Downtown Brainstorming: Hotel Marion
The Hotel Marion at NW 10 and Broadway is probably familiar to most OKC Central regulars. It’s a heart breaker of a building that passed through several owners before landing with the MidTown Renaissance group a few years ago. Give Bob Howard, Mickey Clagg and Chris Fleming credit, they’ve shown their dedication toward renovating and properly restoring their older buildings, but the Marion is the one building that eludes even bravest of souls in the development world.
Downtown Brainstorming is just that – using the collective experience, observations and imagination of OKC Central readers to help solve problems such as the Marion. It will be done when the key decision makers indicate they welcome such input, and in this case, we have the go-ahead from Mr. Howard himself.
Before getting into the complications surrounding the Marion, let’s revisit some stories about the hotel’s history that help show why it deserves a new shot at life.
The Hotel Marion in its heyday of the mid-20th century. Photo courtesy of the Oklahoma Historical Society.
The hotel was built in 1908, making it, I believe the oldest surviving structure downtown after the razing of India Temple last year. In 2006, after the building was bought by MidTown Renaissance, I heard from one of the descendants of the hotel’s original owners. J. Malcolm Haney’s grandmother, Bess L. Haney, operated the hotel from 1946 to 1971.
Malcolm correctly recalled the hotel’s east facade for years had a sign that boasted it was “The Nicest Small Hotel You’ll Find.”
“This place has a very special place in our family’s past,” Haney told me. “Our safe haven was staying at the Marion with Bessie in room 110, which had two single beds … Many of Bessie’s rooms were occupied by permanent residents, including three terrific small apartments in the basement. It was the last place many army recruits stayed before they shipped off to boot camp because the U.S. Army recruiting center was across the street.”
Haney’s cousin Bob Villareal recalled the hotel’s telephone booth had a ventilation fan that turned on upon entry.
“You could put your finger in the fan without injury,”
Villareal said. Villareal still remembers the hotel’s corner room, home to an old radio and his grandmother’s parakeet. Photographs from Bess Haney’s lifetime were displayed throughout the hotel.
“I’ll never forget the smells in that old place,” Villareal said. “There was a certain aura about the hotel that’s hard to put in words, but it always felt peaceful and happy. Of course, it was never the same without Bessie. She was the heart of the Marion.”
More recently, my worthy competitor Brianna Bailey at the Journal Record shared even more about the hotel’s history. She shared how the Marion was next to an Army recruiting station, and the Haneys saw countless young servicemen from across the state off to the Vietnam and Korean wars over the years.
Malcolm Haney told Brianna about how the hotel’s old-fashioned soda pop machine that would dispense soft drinks in glass bottles for 10 cents.
“Bessie had an old-fashioned telephone switchboard and would patch people through to the rooms,” Malcolm Haney said. “It was a warm family place and Bessie was the matriarch of the family.”
So what went wrong?
Haney told Bailey that time was the enemy with downtown descending into decline in the 1970s. Chain hotels drew customers away from the Marion.
“Bessie fought the battle of any small hotel operator against the large chain hotels and she fought the downfall of downtown of ’60s and ’70s,” Malcolm Haney told Bailey. Bess Haney’s five children asked their then-elderly mother to retire from the Marion in the 1970s, and she died in 1984 at the age of 95.
The Hotel Marion in the late 1970s.
So we have a nice historical, architectural gem with a warm and fuzzy history to make us all go “awwwwwwwwww.” With that done, let’s get the harsh slap of reality started.
The building is a mess. The interior consists of rotting wood. The roof is barely there. As I pointed out on this blog a few months ago, the dreadful appearance of jigsaw cracks has emerged along the building’s corners.
See a jig-saw line going down the corner of an old building may not be a good omen of what's to come.... Preservationists take note - this is one of the city's oldest structures.
Here’s the good news: Bob Howard KNOWS he’s going to lose money with this building. He is no fool. And as Rep. David Dank pushes to eliminate historic tax credits, understand it’s buildings like this that become impossible to save without such assistance. Tax credits saved the Skirvin hotel. Tax credits saved the Gold Dome. Tax credits saved the Sieber.
But tax credits won’t save the Marion. It’s just not enough. Howard says he’s prepared to make this his contribution to the community. He appreciates the history and architecture of the Marion. And if money were the only concern here (understand, however, Howard isn’t going to bankrupt himself on this either), then I doubt the Marion would be our first Downtown Brainstorming candidate.
