‘Worth the wait’: Green Bay’s Hotel Northland opens
GREEN BAY - It took a little more than one year and $1 million to build and open the Hotel Northland in 1924.
Ninety-five years later, it’s taken about $50 million to restore, renovate and revive the historic downtown hotel, 302 N. Adams St. Local residents and travelers will now find out whether the eight years it has taken to go from idea to open was worth it.
Even before it opened March 21, 1924, the Northland was civic pride in physical form. Green Bay residents watched the hotel rise from the ground and walked past it en route to work or during a trip downtown. The Green Bay PressGazette said the Northland “marks an epoch in the city’s history” and called it “visible evidence not only of the growth which Green Bay has enjoyed, but of the growth it is destined to enjoy,”
The Northland shoulders high expectations once again as General Manager John Williams and the staff welcomed their first guests Thursday. Williams said the complicated financing, delays due to an ownership dispute and short timeline to finish made the project a challenge, one he welcomed with open arms.
“This was a hard one. Part of my decision to come here was it was a hard one. We knew it was going to be challenging and it lived up to the billing,” Williams said. “But it absolutely, positively was worth the troubles and the challenge.”
‘Good things take time’
Downtown Green Bay Inc. Executive Director Jeff Mirkes said his first recollection of the Northland’s revival is when Mayor Jim Schmitt announced a group was looking to restore the Northland to its former glory.
In August 2010, Schmitt told the Press-Gazette: “Good things take time.”
The hotel had been converted to housing for the elderly and disabled in 1979, but its shell and historic accents remained. The seeds of the Northland’s revival were planted in 2010 and 2011 with a downtown redevelopment plan that included demolition of the Port Plaza Mall, construction of the CityDeck and expansion of the KI Convention Center.
Everything else on that list was financed and finished by 2015. It took until April 2015 to pull together the $40 million needed to finance the hotel’s renovation; even then, work didn’t start until December 2015.
Mirkes called the Northland project a test for the community, but one with an end result that will pay huge dividends.
“The Hotel Northland was a real test of our patience, but I think the end result — a Marriott Autograph property, dedicated owners and an experienced management team — is worth the wait,” Mirkes said.
The wait involved years of trying to find a developer who could bring together a mix of funding partners and find a contractor to take on the challenge of gutting the structure, installing modern mechanical systems, adding amenities unheard of 100 years ago and then restoring the historic woodwork, plaster, terrazzo floors, accents and other details that make the Northland a one-ofa-kind property.
Financial problems that devolved into infighting among the developers plagued the project from late 2016 and into 2017, when the hotel ended up in receivership. The renovation project’s original general contractor, KPH Construction Corp., recently filed to reorganize its finances under Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. The Milwaukeebased firm, led by Keith Harenda, says it has assets ranging from $1 million to $10 million, and potential liabilities of $10 million to $50 million.
Harenda also filed for personal bankruptcy protection, listing both his assets and his liabilities at between $1 million and $10 million.
Greenwood Hospitality Group bought the partially completed project in spring 2018 and rushed to open part of it by December in order to salvage the historic tax credits that helped fund the building.
Businesses benefit
The owners of Aardvark Wine Lounge did not expect it would take as long as it did for the Hotel Northland to open. Co-owner Brad Klingsporn said they expected it to open shortly after the South African wine bar opened on Pine Street, opposite the hotel, in January 2017.
Aardvark’s staff has fielded all sorts of questions about the Northland, and many customers offer their own memories of proms, art galas, weddings, charity fundraisers and community dinners in the Northland’s Crystal Ballroom, Nicolet Room and the Bay Room Cocktail Lounge.
Klingsporn said Aardvark and its neighboring businesses are happy to have some company in their corner of downtown. Klingsporn expects the hotel and its wine-focused Walnut Room restaurant will be a benefit to businesses large and small in downtown.
“I think of it as great for companies. They’ll be the closest, easiest hotel to Nicolet (National Bank), Schreiber, Associated and Imperial Supplies,” Klingsporn said. “And it’s an easy walk to here (Aardvark) for wine. We can sell wine retail, which will be big for solo business travelers.
“We hope we can be part of a whole experience for hotel guests. Especially in the cold months. We’re the closest place,” Klingsporn said.
Mirkes said the other downtown hotels, the Hyatt Regency and the Hampton Inn, see a “rising-tide” benefit to the Northland’s arrival.
“We’ve known for five-plus years we need these rooms in downtown Green Bay, especially since the KI Convention Center doubled in size,” he said. “Downtown hotels are eager for another highend property to open.”
He said the Northland’s place in Green Bay and Green Bay Packers lore makes it a unique property that provides an important connection to the community’s history.
The first grand opening
The Hotel Northland was heralded as the “most modern in Wisconsin” when it opened 95 years ago, an eight-story edifice that had almost everyone in Green Bay talking, according to Green Bay Press-Gazette coverage of the hotel’s grand opening on March 20, 1924.
Its original development, like the recent restoration, was fraught with challenges, tough sells and unexpected delays.
The Hotel Wisconsin Realty Co. originally declined Green Bay real estate dealer C.J. Williams’ pitch to the company to build in Green Bay.
The Hotel Wisconsin Realty Co. was the state’s premier hotelier at the time. It built and ran the Hotel Duluth, three landmark Milwaukee hotels and had just finished Fond du Lac’s Hotel Retlaw in 1922. C.J. Williams was able to get the company’s executives up to Green Bay for a tour of its downtown, and the group selected a lot known at the time as the Hagemeister homestead.
“Mr. Williams is one of the most wide awake real estate dealers in the city, but his work in connection with the Northland was not so much selling a piece of real estate as it was securing one of the most important developments of a quarter of a century for Green Bay,” the newspaper wrote.
Residents closely followed construction of the hotel as it rose over the course of 1923.
Opening day reports marveled at the hotel for its:
Five miles of pipe, installed by local plumbing contractor George F. Reeke 380 radiators
147 bathtubs
The “sewerage pump” used to pump wastewater from the below-grade basement
Six refrigerators
A display of four Bruno Ertz paintings
45,000 yards of plaster Coach service to the train station for guests
A fleet of taxis
“Fireproof ” construction that gave rise to the Northland’s tagline “Sleep in Safety!”
The grand opening party started March 21, 1924, and continued on March 22, when a train arrived bearing at least 100 people from Milwaukee who came to Green Bay to celebrate the hotel’s opening dinner dance.
John Williams, the Northland’s general manager, said the Northland may not boast a fleet of yellow cabs or 380 radiators any more, but the Marriott Autograph property will feature a high level of modern amenities.
The 160 rooms feature plenty of USB plug-ins, WiFi service “built for speed,” robes, slippers, a refrigerator and walkin showers. The hotel also has a 24/7 front desk, 24-hour valet parking, a fitness room on site and room service, Williams said.
“The finish and details are appropriate to the market,” Williams said. “It’s an understated property that makes high use of its history. Travelers will walk in and think this could be in Chicago, San Francisco, anywhere in the country, because it’s that good.”