing district returns, $1.5 million in Brownsfield loan financing to help with asbestos abatement and other smaller grants. They are also hoping for $15 million in a U.S. Department of Agriculture loan guarantee.
“Obviously 2009 was a very trying time financially,” Patton said, adding they believed 2010 would be similarly difficult. “We don’t believe that will be a complete hinderance.” “We’ve been working diligently,” Patton said. He said he believes they are months, if not weeks, away from completing the work they need to begin shopping for financing.
Patton also went over current plans for the renovation, though they are not yet final. They are still working out issues with Texas Historical Commission, which controls the historic tax credits, and are about 90 percent complete with the plans. About 20,000 square feet will be devoted to meeting and conference space and the spa will be about 14,000 square feet, according to Patton. Because the rooms are so small, they plan on far fewer rooms than the original hotel held. “It’s not going to look much different than it was,” Patton said about changes to the outside of the building. “We haven’t figured out the landscape and design phase,” Patton said. THC has also requested they keep the pool and the fountain, so those will likely stay, Patton added. The underground garage will likely be re-roofed and restored, though they haven’t finalized the details. The street-level floor will likely contain about 11,000 square feet of retail space and a coffee shop and diner seating about 80 people where the kitchen is currently located in the building. The main kitchen will be moved up to the lobby floor, where the serving will be done.
“We’re going to bring it back to it’s original glory,” Patton said about the lobby itself. The Brazos room to the left will serve as a prefunction space next to the nearly 15,000 square-foot ballroom. “We want to bring [the Rose Room] back,” Patton said.
They plan on removing several faux walls to open up space into the Rose Room. The kitchen will be in the back, near the banquet room.
Architect Kurt Thiel called the shift of the kitchen one of the most significant changes they are planning for the building. The octogonal portecochere area on the lobby floor will be isolated from the rest of the floor and used as an extension of the spa upstairs, according to Patton. The mezzanine level will serve as the quieter check-in area, Patton said.The spa level is still a work in progress as they discuss their options with THC.
“We know we want food and [beverages],” Patton said. The women and men’s area will be entirely separate. “We are going to deliver … a top notch spa,” Patton said. They also hope to have a fitness area near the spa, as well. Floors three through nine will be downsizing from 40 small rooms to 21 larger rooms of about 450 square feet. “The standard room is going to be junior suite size,” Patton said.
On the 10th floor, the team plans to restore the Presidential suite that faces south along Hubbard Street and sits below the Baker suite. The current gymnasium area will be transformed to a meeting space with nearby breakout rooms and a small preparation kitchen in the back.
The Baker suite will also be restored on the 11th floor and meeting rooms will also be housed on the same floor, along with a set of stairs that lead directly to the Cloud Room. “We’ll bring back the integrity of the floor with one exception,” Patton said of the Cloud Room. They plan to open up one area of room.
Patton praised the cooperation from the city, the industrial foundation and the chamber of the commerce over the past two years. “Anytime we come, we are met with open arms,” Patton said.
“We look at this as a partnership and don’t believe we can do this any other way,” Patton said. “Give us this year to get all this [financing] done,” Patton said. If and when that happens, they expect to be able to complete the project and have doors open within 18 months to 2 years, according to Patton. About a year out, they will be advertising the hotel and Mineral Wells across the state with their $3 million opening budget, community members were told.
“I know there’s a bunch of skeptics in this room,” said Richard Ball, president of the Industrial Foundation, which has been working with Hunter Chase the past two years to rejuvenate the hotel. When they first approached the foundation, he was also doubtful of the project, Ball said. “I didn’t want any part of it.” Since then Ball said he has seen the group spend a lot of time and money trying to make it work and he believes it will. The day the architect showed up and saw the building, they “had saliva running out of their mouths,” Ball said. Thiel added he was eager to see the project happen and the teams had spent dozens and dozens of hours, if not hundreds of hours, on it already. He helped tear down the U.S. Grant Hotel in his own small town of 19,000 when he was in high school and wrote his thesis on rejuvenating his city which was ignored, according to Thiel. “What’s different here is that Chad and Laird – of course, there’s got to be a business component – there’s something deeper that [attracts them],” Thiel said. “You’ve got enormous talent here that are deeply invested in the community.”
Copyright © 1999-2010 cnhi, inc.
By Christin Coyne – ccoyne@mineralwellsindex.com