Talking to Howard and his partner Fleming, it’s clear that one risks killing the Marion if one is to save it.
The interior must be gutted. That means that support beams must be put in to prop up the facade walls much as Marva Ellard did with the old grocery building section of the Sieber. But the Marion is a very tight spot, locked in by properties with different owners.
It is surrounded by occupied buildings, and the parking is heavily used by the law firm to the west. The street, NW 10, is a major corridor that would be a nightmare to shut down, if city folks were willing to even entertain such a move. And even if the Marion had some working space around it, the engineering on this is a puzzle.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again; the readers make OKC Central special. The conversations are a step above what’s found elsewhere on the ‘net, including the comment sections on NewsOK. I’m proud of that, far more than anything else I’ve accomplished with this site. You’ve been around the world. You’ve followed urban design closely. You’re argumentative, but respectfully so. You bring new ideas. You love downtown Oklahoma City. You’re proud of what’s been done. You’re not satisfied that enough has been done. You’re always pushing for it to be better. And you want to solve downtown’s biggest problems.
Here’s your chance. Are there landmarks elsewhere in the world that have had similar challenges? How were they overcome? What can be done to make the Marion a feasible renovation?
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Comments
Love the Marion. Hope they can save this great part of OKC’s history. If they are going to renovate it, they’d better hurry. I’ve seen the structural condition inside and it’s degrading rapidly. It’s not safe to enter anymore.
If 10th street shut down for a couple of months, it wouldn’t be like shutting down 23rd street. All you have to do is drive around it one block, or take 13th street.
The Eastern and Southern facades would be the tough ones. They could probably shore up the walls from the inside and brace them back to the Northern and Western walls, with a lot of steel of course.
If Howard really does that, we should name a street after him.
Dank, I am sure, is a fine man. But the Teaparty mentallity of killing all government programs is nonsense. Killing some of them, would be very detrimental
This series is a great idea. To kick it off, I recall seeing a great many gut renovations of older buildings in Paris, France when I lived there that sat immediately adjacent to fully occupied buildings, and in general circumstances that resembled the constraints outlined so well above. Without having a specific example handy, my general sense based on what I saw there is that this is doable. In some ways, perhaps the cooperation of the neighborhood will end up being a more important piece of the puzzle then the funding itself.
For example, if the parking for the law firm immediately adjacent is an issue, perhaps another property owner could be persuaded to donate some parking temporarily nearby during the construction phase? Also, if Valir isn’t breaking ground for a while longer on their Midtown expansion, perhaps that site could be used for construction staging.
If funding does turn out to be an issue – could a 501c3 be used to facilitate and bridge any gaps? Some sort of non-profit that ties a portion of the buildings future use to be used for the benefit of downtown OKC and/or the community?
Just some thoughts – not entirely fleshed out, but I’m curious what others say.
God bless Bob Howard! We need to track down more people who have memories and memorabilia from the Marion. There are personal stories tied to that building that could relate the importance of such small hotels to the history of the city.
Have they looked at making it a hotel again? Do a really high-end, boutique hotel and just have valet parking, then it doesn’t matter where the parking is. With it’s proximity to automobile alley and the rest of downtown, it seems like this would be successful…
I surveyed this building many years ago to consider converting it into a few dwellings. It’s a great building with tremendous potential. I understood that there was NO property available for parking; that the adjacent lot was not associated with the building… This is what ended the consideration.
At that time, all floors (and the basement) were accessible, and relatively stable. I think that enough of the existing floor structure could be left in place to stabilize the exterior walls during demolition. These existing floor segments would then be removed as new floor structures were constructed. Technically, it would be a challenging but feasible renovation. (Constructing two, new, code-compliant egress stairs would eat a lot of space and money.) 10th Street wouldn’t have to be closed… But where do you park when it’s finished?
That remains a challenge Dennis. There is a consensus among the area property owners that a garage is needed near NW 10 and Broadway to make the remaining empty properties viable and continue development of Auto Alley. But where does it go? And will the city allow TIF financing to be used?
Dennis, how long ago did you look at the Marion? What was the roof condition? The reason I ask is the roof has sustained significant damage in the past few years …. and they can’t fix the roof without fixing the structure, which gets you into a chicken and the egg question
Steve, I looked at it about 8-10 years ago… I don’t know if the roof still had integrity, but it didn’t have any visible breeches. The cracks in the masonry bearing wall would be challenging, but not impossible to correct. New roof and floor structures could be a part of that fix. A common parking facility would solve a lot of problems!
