Here is a artist rendition of the renovated Professional Building which will reopen as the Hotel Monroe. It's great to see this building finally getting its remake. I look forward to spending some time on the roof top bar! Article from the Business Journal follows image.
Vaulting Ahead: Boutique hotel slated for historic building
The Business Journal of Phoenix - April 20, 2007 by Mike Padgett
Jim Poulin/The Business Journal
Jonathon Vento opens the giant vault door in downtown Phoenix’s Professional Building, which is being converted into a 150-room boutique hotel. The vault will be a featured attraction in a new restaurant set to open in Hotel Monroe in late 2008.
A historic office building in downtown Phoenix that has sat vacant for two decades is slated for rebirth as a 150-room boutique hotel.
The interior of the Professional Building, erected in 1931 as a bank and medical office at the southeast corner of Central Avenue and Monroe Street, is undergoing interior demolition by Grace Communities.
The building is set to reopen in late 2008 as Hotel Monroe. Its ground floor will have a bar, a restaurant "and a high-end gourmet chocolate and champagne shop," its developer says.
The new design includes another restaurant in the basement next to the bank vault, which will be converted into a wine bar and chef's demonstration room.
Entering the building's cavernous main floor is like stepping back into a time when grand hotels and luxury restaurants were the haunts of social notables such as author F. Scott Fitzgerald and Hollywood titans Humphrey Bogart and Greta Garbo.
That is the ambience sought by Grace Communities partners Jonathon Vento and the father-son team of Don and Ryan Zeleznak.
Hollywood chic
The main attraction on the ground floor will be the Gazelle Restaurant, with "a very, very sophisticated classic design, like the old Hollywood era," Vento says.
Vento and the Zeleznaks have hired Summit Builders as the contractor and Westlake Reed Leskosky as architect. The interior designer is Kay Lang + Associates of Los Angeles.
"We are going to make some beautiful memories here," Vento says. "We're doing everything we can to preserve and recall the old memories that are already here."
Grace Communities' plan for the Professional Building is backed by a competitor, Rob Melikian, whose family owns the Hotel San Carlos at the northeast corner of Central and Monroe.
"That is a critically important building for downtown Phoenix," Melikian says. "It has a gorgeous lobby. No one's done much with it in so many years, you feel like it's a time machine there."
During a tour of the building, Vento radiates enthusiasm for the future Hotel Monroe. He roams from the lobby, to the basement vault, to the 12th floor and roof.
In the lobby, he indicates sites for an octagonal bar and space for a piano and jazz combo. He points to where high-dollar deals could be forged over drinks in private high-backed, leather-covered booths.
He waves to the ceiling where crystal chandeliers will hang. He points to the granite floors and brass fittings, which will be cleaned and revived.
Raising the bar
Vento guides his visitors to the stairs leading to the basement vault. He describes how an intimate restaurant will fit into the space outside the vault, and how the vault itself will be converted into a wine bar and chef's demonstration room with climate-controlled wine racks.
Vento says he and the Zeleznaks plan to raise the bar in downtown Phoenix redevelopment.
"We're very comfortable working outside the box and in doing things that haven't been done before," he says, dusting off his hands after wrestling with the massive vault door.
He heads for the stairs behind him and then to the elevator at the other end of the building.
"Let's go up to the 11th floor," he says.
When the elevator doors reopen, Vento's enthusiasm continues.
"Look at the detail," he says, caressing the cast-metal art deco grill over the ventilation openings outside the elevator.
Walking across the gutted 11th floor to the windows, Vento motions to the view of central Phoenix.
"What's so special about this is, even if this were in Chicago or Boston or Philadelphia, cities with great history, this would still be an exciting and important building," he says.
Now he's heading for the 12th floor, which was added in the 1950s with a private dining room and conference rooms for bank officers and their clients. It will be designed into suites fit for presidents.
"This is obviously an important building at an important corner," he says. "It's Central Avenue and Monroe, and our neighbors include the tallest building in the state, and the tallest residential tower in the state, and the Herberger Theater, and the Hyatt Hotel, and the new convention center."
The state's tallest building -- the glass-covered 39-story Chase Tower -- is across the street. A block west of the Professional Building is 44 Monroe, which Grace Communities also is building. It will have 34 floors, making it the state's tallest residential building.
Also nearby on Monroe are the Roman Catholic Diocese of Phoenix at Third Street, and Heritage Square at Seventh Street.
On the drawing board
Now, Vento is climbing the metal ladder to the roof of the Professional Building, visitors in tow. Blueprints call for a rooftop bar and a negative-edge pool with a wind screen and space for patio furniture.
"Any time of day, you could come out and enjoy a drink and enjoy the skyline, and see the sunset and the city lights as they light up," he says.
Ryan Zeleznak adds that, although there have been previous attempts at renovating the building, several major redevelopments downtown have made it more viable. Those include construction of the biotech campus, Arizona State University's expanded downtown campus, the light rail system, the expanded Phoenix Convention Center, and the new 1,000-room Sheraton Hotel.
Hotel Monroe is one of three new hotels Grace Communities is planning in Phoenix.
One is on 7 acres that Vento and the Zeleznaks purchased next to the Londen Center office building, at the southwest corner of 44th Street and Camelback Road. It includes about 350,000 square feet of office space, 50 condominiums and a five-story, 150-room hotel. That project is to begin in early 2008.
The third new hotel, with 150 rooms, is part of the Portales luxury residential development that Grace Communities is planning west of Scottsdale Road and Goldwater Boulevard.
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