Former Holiday Inn in downtown OKC to be converted to apartments
The former downtown Holiday Inn, empty for the past several years, is under contract to an east coast developer with plans to convert it into apartments.
The 10-story building at 520 W Main, last home to the Character First Institute training center, is under a sale contract set to close by fall, said Troy Humphrey with Land Run Commercial.
Humphrey said the buyer, not identified Wednesday, has been “fully vetted.”
“They are more than capable with these types of projects and have done these projects in the past,” Humphrey said.
A building permit filed with the city shows the former hotel will be converted into 204 apartments with a pool, pickleball court, fitness center, clubhouse, dog park, dog grooming and conference center on the ground floor.
The building is owned by Jonathan Russell, who purchased the former hotel for $6.15 million in 2018.
The Holiday Inn opened in 1965 at a time when the nearby Civic Center Music Hall was being used as a multi-event center for sports and conferences. The Urban Renewal plan, launched as the hotel opened, suggested building a convention center and arena several blocks east at what is now the home of Prairie Surf Studios.
The Holiday Inn portrayed on postcards in those early years carries a “Mad Men” cool vibe. At the time it opened, it had a swimming pool and on-site surface parking for 105 cars. It was the first new hotel built downtown in three decades.
The Holiday Inn, however, never quite fit into the new downtown that followed. Owners of the Skirvin in the early 1980s invested $3 million in rehabbing the Holiday Inn, but when the oil bust hit, both hotels went dark. The hotel was purchased by Kimray in 1993 and then given to the Character First Institute.
The training center closed in 2016. The property, once in a rundown west fringe of downtown, is now located between John Rex Elementary, Devon Energy Center and a Film Row filled with housing, offices, restaurants and bars.