Bridgeport’s Holiday Inn to become multifamily housing property

Bridgeport is losing its only hotel with the sale of the Holiday Inn to a developer who will be turning the property into multifamily housing.

The hotel at 1070 Main St. in the heart of the city”™s business district is being acquired by Shelton-based developer John Guedes, who plans to keep 18 suites for long-stay hotel accommodations while transforming the rest of the 184-room property into a mix of one- and two-bedroom furnished apartments. Guedes told the Connecticut Post he was seeking to attract millennials as his new tenants and new operators for the hotel’s restaurant and conference and banquet halls.

Holiday Inn Bridgeport began life in the early 1980s as a Hilton-branded establishment but ran into immediate difficulties and was sold in 1988 for $10 million to Trefz Corp., which switched the brand to International Hotel Group”™s (IHG) Holiday Inn banner.

In recent years, Bridgeport has been the site of ambitious lodging projects, including the proposed MGM Resorts Bridgeport and the renovation of the long-defunct, 109-room Savoy Hotel as part of the Majestic-Poli mixed-use project in the city”™s north end ”“ but both projects failed to materialize. A boutique hotel has been proposed for at Steelepointe Harbor near the site of the failed MGM project.

Bridgeport is home to another lodging establishment, the Sunnyside Inn motel at 174 Lake St., which has become notorious for its one-star online reviews.