Fort Shelby Hotel

Fort Shelby Hotel
General information
Location	525 West Lafayette Boulevard Detroit, Michigan United States
Height
Roof	73.8 m
Technical details
Floor count	22
Floor area	450 hotel rooms
Design and construction
Architect(s)	Schmidt, Garden & Martin, Albert Kahn

The Fort Shelby Hotel is an historic high-rise hotel in downtown Detroit, Michigan. It stands at the corner of 1st Street and West Lafayette Boulevard. Its address is 525 West Lafayette Boulevard. The hotel is slated to undergo a major, $82 million renovation. The Fort Shelby will become a 204-room hotel with the upper floors becoming 67 apartments.The hotel will be owned by Doubletree Hotels, a subsidary of Hilton Hotels.

The building was constructed in two phases completed in1916 and 1927 . It stands at 22 stories in height, with one basement floor, for a total of 23. It was designed in the Beaux-Arts architectural style. It incorporates brick and limestone as its main materials.

The original 1916 building was designed by Schmidt, Garden & Martin and the 1927 addition by Albert Kahn.

History

• The original 10-story, 450-room portion of the hotel was completed in 1917, and the 450-room tower addition was completed in 1927

• In 1951 it was sold to the Albert Pick Hotels chain and renamed the Pick-Fort Shelby

• The hotel struggled with low occupancy throughout the late 1960 and early 1970's. Pick closed the hotel in 1973.

• Pick Hotels sold the building to three 20 something investors who reopened it as The Shelby Hotel, a hotel/apartment gear complex geared toward youth in 1974.

• The Shelby was plagaued with bar fights and other violence and closed after 3 months of operation

• RSC & Associates, a real estate investment and development firm, plans to start work on this hotel in the spring of 2007, and open it in early 2009 as the Fort Shelby Hotel and Conference Center, a 204-room hotel, 63 apartments, and about 30,000 square feet of convention space.

Facts

• It was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1983.
• Another 450-room wing was proposed after the expansion in 1927, but the Great Depression killed this proposal.
• Preliminary preparation for renovation work began in June of 2006.
• Preliminary site work consisted of structural evaluations, asbestos clean-up and environmental tests.
• When completed, the hotel will become the DoubleTree Guest Suites - Fort Shelby with 204 suites, an IACC-approved conference center, 66 apartments on the upper half of the building, a full-service restaurant and lounge, fitness center and concierge.
• Like the simultaneous Westin Book-Cadillac Hotel renovation three blocks away, the main ballroom will be restored to its original state.
• The parapet that surrounds the main roof deck rises 3'-6" above the roof.
• Financing for renovation closed in May 2007 and work is expected to start shortly

External links

• Google Maps location of the Fort Shelby Hotel
• The Fort Shelby Hotel at Emporis.com
• SkyscraperPage.com's Profile on the Fort Shelby Hotel