Officials detail city’s plan to buy Crowne Plaza

Cedar Rapids will become owner of the Crowne Plaza Five Seasons Hotel in March if City Council members approve a plan tomorrow to buy it for $3.2 million.

The hotel's present operator will shut it down before turning it over to the city for what's planned to be a two-year  renovation costing $20 million to $25 million.

City Manager Jeff Pomeranz said the city's purchase of the hotel is critical to the $75 million rebuilding of the attached U.S. Cellular Center into the new Cedar Rapids Convention Center Complex.

“We've given up hope that a private-sector developer is going to step up,” Pomeranz said at an afternoon new conference to unveil the plan.

Hotel owner 350 1st Avenue Holdings LLC, which leases the land on which it stands from the city, will work with operator PHC Dallas, also known as Prism Hospitality, to shutter the building so demolition of sections of it can begin in March. The hotel should reopen in the fall of 2012, a month or two before the new convention center.

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