The 230-room Holiday Inn Costa Mesa near South Coast Plaza is being remade into Orange County’s latest independent boutique hotel.
Newport Beach-based Hanford Hotels Inc., which owns the property, announced this week that the hotel will be dropping the Holiday Inn name and becoming The Hotel Hanford.
Along with the new name, plans are under way for a $7 million renovation of the inside and outside of the hotel.
It is a big change for a hotel that has been a Holiday Inn since 1973.
The hotel’s license with Holiday Inn, part of Britain’s InterContinental Hotels Group PLC, ends in November.
The break from Holiday Inn was a long time coming, according to Donald Sodaro, chief executive of Hanford Hotels.
The hotel was set to be part of a $1 billion rebranding and remodeling Holiday Inn planned for its 3,200 hotels. Much of that cost would have been shouldered by Sodaro’s company.
Sodaro estimated that he is spending significantly more than he would have had he brought the hotel up to the Holiday Inn’s new standards.
“We kept thinking if we’re going to spend that much money to meet their requirements, let’s go the extra mile and build a really unique property,” he said.
Hanford Hotels bought the hotel from Linquist & Craig Hotels & Resorts Inc. of Kansas for $13.3 million in 1999. At the time, the hotel had just undergone a $5 million renovation that upgraded the pool and rooms.
Sodaro has experience building a hotel brand from scratch.
In 1972, he and Ed Pankey started Sixpence Inns of America, a chain of 54 limited-service hotels in six states.
“We saw what Motel 6 was doing and decided to do it better,” Sodaro said.
In 1989, the pair sold the chain and all but one hotel,the third Sixpence built and a favorite of Pankey’s, now known as the Key Inn in Tustin,to Motel 6.
The deal was valued at about $210 million.
Sodaro served on Motel 6’s board of directors until 1991 when the hotel chain was bought by France’s Accor.
Sodaro ended up back in Orange County and joined Hanford Hotels in 1995, helping the company buy and fix up hotels by pairing them with well-known brands.
With the Costa Mesa hotel, Sodaro said he sees a lot more to gain than lose in going independent.
“The way I see the market is with all the formula hotels in the area, there is a great opportunity for a unique hotel to thrive,” he said.
For more on this story, read the Aug. 24 issue of the Business Journal.
