Holiday Inn Sale Becomes Official

Holiday Inn Sale Becomes Official
Facility Next to Fairgrounds to be Courtyard by Marriott
By RACHEL RASKIN-ZRIHEN, Times-Herald staff writer

Vallejo's Holiday Inn has sold for $8 million, and after extensive renovations will become a Courtyard by Marriott.

According to Jeffrey Roe of CB Richard Ellis, which represented the sellers, the transformation will take place by summer 2006. "There's a great deal of conversion work to be done," Roe said.

"You can expect to see activity out there within the next 60 days," he said. "That's when things will begin to happen."

The Holiday Inn, across from Six Flags Marine World, is considered a prime location, especially because of the development planned at the Solano County Fairgrounds, which abuts the hotel property, the property owners' representatives said.

The fairgrounds is one of the largest tracts of land being developed in the Bay Area with current plans for a large retail-entertainment project by Mills Corp.

The proposed sale was first reported in August after the Solano County Board of Supervisors voted unanimously to approve it. That approval was required because the hotel sits on county-owned land.

The final sale was announced Monday.

Roe and Michael Blahosky represented sellers Vallejo Hotel Group and Rim Corp. in the transaction. Rim reportedly will continue managing the property.

"This was an interesting deal because of the lease arrangement with the county of Solano," Roe said. "The upcoming development of the surrounding fairgrounds land was a key component to finding the right company to oversee the conversion of the hotel and manage its operation for the future."

Corporex intends to invest upward of $6 million to convert the site to a Courtyard Hotel, Roe said.

The five-story, 170-room Holiday Inn was built in 1986 and renovated in 2000. The hotel, which is Vallejo's largest, includes a restaurant and about 4,000 square feet of meeting space.

The Holiday Inn license agreement expires in December and Marriott has completed a feasibility review to convert the property to a Courtyard by Marriott, which is expected to significantly improve both occupancy and city revenues.

Corporex spokesman Jim Warshawski said the Cincinnati-based hotel development firm is well known in the Midwest and southeast United States, but the Vallejo deal is among its first forays into California and the first in the northern part of the state.

Warshawski said the hotel's exterior fa ade will be changed to reflect a cleaner, more modern design, but most of the remodeling will focus on the interior. The lobby and bathrooms will be totally redesigned and rebuilt and new furniture and carpeting will be installed, he said.

"It will look like a new, modern, state-of-the-art Courtyard by Marriott," Warshawski said.

- E-mail Rachel Raskin-Zrihen at RachelZ@thnewsnet.com or call 553-6824.