CLEVELAND — At the soon-to-be Hotel Cleveland, the past and present collide just off Public Square.
Workers are nearing the end of an $80 million-plus renovation project – a transformation that will return the Renaissance Cleveland Hotel to its original name and splendor.
There’s the sleek lobby and bar, lined with sparkling chandeliers. The opulent ballrooms. Vintage city maps and bedside lamps inspired by old sewing machines.
“Everything that a guest would see has been touched,” Kim Romance, the hotel’s sales and marketing director, said during a Wednesday afternoon tour.
There’s also a growing collection of memorabilia sent in by people who dined, stayed and danced there over the last 105 years.
Audrey Dvorak, who is 89, vividly recalls the Hotel Cleveland, where she attended spring dances during high school. She read about the renovations in January and immediately dashed upstairs to the archives at her Gates Mills home.
“I went up to a special room that I have … and pulled out the scrapbook of that time,” she said. “And there were the tickets that I saved. And I’m glad I did. Because it certainly excited me and brought many memories. It triggered many, many memories. All good memories, too.”
After 14 months of construction—and years of planning—the refurbished hotel is set for completion in mid-to-late April. It will become part of Marriott’s Autograph Collection, a group of eclectic, independent hotels. Eventually, a large Hotel Cleveland sign will rise from the roof.
The city’s second-largest hotel opened in 1918 and has carried a procession of names. It was the Sheraton and Stouffer’s Inn on the Square before becoming the Renaissance in the mid-1990s.
The Beatles stayed there. So did Martin Luther King Jr. and Bob Hope. And several presidents, including Ronald Reagan.
Skyline Investments Inc., a Canadian hospitality company, bought the 491-room hotel in 2015 and started talking about a makeover.
But the tricky project took almost a decade to pull off. It drew on a complicated web of funding, from historic preservation tax credits to government loans.
“Frankly, we’re lucky to have this endeavor taking place in Cleveland,” said Laurel Keller, an executive vice president with the Newmark real estate brokerage. “Usually when we see massive renovations that exceed 50, 60, 70, 100,000 dollars a guest room, they’re not here.”
The hotel sits across the street from the future headquarters of the Sherwin-Williams Co. It’s attached to Tower City, which could become a gateway to a reimagined riverfront under a $3.5 billion plan floated by Bedrock, the real estate arm of billionaire Dan Gilbert’s Rock family of companies.
Toronto-based Skyline has been exploring a sale of the Renaissance - and the rest of the publicly traded company's U.S. hotel portfolio. But that broader deal isn't moving forward. Skyline told investors this week that negotiations with a prospective buyer "have not matured into a binding agreement."
Now, the company is talking to that same buyer about a possible standalone purchase of the Renaissance and the nearby Hyatt Regency Cleveland at the Arcade, according to the investor update. There's no guarantee a sale will happen, though.
Meanwhile, the local management and marketing team at the Renaissance is focused on finishing the Herculean construction project, which will make the hotel more appealing to guests - and potential buyers.
On Wednesday, Romance showed off 60,000 square feet of meeting space, including the largest hotel ballroom in Ohio. She walked through guest rooms outfitted with Sherwin-Williams paint and bathroom fixtures from Moen Inc., based in North Olmsted.
At every turn, she highlighted nods to history – nostalgia designed to draw guests in the door and keep them coming back. She paused to sift through a pile of papers she had received—a children’s menu, photos, and, tucked into an envelope, Dvorak’s long-treasured dance tickets.
Dvorak hasn’t visited the Renaissance in years, but she’s preparing for a trip downtown and the chance to get to know the new Hotel Cleveland.
“Certainly, it won’t be a prom again,” she said. “But I’ll be back to see it.”
The hotel’s staff is still seeking memories and memorabilia. If you have stories to share, visit hotelcleveland.com or email Kim Romance at kim.romance@marriott.com. Or you can mail mementos to Romance at 24 Public Square, Cleveland, OH, 44113.
