Allenel Property Liquidation Paving Way For Motor Hotel

$3 Mil'
P ' t
Has ‘ ’
t ,ri 99 09°
j Irénically coinciding `witl1
`citywide bargain sales events,
the scheduled sale of furnish-
ings and equipment ofthe &`
gave firm evilzlencem today that
»Ann Arbor’s downtown can ex-
pect to get a new multimillion-
.dollar hotel with 176 guest
frooms.
9 Theodore Dames, manager of
Qthe hotel, disclosed today that
:two Detroiters have put a cash
Qdeposit on Allenel property, but
ihave not signed a sales agree-
lment for the land- “
l All business ,operations
ceased at the 60-room hotel
Sunday night.
The prospective sale of the
hotel and a liquidation sale of
equipment and furnishings July
17-20 came to light through ad-
vertisements in The News and
signs posted on hotel windows.
“A group of people are‘buy-
ing the hotel and will tear it
down, building a new 10-story,
176-room hotel,” Dames said..
He is a principal owner of the »
Allenel Hotel Corp. that has
operated the Allenel during a
35-year. span.
Dames’ declaration is the
first public one, indicating go-
ahead of what Edwin M. Rosen-
, , , 9, 0, 31
thal, jr., of the Hadley Invest-
ment Co., Detroit, indicated to
the City Council in February
would be a 176-room motor inn.
Rosenthal offered to donate
to the city a portion of the
hotel’s S. Fourth Ave. property'
on which the city could -build, a_
carport after obtaining addi-5 1
tional ,land ,under leasing or
purchase agreements.
The council. has declared its
‘intent to build_ a carport ad-
jacent to the prospective new,
$3,000,000 hotel, but has not
acted on leasing the necessary
land. Dames said he under-
stands the council will act Mon-
day in _connection with a leasing
arrangement. c
V It has been learned that the
hot‘e,l and carport, ,if built,
would take up_ about the easter~
ly two thirds of the block
bounded by Main, Huron 'and
Washington Sts. and S- Fourth
Ave. Arrangements to purchase
or l/ease frontages on Huron,
Washington and Fourth have
been completed in most in-
stances, = --it -was v -understood
Dames, gwhg; 'a lead-gs;
er in s. sufia Q
U.. ammte f.i.t‘;”.f.*‘.?.-a..a-
bankers and Mayor Cecil O.
Creal, said “the city needs a-
new hotel.” -Other leaders in
the efforts to gain anew
hostelry are Edward Adams,
jr., and Frank M. Crandall,
both of the National' Bank 8;
Trust Co. of Ann Arbor, and,
Joseph B. Foster of the An n'
Arbor ~B an k. The prospective
new hotel has gained the back-
ing of the Ann Arbor Chamber
of Commercefs, board of direc-
tors. _ - I
Besides, Rosenthal, they other
principal developer-owner of the
new hotel' is. Herbert Meyer.
Both are e principal owners -of
the University.Mote1“ of 1000
Broadway. - '
They hired S. R- Bragg & As-
sociates, a local architectural _
firm, to do initial design work
on the hotel and carport, and
Bragg’s design effort was pub'-
lished as a rendering in The
News in February. ,
As envisioned the new hotel
would contain a restaurant,-
cocktail lounge, coffee shop,
banquet area, meeting rooms, a
brokerage office, travel bureau
office and possibly radio sta-
tion studios, besides the 176
guest rooms. A