We reported back in June that Iowa City-based Hawkeye Hotels had purchased the Hotel Modern, with plans to convert it in to an Intercontinental Hotel.

Well, Hawkeye did purchase the hotel, but the plans submitted to the city actually show the hotel’s conversion in to a Holiday Inn Express, not an Intercontinental Hotel flag.  While Holiday Inn Express is of course one of the brands owned by the Intercontinental Hotel Group (IHG), it certainly isn’t the hotel flag that folks were hoping for.

Hotel experts, however, think the brand is an upgrade and was a good choice.  Lenny Wormser, senior managing director of Latter and Blum’s hospitality division, said that the Holiday Inn Express flag “will definitely be an upgrade for the hotel, not a downgrade.”  Wormser, who is intimately familiar with the city’s hotel market, including the Modern, told Canal Street Beat that “putting a brand on the Modern is needed.  The hotel was in need of a renovation, and it needed a bump on occupancy, and the Holiday Inn express brand will do that for the new owners.”

“I think the new buyers, Hawkeye Hotels, bought the property at a good basis, and will do a good job renovating the hotel.”

Plans filed with HDLC show several changes to the existing exterior of the building, including new Holiday Inn Express signage, a new aluminum canopy over the entrance, new storefront windows, porcelain tiles features in the entrance, a new facade stucco infill, and new exterior patio created with metal fence under the existing pergola.

Cole Partners Architects is the architect of record.  We’ve reached out to Hawkeye Hotels for comment but haven’t heard back.

Check out the plans submitted to HDLC below.

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