Proprietor negotiating with franchises on hotel brand, restaurants
By Vicky Wedig
Editor
In less than two months, the new owner of the former Delavan House Hotel aims to have a franchise hotel up and running in the downtown building.
“Officially, we’d like to open by May 1,” owner Sean Patel told 10 city officials and downtown merchants who gathered for a tour of the building Saturday.
The city’s hotel development action team, a subcommittee, of the Downtown Delavan Project Management Team, met at the hotel Saturday morning to see the progress of the project and give neighboring business owners a chance to meet Patel.
“I’ve been having so much fun lately,” Patel, who lives in Prospect Heights, Ill., and also owns the Super 8 in Delavan, said facetiously about the work he’s been doing to restore the hotel.
Patel said the project is 60 percent complete with most of the demolition done and all of the necessary permits obtained. He said three crews are working around the clock to complete the renovations.
“So hopefully we can make it happen,” he said about the May 1 deadline.
Patel said the priority is to refurbish and open the 57 hotel rooms first. He said electrical work is being done and a sprinkler system installed in the rooms.
He said the hotel will have no suites, but the same number of “very nice rooms” it once had.
“Right now our main focus is to open the hotel,” Patel said.
Once the hotel is up and running, the focus will shift to the businesses that will locate on the ground level of the hotel, Patel said.
Patel said he is working on franchise agreements with two companies to locate in the front of the building facing Walworth Avenue – the world’s leading coffee shop and the world’s largest submarine sandwich chain.
In the back of the building on the ground floor will be an upscale bar and restaurant with a lounge feel – in the same location the hotel’s restaurant once was.
Patel said the chef from the former restaurant is interested in joining the staff again.
Patel said he is working with a franchise on the hotel brand also but does not yet have an agreement finalized. He said the brand requires breakfast for hotel guests. The breakfast area will be in the center of the ground floor between the sandwich and coffee shops in front and the restaurant in back, he said.
Patel said he expects to announce the hotel brand by the end of the month.
In the hotel basement, Patel is refurbishing banquet rooms in the same location they were in the former hotel. The previous low ceilings will be replaced with open ceilings, he said.
Merchants from neighboring stores including Remember When, Bradley’s and the Main Street Manor attended Saturday’s meeting.
“We’re all routing for you,” Dale Bradley, owner of the Bradley’s Department Store building, told Patel.
Business owners hope having a hotel functioning again downtown will increase their business.
“We can’t wait for you to open,” said Bradley’s owner Lois Stritt.
