Pictured above: The Medical Arts Building in downtown Hot Springs. (Photos provided)
He refers to it as the “mini-Empire State Building,” but by next year, Hot Springs hotelier Parth Patel hopes to call the Medical Arts Building – the 16-story, near-century-old art-deco monolith rising above the Spa City’s downtown – an Aloft Hotel by Marriott.
Patel, owner of VIPA Hospitality in Hot Springs, purchased all but the top floor of the abandoned structure in 2021. The building once housed scores of medical professionals. Doctors, lab technicians, dentists, optometrists and pharmacists all plied their trades there at 236 Central Avenue.
Patel negotiated with four owners of the building which, in 2012, was listed by the Historic Preservation Alliance of Arkansas as one of the state’s most endangered places. He was able to reach agreements with three owners for a selling price of $1.8 million. The fourth owner kept the 16th floor, presumably to refurbish it as a residence.
VIPA Hospitality also bought the Hotel Frederica in downtown Little Rock in 2020 for $1.7 million, again with the intent of restoring it back into a hotel.
The Frederica, also known as the Hotel Sam Peck, at 625 W. Capitol Ave. opened in 1914 and was first named after the wife of Little Rock businessman Fred W. Allsopp, who was part owner of the Arkansas Gazette.
Both the hotel and the Medical Arts Building have vast histories, and that is what drew Patel and his company to buy them.
“I’m a history buff,” Patel said. “I love the history and stories of these buildings.”
Parth Patel wants to restore the old Hotel Frederica/Hotel Sam Peck in Little Rock to past glory.
Patel’s VIPA Hospitality owns six hotels in central Arkansas. The company’s name is a merger of the names of Patel and his father, Vijah. It was formed in 1992 in Little Rock by Patel’s father and relatives and moved to Hot Springs five years later.
Patel earned a degree in business management and a minor in finance at Purdue University in Indiana in 2004. A year later, he moved to Hot Springs for what he thought was a brief stop to manage the Country Inn & Suites.
He has been there since.
“I thought it was a year gig,” he said, “but here I am still.”
VIPA Hospitality tried to buy both structures a few years before the deal was completed. It was difficult to secure financing, Patel said. The COVID-19 pandemic was raging and interest rates kept fluctuating.
“Banks find hospitality ventures risky businesses because of all the construction involved,” he said. “It’s been a big challenge. I didn’t foresee it taking this long to secure financing.”
He just recently obtained the financing necessary to do renovations on his Little Rock hotel project. Patel hopes to open the hotels by the second quarter of 2024.
There will be a lot of work involved. Both sites have been victims of rampant vandalism. The gutted inside of the Medical Arts Building is ravaged. Graffiti and gang symbols are spray painted on walls and windows are broken.
Still, Patel sees the potential and the beauty of the buildings. He also realizes Arkansas’ economy thrives on tourism and creating hotels in two destination sites in the state is lucrative.
“We looked at the Medical Arts Building for years,” he said. “We tried to purchase it in 2015, but it didn’t work out. We felt the best use of it was for a hotel. Hot Springs is such a tourist destination. This would be a nice addition to the downtown.”
The Medical Arts Building opened in 1930 and was the state’s tallest building until 1960 when the Tower Building in Little Rock topped it. The building, which does look a lot like a small Empire State Building, features bronze grillwork above its entrances. It was designed by the Little Rock architectural firm Almand & Stuck, which also built Little Rock Central High School. It is considered one of the top art-deco skyscrapers in the southern U.S.
Tall ceilings were made to help cool the building in the summers. Uniformed operators ran the structure’s two brass-trimmed elevators, and they were equipped with telephones that could be used while the elevators were moving.
The 180-foot-tall building was placed on the National Register of Historic Places on Nov 30, 1978. Because of the building’s narrow footprint, Patel’s hotel will have only 100 rooms. It will also feature a large lobby bar.
The Hotel Frederica — originally styled as Hotel Freiderica — was known by several names over its history. Henryetta and Sam Peck moved to Little Rock from Fayetteville in 1935 and bought the hotel, changing its name to the Hotel Sam Peck.
Winthrop Rockefeller lived in the hotel while he built his ranch home atop Petit Jean Mountain and often stayed there when he was the state’s governor. Journalists who covered the desegregation of the Little Rock School District also stayed there in 1957.
Peck died in 1967, and his wife and son ran the hotel for five years before selling. Since then, it has had several owners and was the Radisson Legacy Hotel and the Legacy Hotel until it closed and was boarded up in 1998.
Patel will open the Little Rock hotel as a Fairfield Inn by Marriott.
Along with his recent financing, Patel learned he qualifies for state and federal historic tax credits for both his projects.
Because of each project’s historic architecture, he has to retain much of the buildings’ integrity and is limited in what he can do inside each structure. Because of his love of history, Patel sees this as more of a challenge than a constraint.
The building plans are going a bit slowly too, he said. The Marriott corporation requires builders of their hotels to present detailed plans and drawings of construction projects at 10-percent, 30-percent, 50-percent and beyond.
“It’s a long, painstaking process,” Patel said.
In the eight years he, his wife and daughter have lived in Hot Springs, Patel said he has come to love the Garland County town. Patel is on the board of directors of the Greater Hot Springs Chamber of Commerce and is a Rotarian.
“I’m not from here, but I am firmly rooted in Hot Springs,” he said. “I think the Medical Arts Building will be important to downtown Hot Springs. This will keep the downtown vitalized. The Frederica is important, too. We’re taking 100-year-old buildings and turning them into something for today’s world.”
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