The 40-year-old building at 3838 E. Van Buren St. is part of the three-building, 155,487-sf Gateway West office park, which was bought in May 2007 by locally based Equus Development Corp. from Brookfield Real Estate of Toronto for $11.6 million. The Phoenix-based owner last fall secured a franchise agreement with Beverly Hills, CA-based Hilton Hotels Corp. to put the Hilton Garden Inn flag onto the 10-story building.
William Reynolds, project manager for Summit Builders of Phoenix, says the structure is perfect for a Hilton prototype because the column layout fits well into the rooms' width. The reason for the good fit is it was a hotel before it became the regional headquarters for the New York City-based Cendant, he says.
 Existing Structure |
Even with the challenge of retrofitting a headquarters building into a hotel, Reynolds is confident Summit will have everything complete by the fourth quarter. "A ground-up is easier," he acknowledges. "But once we get past a certain stage of exterior skinning, then moving ahead isn't a problem." Orcutt Winslow of Phoenix is the project designer.
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