Clarion to close for $20M renovation; be rebranded as DoubleTree
The Clarion Resort on the Lake on Lake Hamilton will close in January for a $20 million renovation project and be rebranded as a DoubleTree by Hilton hotel, its owner announced Monday in a news release.
“Mehta Hospitality is proud to announce that as of January 2019, the Clarion Resort on the Lake will close for a full head-totoe renovation into a DoubleTree by Hilton. This $20-million-plus renovation will include updating all plumbing and electrical and implementing a new high-tech Millennial experience including digital keys for room access, controlling all other room features via a mobile device,” Rajesh Mehta, owner of Mehta Hospitality, said in the release.
Mehta said the hotel is scheduled to reopen in late 2019 as the sixth hotel in Mehta Hospitality’s portfolio, ranging from central Arkansas to Texas. Two additional hotels are in the works, he said.
The “ambitious renovation” will bring Hot Springs, and the rest of Arkansas, a hotel “the likes they have never seen before,” according to Mehta.
“In its previous incarnations, the hotel has served as a unique destination for guests with its location, meeting space and access to Lake Hamilton. Mehta Hospitality plans on taking all those elements that have made the hotel so unique to the next level and beyond,” Mehta said in the release, “while bringing in a sense of luxury and style that guests have so long awaited for this location.
“While belonging to the Hilton hotel family comes with a high level of expected excellency,” Mehta said, “Mehta Hospitality plans to surpass even the expectations of
Hilton with the DoubleTree of Hot Springs.”
The exterior will be renovated to include features like a reworked boat dock, beach lake front and pool area along with cabanas, terraces and a seating area with fire pit.
“Inside, world-class design will embrace an all new restaurant and bar, 142 all new modern guest rooms, state-ofthe-art fitness center and reconfigured meeting space, to name just a few of the exciting new changes,” the release said.
“Mehta Hospitality is thrilled to have the chance to bring such an exciting brand like DoubleTree by Hilton to Hot Springs and hopes that the city is just as excited. One thing is for sure, once you get to see the finished product, you won’t want to go anywhere else,” Mehta said.
The Sentinel-Record reported in September 2017 that the Clarion Resort was one of three local hotels that had changed ownership in a month’s time. Jack Grundfest, a partner with Mehta in Waterfront LLC, told the newspaper in 2017 that the Clarion would become an “upscale full-service hotel.”
Grundfest and Mehta formed Waterfront LLC to purchase the hotel in August 2017 from a subsidiary of Sunburst Hospitality in Maryland for $7.2 million, according to a deed filed Aug. 17, 2017, with the Garland County circuit clerk’s office.
Mehta was part of the ownership group that had the Holiday Inn Express & Suites at
206 Mehta Court. It was sold in August 2017 to a subsidiary of I Square Management in Stuttgart for $8 million, according to the deed transferring ownership.
Mehta was also part of the ownership group that sold the Staybridge Suites at 103 Lookout Circle to another I Square subsidiary in August 2017 for
$8 million.