PROGRESS: Historic Warrior Hotel, Davidson Building nears opening after $73M renovation

The project, led by St. Louis-based Restoration St. Louis, began in Feb. 2019. The hotel has a projected completion date in July.

In late February, Lila Plambeck, The Warrior Hotel's Director of Sales and Marketing, said the ballroom had been drywalled and that carpeting was being laid in some areas of the hotel. 

"We're moving onto rooms, so there's rooms where the plumbing and wiring is all in. There's wallpaper on the walls," she said. "The headboards are in town. The bowling alley is in town."

Plambeck said construction workers have been able to work in the building nearly every day during the winter because it is sealed up and warm.

"Some of them work six days a week," Plambeck said of the subcontractors. "There's over 100 construction workers on site most of the time."

Besides the ballroom and the six-lane bowling alley with a club-like atmosphere, the hotel will also feature a pre-function space, luxury spa, pool, business and exercise centers and commercial space on the first floor. Both the hotel's heating and cooling will be powered by geothermal energy. Rooms will offer amenities such as mirror TVs. 

Staff have started booking wedding receptions and other events for The Warrior Hotel, which will be the first Marriott Autograph Collection hotel in Siouxland. The developers also have started pre-leasing the 22 upscale apartments being developed on the fifth and sixth floors of the Davidson Building. Monthly rents range from $1,400 to $2,500 for the units, depending on the number of bedrooms and floor space.

"Just like the rest of the community, we're over-the-moon excited about it," Plambeck said. "It's just wonderful to be a part of the project, but it's fantastic to go out in the community and see how excited the community is about this project." 

For more than three decades, Lew Weinberg has tried to breathe new life into The Warrior, which was once one of Sioux City's most elegant hotels, and the neighboring Davidson Building. Built in 1930, the 10-story Art Deco-style hotel later fell on hard times and closed in 1976. Since the late 1990s, the boarded-up structure has been red-tagged by the city for building code violations.

The project started out with an estimated cost of $56 million based on preliminary drawings, but that figure has since risen to $73 million, largely due to construction cost inflation. 

The Iowa Economic Development Authority awarded the project more than $11.3 million in historic preservation tax credits; and the Sioux City Council agreed to guarantee $16.5 million for it.