Bill Ingler, general manager at the Holiday Inn Select in downtown Stamford, invited friends, top customers and city officials to a wall-breaking event to celebrate the hotels $18 million makeover.
Davidson Hotel Co. of Memphis bought the hotel from FelCor Lodging Trust in March and immediately began planning the renovation, Ingler said.
“Every sleeping room will be redone, all 380 rooms,” Ingler said. “New beds, new carpet, new credenzas, we”™re putting in high definition 37-inch TVs, a refrigerator in every room, the bathrooms are getting all granite countertops, our king-size rooms are getting glass-door showers rather than tub showers.” The front desk will be getting redesigned into pod units to afford easier check in, he said.
“There will also be a new front entrance that is more visible and has better lighting from the street which has been an issue when our gorgeous trees are blooming out in front of the hotel.”
Also included in the renovations will be the cementing and repositioning of the hotel”™s swimming pool, which is visible to the entrance way and dining area. It will be relocated to an area with an expanded fitness center and enclosed. The former pool space will be used as additional room for weddings and other social events. The renovations are scheduled to be done by June, though the hotel does not plan to close at all during the months.
“We”™re transforming the building, the outside, the inside, all the guest rooms, the restaurant, all the lighting, all the carpeting, all the wallpaper,” said Tony Polito, senior sales manager at the Holiday Inn Stamford. “It”™s not your grandparent”™s Holiday Inn anymore. It”™s really just going to bring us more into the market, make the hotel more prominent and update us to keep us in pace with the other hotels in town. We want to have a better mix of more corporate during the week and more social on the weekend. The rooms have a European boutique feel, it”™s like an urban garden retreat now.”
The hotel has also seen a flood of business from production crews of movies being shot in Stamford and surrounding areas in the recent past. These companies necessitate exceptional rates because they book hotel space for multiple months.
According to Kevin Segalla, president of the Connecticut Film Center, which supplies services to production companies filming in the state, the lodging relationship with the downtown hotel is superior and he regularly directs production crews to the Holiday Inn.
“I can tell you there will be a lot more movies coming to Connecticut and they”™re going to be coming here to the Holiday Inn and they”™re going to be very happy about this,” Segalla said.
Crews from movies such as “Revolutionary Road,” “In Bloom,” “and “Factory Girl” have all stayed at the hotel.
“It”™s great to see the level of investment that will be made in this hotel, Davidson is a great operator, one of the great operators of hotels in the United States,” said Mayor Dannel Malloy. “There”™s a great leadership team, I think it made some wonderful decisions for the owner of the property on how to reposition this property in the community. The community has responded to the efforts that have been made thus far, occupancy has been up, they”™ve been able to attract some wonderful folks, folks that have been participants.”
The mayor pointed to state Reps. Carlo Leone and Jerry Fox of Stamford for taking a leadership role in bringing new industry to the area. Leone said preliminary figures showed that since July 2006, $336 million had been pumped into the state”™s economy.
“We”™re particularly proud that Stamford has the largest number of hotel rooms than any other community in the state, though we”™re not the largest community,” Malloy said. “We have the highest occupancy rates than any city in the area. We have a marketplace that responds to a great product and appreciates great service and therefore we can reasonably predict that the success of the last year here at the Holiday Inn will only be out done by the success that will be had by a result of these renovations.”
Also speaking at the event was Ruth Ferry, the program director of Au Pair in America. The hotel is often the place where many foreign women, part of the au pair organization, spend their first few nights in America.
The hotel was built in 1984 and was originally a Ramada Inn until it was sold to Holiday Inn in 1996.
