Type Hotel Completed 1975 | Construction started 1973 Roof 67.67 m (222 ft) | |
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Former names Sheraton Downtown, Crowne Plaza Downtown Location 777 St. Clair Cleveland, Ohio 44114 United States | ||
The Westin Hotel Cleveland is a modernist 1975-opened 222 foot, 22 story, 484 room Westin high-rise hotel in downtown Cleveland in the city's Civic Center district. The tower rooms sit on top of a multi-story built-in parking garage.The hotel sits along St. Clair Avenue and features rainbow lighting running length wise along its multilevel parking deck at night. This is the only Westin high-end hotel in Cleveland, the other two in the state being in Cincinnati and Columbus.
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Originally, in the 1990s there was to be a Westin Hotel built in Cleveland in The Flats and was to have 416 rooms, however this project never materialized. The Westin here then completes plans to have a Westin present in the central city since at least the late 1980s.
History
The Westin was built as the Bond Court Hotel in the mid-1970s with the intent of being linked to the neighboring Penton Media Building but partially collapsed when originally under construction in 1974. On the site where the Westin now stands used to be the Auditorium Hotel, which was razed to make way for the Bond Court Hotel in the early 1970s.
The property was formerly known as the Sheraton Downtown (when Sheraton took over operation in the 1980s) and Crowne Plaza Downtown Cleveland until the mid 2000s. In serious decline since the 1990s, The Crowne Plaza hotel was renovated in 2013–2014 and was rechristened a Westin, before opening in May 2014. Though the hotel marked its 40th birthday in 2015, the building has not been in continuous use for nearly that many years, for at least two years in the 2000s, the property sat unused.
Rebranding
The former hotel was a major dead spot in the city until it reopened in 2014. The color facing of the tower was changed during this time from dull brown to off-white in keeping with the new "tidy" look of the structure. Since the rebranding the hotel has proved quite popular with younger guests, this may be due to the fact that the hotel hosts the Urban Farmer restaurant. The hotel is also across the street from the Cleveland Public Hall to its west and Taverne on the Mall restaurant to its south.