Tag: Tourism

The new owners of the unbranded Boise Hotel have moved swiftly to transform a building that is stuck in the 1980s into a modern Wyndham Garden.

Salt Lake City-based Western Hospitality Group put in a winning $2.95 million bid at a Sept. 2 bank auction, took ownership Oct. 21, landed the Wyndham brand, and started clearing out the first set of 30 rooms for renovation on Nov. 26.

“We move as fast as we can to capture occupancy,” said Tom Patel, the managing partner.

The first phase of room renovations should be ready for customers by the end of January, though the Wyndham Garden name won’t be up until late spring or early summer, General Manager Troy DeRosier said.

The hotel will be the first Wyndham Garden in the Pacific Northwest.  The only others in the western states are in Carson City, Nev.; San Jose, Ventura and San Diego in California, and Phoenix, Ariz.

Wyndham Hotels and Resorts has no other hotels in the Pacific Northwest with the Wyndham at the front of the name and only three “by Wyndham” hotels: Hawthorne Suites by Wyndham in Kent, Wash., Wingate by Wyndham in Spokane, and Microtel Inn by Wyndham in Klamath Falls, Ore.

“Having a recognized brand like Wyndham will be fabulous,” said Carrie Westergard, the incoming executive director of the Boise Convention & Visitors Bureau, starting on Jan. 5. “It definitely adds value to the arsenal of properties.”

The hotel was built as a Holiday Inn in 1966 with 265 rooms in three buildings. One building was shut down in 2008, leaving the hotel to operate with 195 rooms.  Holiday Inn pulled out in January 2011.

This new era will have a different hotel in each building. The Wyndham Garden will occupy only the 114-room main building with the Castle Ranch Steakhouse, Sports Page Bar, 12,000-square foot conference center plus swimming pool and gym.

The 79-room second building will remain in operation either as the Boise Hotel or take on another brand. The third building will remain closed for now, but DeRosier foresees another hotel or a potential future extended stay use for that 70-room building at the rear of the property.

The second building will likely retain Boise Hotel room rates of $64 to $79, while Wyndham Garden rates will be higher.

“I will have options for any clientele, budget or higher end,” DeRosier said.

Each building will have its own check-in desk, but both buildings and potentially all three buildings will have use of the swimming pool and conference center in the Wyndham building, he said.

Wyndham describes itself as the “world’s largest hotel company,” including ownership of the Super 8 and Travelodge chains and several others. Wyndham Garden typically offers upper midscale rates at properties located primarily in business, airport and suburban locations. Rates have not been established for Boise, DeRosier said.

Western Hospitality has four partners who, individually and as a group, own more than 35 hotels, but the Boise Hotel/Wyndham Garden is their first full-service hotel with restaurant, bar and conference center.

“We operate a couple of other Wyndhams,” Patel said. “We have worked with Wyndham in the past. This was a good fit. I feel Wyndham is one of the larger hotel chains. They do a lot of corporate marketing. We will be targeting a lot of corporate clientele. This will be an all-in-one experience for corporate clients.”

DeRosier said along with Wyndham’s national sales team generating business for Boise, the Wyndham Garden here will also benefit from having travelers enrolled in Wyndham rewards programs steered toward the hotel when visiting Boise.

“We anticipate Wyndham giving us a 30 to 40 percent increase in occupancy,” DeRosier said.

The rooms are getting stripped clean of everything except the four-year-old carpets, which Wyndham deemed useable for now, DeRosier said.

Cultured marble countertops made with marble dust, limestone and fiberglass resin will be replaced with granite countertops.

The Holiday Inn/Boise Hotel rooms had no closets, just exposed hanger rods. Wyndham standards call for closets to be built into every room, DeRozier said.

The $1.5-$2.5 million remodel will give each room new beds, linens, desks and 42-inch flat-screen, high-definition televisions.

The old furnishings and furniture are being donated to the Idaho Youth Ranch and Second Chance Building Materials Center, DeRosier said.

“It’s time. It’s just past its due,” he said. ”The last major overhaul was in the 1980s. The furniture itself is from the 90s, some from the 2000s. That’s part of the reason we were deflagged (from Holiday Inn).”

The other part was bank foreclosure on the prior ownership, Trinity Bay Hotels, in 2012, which led to bank ownership of the Boise Hotel until Western Hospitality won the bank auction.

The Western Hospitality owners are Tom Patel and Mike Chaudhari. They later brought Rocky Patel and Dharmesh Ahir into the ownership.