Dec. 23–Downtown Tulsa is getting another hotel.
Neal Bhow and John Snyder — partners in a number of downtown developments — are joining forces to turn a vacant office building at 707 S. Houston Ave. into a Best Western Plus.
The 82-room hotel is scheduled to open in December 2014.
“I think a lot of those families that come here for an event or to the Convention Center sometimes might need a little bit more of an affordable (place),” Bhow said. “And there are not really a lot of options for that, and I think that would fill a gap.”
Rooms are expected to go for $79 to $99 a night, Bhow said, with 72 parking spaces available to customers. The hotel also will include free Wi-Fi, complimentary breakfast and a fitness center.
“This will be definitely 20 percent to 25 percent cheaper than other hotels” downtown, Bhow said.
The hotel will sit across the street from the Cox Business Center, formerly the Convention Center, and along the Route 66 detour — points Bhow plans to feature when marketing the hotel.
“The hotel’s name would be Best Western Plus Route 66/Convention Center,” Bhow said. “People don’t want to park two blocks down the street and then come to your hotel.
“If you have to drag your luggage from the parking garage onto your (hotel), to me that just adds more cost and is more inconvenient for the guest.”
Best Western Plus is the official hotel of AAA as well as the Harley Davidson Hog Club, Bhow said. To serve Harley riders staying at the hotel, Bhow plans to install “hog washing stations” — something akin to a car wash for motorcycles.
“It’s kind of a cool little feature,” said Bhow’s son, Shaun Bhow, who will run the new hotel.
Shaun Bhow studied graphic design at the University of Oklahoma. He has begun to explore how the vacant red brick building could be turned into an attractive structure.
An early rendering created by Bhow shows the red brick building transformed into a sleek gray and green structure with trees planted along the perimeter.
The Bhows say they have not decided on the exact modifications they will make to the exterior of the building but promise that the new look will be clean and modern.
“As you can see, the property looks absolutely unbelievably different … you don’t even recognize the building,” Neal Bhow said of the rendering.
The work on the building won’t end there.
Neal Bhow said he plans to spend more than $5 million to renovate the building. He and Snyder purchased the building from the city at auction for $681,000 and will spend approximately $250,000 to install a new heating air conditioning system and other utilities.
“It is an existing building,” said Neal Bhow. “And it has been completely demolished inside.”
The list of downtown properties Neal Bhow and Snyder own includes the downtown YMCA, the Aloft hotel, the Vandever Building and the Hartford Building.
But soon it could be Shaun Bhow getting into the action. He said he plans to spend the next year working the front desk and other positions at the Aloft as he prepares to become general manager of the Best Western Plus.
“It is a good opportunity for me in a lot of ways,” Bhow said. “It’s an education for me that I didn’t learn in school, so in doing this it kind of opens up a lot of doors for me to do little projects and in turn maybe open more things downtown later on in my life.”
Kevin Canfield 918-581-8313
kevin.canfield@tulsaworld.com
