Sioux City Hotel to get major facelift

The long-troubled downtown property at 707 Fourth St. was recently acquired by a locally-owned group with decades of hotel and hospitality  experience.

The new owners are spending about $1.5 million to modernize the 193-room hotel, which dates to the 1970s.

Sam Thakkar and Mike Desai said their family wants to bolster public perceptions of the hotel after years of neglect by a series of previous owners.

"We have to change the image of the hotel," Thakkar said in an interview in January.

Thakkar said his family is keeping the Sioux City Hotel name for now, but will explore an affiliation with a national franchise in the future.

As of late February, a renovation of the front lobby was nearly completed. An attractive new tile floor replaced old, outdated carpeting. New furniture for the lobby also was brought in.

Improvements also are being made to the guest rooms. Old televisions will be replaced with flat-screen, high-definition models, and microwaves and mini refrigerators also are being added.

The indoor pool, which has been closed for some time, also undergoing repairs.

The new owners also exploring hiring a contractor to run the hotel's first-floor restaurant. The adjacent bar is open.

Thakkar said the new ownership group wants to attract more weddings and other special events to the hotel's second-floor ballroom. The hotel offers 12,500-square feet of meeting space in 12 rooms.

Desai pointed out his family has more than 20 years experience in the hospitality business. They owns and operate four other hotels in the metro area -- the downtown Ramada Inn at 130 Nebraska St., the Quality Inn at 4230 S. Lakeport St., the Super 8 at 4307 Stone Ave., and the Regency Inn at 400 Dakota Ave. in South Sioux City.

The Sioux City Hotel, which has 29 full- and part-time employees, is the only hotel connected via the skywalk to the Sioux City Convention Center. City officials have acknowledged problems with the hotel under previous owners caused issues in booking conventions and other events.

The 12-story hotel, which opened in 1974 as part of a downtown urban renewal project, was originally a Hilton. The hotel fell on hard times in recent years as a series of owners struggled to make a go of it.

After going through foreclosure, the property was sold at a sheriff's auction last July to settle $5.2 million in court-awarded judgments against two of its former owners. As the lone bidder, the Illinois bank that held the mortgage took possession of the property for $2.5 million.

The property was then sold for $2 million to the current ownership group in a deal that closed in late December.