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Originally Posted by TakeFive
I was merely suggesting that Hilton Garden Inn was apparently A) trying to become more of a "downtown" brand and B) was also trying to be seen as a "boutique" hotel.
The room rate was just an aside that had caught me by surprise. Said nothing about the "actual attraction due to its status/on-site bars, restaurants, etc." - not an area that I'm competent enough to comment about.
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I don't think the point is whether or not Hilton Garden Inn is a "downtown" brand or not; it's that a boutique hotel was more ideally suited for the Professional Building. A boutique hotel, by definition, is 100 rooms or less, individualized/custom, and either independent or a very specialized sub-brand of a larger chain (in other words, an HGI would never qualify, regardless of what you read about Denver's). A hotel specifically designed around the historic building site and its features, as Hotel Monroe was, would have been a huge step. Turning a historic property into an upscale destination would've provided a much-needed "anchor" unique to downtown.
An HGI, on the other hand, will offer nothing that emphasizes or highlights the importance of the site. The rooms, service, and overall interior design will be identical to that of a newly-constructed stucco HGI in Gilbert.
An HGI would be happily accepted downtown closer to the convention center on an empty or underutilized lot (at Colliers, for example). But, it's impossible to not think Phoenix lost out on something really big when Hotel Monroe went under. Maybe if such a great plan hadn't existed, the positives of the HGI - like the # of visitors it will hold daily and the fact that a long-vacant historic building is finally being restored - would be easier to focus on.