Tempe hotel gets a modern makeover

TEMPE — A luxury hotel chain is finishing its makeover of an aging central Tempe hotel this month, just in time for a grand opening in early March.

The new Four Points by Sheraton sits just off the southeastern corner of Arizona State University’s campus, near the corner of Apache Boulevard and Rural Road. The site was formerly a 190-room Holiday Inn.

But local hotel investors say the purchase by Sheraton’s Austin-based parent, Starwood Hotels, was a great pickup after Holiday Inn was sold to a different investor last May for $9 million. The inn had been in service for about 35 years.

“The main reason that our group sold the Holiday Inn was that it was a valuable asset with a willing buyer,” says Pen Johnson, the Holiday Inn’s longtime owner. “We had owned and operated it for many years and knew that to continue would require an additional commitment of at least another ten years, given the necessary upgrades a product of that age needs in order remain competitive.”

The hotel hopes to have a soft opening in late February if renovations go as planned, a hotel reservation manager says.

The Four Points is one of the three new Starwood Hotels opening in the Tempe area. The company owns more than 860 properties worldwide, according to its website, including names such as Westin and the W.

Philip Amorosi, a former Tempe mayoral candidate who serves on a city oversight committee for the Apache Boulevard area, says this is just one of many Starwood properties opening in Tempe.

The company also owns a prominent Four Points just minutes from University of Arizona in Tucson.

“(Starwood) is going gangbusters in Arizona building high end hotels that are also on the affordable side,” Amorosi says. He added that the W Hotel and Le Meridien are two new luxury Starwood properties located near Tempe Town Lake.

Local hotel investors say Four Points landed a good investment given that hotel property is typically very expensive. Johnson sold it to someone who then resold it to Four Points owners, capitalizing on the investment, Amorosi said.

Hotel investors in the Tempe and Phoenix area say that chasing hotel assets is a smart investment and a successful real estate commodity. The new Four Points location is also near the light rail route.

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