Wyndham Hotel Corp., which operates or franchises 75 upscale hotels and resorts in the United States and the Caribbean, has purchased the Doubletree Hotel, 215 W. South Temple, for $44 million from City Hotels, a Belgian real estate company.
Wyndham officials said they will upgade the hotel's 381 rooms to more closely reflect the Dallas firm's other properties. When the transaction is completed in January, the hotel will be converted to the Wynd-ham name, the company's first presence in Utah.The Doubletree name won't be leaving Utah, however, because on Sept. 13 the Doubletree Corp., which is based in Phoenix, announced it had acquired Red Lion Hotels Inc., in a cash and stock deal worth $1.2 billion. That means the Red Lion Hotel at 255 S. West Temple, will get a name change.
Built in 1985, the Doubletree is located in a prime spot near the Salt Palace Convention Center, one block east of the Delta Center and one block west of Temple Square, some of Salt Lake City's busiest locations.
James D. Carreker, Wyndham chairman and chief executive officer, said, "We are very excited about expanding our presence into Salt Lake City. The addition of the Wyndham flag to this important city is another step forward in the growth and development on the Wyndham chain."
He said Salt Lake City is a rapidly growing market that will afford the Wyndham company to serve groups, conventioneers and both business and leisure travelers.
Steve Lindburg, general manager of the Red Lion Hotel, said changing the Red Lion name to the Doubletree name will take some time because the transaction involved 57 properties, making it the fifth largest hotel chain in the United States.
Lindburg said he wants to minimize the confusion that might be caused by the change in hotel ownership and logos, but he doesn't know when his hotel will be converted to the Doubletree name.
The sale won't impact the 375 employees in the Red Lion "because we still need a team to operate the hotel, and we have a good team," Lindburg said. He anticipates high occupancy in all Salt Lake hotels to continue through 1997 but said 1999 will be interesting because that is when new hotels will be completed and "we'll find out how the marketplace reacts to it."
Built in 1983 as a Sheraton Hotel, the Red Lion Hotels purchased the building in January 1988. Red Lion Hotels is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Doubletree, but Lindburg expects that to change once the changeover is complete.
With the acquisition of the Red Lion Hotels, Doubletree has 230 hotels and motels with 56,000 sooms in 39 states, the District of Columbia and Mexico.