To successfully brace the facades on all sides, you only need a few feet of clearance for working room. The bracing itself could be accomplished by driving vertical piers into the ground immediately adjacent to the structure and then attaching the bracing to that.
For those who visit Dallas, the Apple Computer store that is currently being constructed in a renovated building at the corner of McKinney and Knox is using such a technique (and have managed to keep both the adjacent sidewalk and street open throughout construction).
A lot of this type of work has been done in the Washington, DC area; one of the most prominent examples is Red Lion Row, along Pennsylvania Ave.— I’ll try to dig up some photos.
Obviously, this is expensive work to perform.
Good for Howard for taking the leap. There’s a lot of history and memories in the Marion and I’m eager to see what they do with it. I can’t see it becoming a hotel again, but it’s possible it will be converted into a few single family dwellings.
Another make or break quesion is the presence or lack of asbestos. Obviously the longer it goes unrenovated the lesser the liklehood of it being renovated.
I pass it several times a day and if it is not actively being brought back to life in the next 18-24 months……
Connect this with the link that others are having about the McAlpine Center…. Maybe this could be the new home for the McAlpine organizations.
Steve that is good news. Kent the space at this faciltie is less than 1/8 the needed spacial expansion of the McAlpine Center. Not to mention that this location is TOTALLY unacceptable to the tennants of the McAlpine Center. Nice idea but no cigar.
Wylie they could do it without driving piers and only shut down two lanes of traffic at the same time. The building on Hudson (I think Marva Ellard redid it) used bracing attached to huge concrete cubes that they set in front on the street, while only shutting down two lanes of traffic. 10th is busier than Hudson, but not crazy busy. The facade might also be a bit more delicate than the one on Hudson too. No matter what, it will take time and be expensive. It will be fun to watch the process though. When are they getting started?
Burn it down, stop the narcissistic nostalgia for a lost cause. It would make a great parking lot for the building across the street.
How does this work? Should I just jump in with my suggestion or is there a rule about how we jump in?
Steve, who owns the large lot at Robinson and 10th? That seems suitable, at least partly, for a parking garage. Or maybe one of the lots on 8th, or 9th.
I don’t know what really to suggest in terms of rehabilitating the Marion as that’s not my field of work or hobby. But I DO hope that this building is saved. And if not, please let something as grand and beautiful to replace it in its entirety. The Marion has so much character and to see it brought back to life, like much of Broadway has, would only add to the vibe and personality of AA even more. It’s a remarkably “intact” piece of our historic urban fabric; which is why I hope to see all historic buildings saved in this area.
Sorry, this is more persnickety than helpful, but there are a number of territorial (pre-statehood) buildings on the west edge of downtown. Also, the Wells Fargo (now Whiskey Chicks and Drinkz) in Bricktown was built in (I think) 1900 and the Miller-Jackson was (in part) built in 1904). There are a number of others. Parts of the building that houses Iguana Mexican Grill were built in 1901. The Marion is ONE of the oldest buildings downtown, but not THE oldest.
Also, the front staircase in the Marion was amazing when I saw it back in the late nineties, but I suspect it has been lost to rot by now. Tons of great tile and ornamentation like in very few buildings in OKC.
One of the challenges in redeveloping the building is that the staircase wouldn’t meet current fire code, as it’s open to the whole building and would allow a fire to rage through all of the floors unchecked.
Parking shouldn’t be an issue. I’ve stayed at a great many city hotels with no parking. Valet parking is the perfect solution to this problem. It will be just off the streetcar line in a few years as well. It would be a terrible shame not to restore this building, and I’d love to see it a boutique hotel.
I’ve stayed at many city hotels without parking. Were the Marion renovated and turned into a boutique hotel, which I’d love to see happen, the owners could provide valet parking offsite for guests. It will be just off the streetcar line in a few years as well, and some visitors might not need a car.
I am all for fixing what can be fixed. My husband and I have watched this place for years. We always say while looking at this building….”when we win the lottery..” We know it will take some money. I too have roots in this area. My grandparents owned The Claremont back in the day. I have towels that my Grandmother stitched with “The Claremont” on it. They ran it almost like a boarding house. They lived in the back with my Dad and his brother. My youngest son lives there now. Our family has no ownership in it now. But it is nice to know that our son’s first home other than his childhood home is one of his family’s.