Comment
Rate
Extreme makeover: Hotel edition
|
||
| Advertisement |
By Stephen Foutes
sfoutes@newstribune.com After 18 months under construction, the Doubletree has opened its doors
It's been a fairly stressful 18 months for Vivek Puri and his family.
As the general manager of the newly opened Doubletree Hotel Jefferson City, Puri and the Puri Group of Enterprises - which also owns Jefferson City's Hampton Inn and Comfort Suites locations - have just completed a multi-million dollar, top-to-bottom renovation of the former Hotel LaBella at 422 Monroe St.
The project began in November 2006, with the belief it could be completed in eight to 10 months.
But as exploratory work began, it became clear modernizing the 40-year-old building and bringing it up to existing codes would take much longer, Puri said.
“Actually, you couldn't put a time schedule to the project,” he said. “As we started demolition from the top down ... things came to light that needed to be addressed. Instead of putting a Band-Aid on it, we went to the heart of the problem and did a massive surgery.”
Puri pointed to the hotel's elevators, which hadn't been updated since the building was constructed in 1967, as one example where “surgery” was required.
As the new elevators were about to be installed, the state required additional work to bring them up to code. That work added more time and about $50,000 to the cost of the project, Puri said.
Although he felt some of the requests were “impractical,” - one involved ripping out a conduit that had no impact on the elevator's operation, he said - the work was completed.
“Whatever they requested, we did it,” he said.
In short, Puri said, this project was one of the most trying his family - his father, Ravi, is president/CEO of the Puri Group, while his brother, Ramon, is the vice president - has undertaken.
“There were days that you woke up and said, ‘What's going to go wrong today?'” Puri said.
While Doubletree hotels generally are found in larger cities - the other three in Missouri are found in St. Louis and Springfield, according to the hotel's corporate Web site - Puri feels this venture can be successful in the local market.
“You have those that are frugal, that will shop around for the bargain,” he said. “But there are those that are willing to pay for quality, and there's plenty of people in Jefferson City who are willing to pay for quality.”
Construction at the 151-room Doubletree is mostly complete. About a dozen rooms still need some cosmetic changes, the parking lot will be freshly paved in the coming weeks and staff members still are working out some bugs in the hotel's multiple computer systems.
“Those are things that need to be polished,” Puri said. “Until that's done, I don't think anyone breathes a sigh of relief.”
In the meantime, Puri said he plans to continue working on his father's vision, which is to restore the hotel to a position of prominence in Jefferson City.
The hotel took a step toward that status last week when it was named a Jefferson City landmark by city's Historic Preservation Commission.
“We had any option,” Puri said of the project. “We could have kept this building or taken it down to nothing and started over. It probably would have made my life easier. But my father's goal in acquiring this property was to restore it to the status of being the jewel of Jefferson City that it once was. That's the entire focus.”
And for Puri, there's also one other goal at the Doubletree.
“I don't want us to be compared to anybody,” he said. “I want us to be the one to be compared to.”
As the general manager of the newly opened Doubletree Hotel Jefferson City, Puri and the Puri Group of Enterprises - which also owns Jefferson City's Hampton Inn and Comfort Suites locations - have just completed a multi-million dollar, top-to-bottom renovation of the former Hotel LaBella at 422 Monroe St.
The project began in November 2006, with the belief it could be completed in eight to 10 months.
But as exploratory work began, it became clear modernizing the 40-year-old building and bringing it up to existing codes would take much longer, Puri said.
“Actually, you couldn't put a time schedule to the project,” he said. “As we started demolition from the top down ... things came to light that needed to be addressed. Instead of putting a Band-Aid on it, we went to the heart of the problem and did a massive surgery.”
Puri pointed to the hotel's elevators, which hadn't been updated since the building was constructed in 1967, as one example where “surgery” was required.
As the new elevators were about to be installed, the state required additional work to bring them up to code. That work added more time and about $50,000 to the cost of the project, Puri said.
Although he felt some of the requests were “impractical,” - one involved ripping out a conduit that had no impact on the elevator's operation, he said - the work was completed.
“Whatever they requested, we did it,” he said.
In short, Puri said, this project was one of the most trying his family - his father, Ravi, is president/CEO of the Puri Group, while his brother, Ramon, is the vice president - has undertaken.
“There were days that you woke up and said, ‘What's going to go wrong today?'” Puri said.
While Doubletree hotels generally are found in larger cities - the other three in Missouri are found in St. Louis and Springfield, according to the hotel's corporate Web site - Puri feels this venture can be successful in the local market.
“You have those that are frugal, that will shop around for the bargain,” he said. “But there are those that are willing to pay for quality, and there's plenty of people in Jefferson City who are willing to pay for quality.”
Construction at the 151-room Doubletree is mostly complete. About a dozen rooms still need some cosmetic changes, the parking lot will be freshly paved in the coming weeks and staff members still are working out some bugs in the hotel's multiple computer systems.
“Those are things that need to be polished,” Puri said. “Until that's done, I don't think anyone breathes a sigh of relief.”
In the meantime, Puri said he plans to continue working on his father's vision, which is to restore the hotel to a position of prominence in Jefferson City.
The hotel took a step toward that status last week when it was named a Jefferson City landmark by city's Historic Preservation Commission.
“We had any option,” Puri said of the project. “We could have kept this building or taken it down to nothing and started over. It probably would have made my life easier. But my father's goal in acquiring this property was to restore it to the status of being the jewel of Jefferson City that it once was. That's the entire focus.”
And for Puri, there's also one other goal at the Doubletree.
“I don't want us to be compared to anybody,” he said. “I want us to be the one to be compared to.”
 |
 |
|
| Mid-Missouri road work planned for the week | Nearly 600 graduate from Jefferson City High School |
Article Rating |
|
Before commenting read the News Tribune Forum's policies and procedures.
Thanks.
RSS
xfatman wrote on May 28, 2008 8:33 PM: