A long over-due project appears to be coming up, and one hopes it moves forward to begin to turn around one of the most blighted corners in Sacramento.
Bob Shallit: Aging downtown hotel in line for upscale rehab
Bob Shallit - Bee Columnist
Published 12:00 am PDT Wednesday, October 3, 2007
Downtown's aging Marshall Hotel on Seventh Street would be reborn as a 150-room boutique hotel, under plans now under city review.
The five-story Marshall, currently a single-room hotel catering to low-income tenants, would be rehabbed to include two new floors. The structure would be connected to a 14-story tower at the current site of the Jade Apartments.
The resulting complex near the corner of Seventh and L streets would cater to business travelers and be operated by the Grand Heritage Hotel Group, a Maryland company that also runs the historic Governor Hotel in Portland and 10 other properties nationwide.
A ground-floor restaurant and upscale tavern also are in the plans, which we first encountered in an enterprising blog called "Livinginurbansac" (http://livinginurbansac. blogspot.com/).
"This is a real project, we're moving forward and we think it can make a big impact (downtown)," says Pete Noack, a local real estate broker and part of an investment group that owns the Marshall and the Jade apartments.
The first step is a presentation tonight to the city's preservation commission. Then the developers hope to submit plans and seek building permits.
Noack says he expects some financial help from the city, which has expressed interest in upgrading some of downtown's aging single-room-occupancy hotels, and the rest from private lenders.
