Auction of Clarion in Cedar Rapids set for Nov. 19

CEDAR RAPIDS The first hotel on Cedar Rapids' 'motel row” is scheduled to be sold next month in an online public auction.

The Clarion Hotel and Conference Center, 525 33rd Ave. SW, continues to operate in bank receivership. Citizens Bank of Elizabethtown, Tenn., foreclosed on the last owner, Synergy Hotel Group, after the Glenwood, Md., partnership filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in August 2014.

Synergy Hotel Group financed the purchase of the 156-room property from Zazza Ltd. with a $4.5 million first mortgage through Citizens Bank in March 2007.

In addition to the Citizens Bank first mortgage, the U.S. Small Business Administration held a second mortgage for $1.8 million, and Zazza Ltd. held a third mortgage for $1.3 million.

The six-story hotel will be sold at 1 p.m. Nov. 19, according to CBRE Auction Services. The opening bid requirement has been set at $1.95 million.

When it purchased the Clarion, Synergy Hotel Group announced plans to invest $500,000 to upgrade the hotel's banquet rooms, landscaping and lighting, public areas, restaurant and bar, guest rooms and pool area.

The Clarion has a storied history, with the University of Iowa regularly housing its football players as well as opposing team players at the hotel before games.

The Clarion was constructed in 1976 by Cedar Rapids plumber Jack Zazza and a partner, Don Broulik, as a Sheraton Four Points Hotel. It was the first hotel of significant size to be built in the community after the Roosevelt Hotel was constructed in 1926 in downtown Cedar Rapids.

The hotel kicked off what has unofficially been called 'motel row” along 33rd Avenue SW with 13 hotels offering nearly 1,100 rooms. A 95-suite, four-story Residence Inn & Suites extended-stay hotel is under construction at 730 33rd Ave. SW.