VIPA Hospitality takes on most ambitious challenge yet Just What the Doctor Ordered
June 6-12, 2022
By Dwain Hebda
HOT SPRINGS — To visit Hot Springs’ historic downtown district today is to hearken to the phrase, “Everything old is new again.”
After decades of treading water, renewal and redevelopment are everywhere you look in the fabled neighborhood, lending a brightness and promise of things to come on block after block. Once-bare concrete is adorned with striking new murals, boutique storefronts shine with occupancy, beckoning to streets full of tourists sauntering the tree-lined avenue.
In the heart of this bustle stands here and there buildings yet to be anointed among the new and thriving. The landmark Arlington, for example, still fades and cracks in the morning sun as it awaits its planned multimillion-dollar rebirth. And directly across the street, the stately if somber Medical Arts Building still shows the wear and grit of years of neglect.
Dr. Vijay Patel and his son Parth see none of that, however, only the jewel that lies beneath. The hoteliers, executives in the family business, VIPA Hospitality, bought the 16-story structure last year and are bankrolling the work needed to bring the building back for its encore.
Having owned and operated multiple hotels in Hot Springs since 1997, company leadership saw the strides being made downtown to boost tourism, attract new business, and generally gussy up the historic district. Vijay said the project is not a charity case, but a sound business investment the company entered into carefully.
“Everything we do in terms of building a new [hotel] or rehabbing a historical property has to make business sense. Nobody wants to lose money,” he said. “I looked at [the Medical Arts Building] with a cool head to see what it’s going to take to bring it to life. Then we put the numbers together.
“We always take a calculated risk; with no risk there’s no reward. This is very highly rewarding. We’re going to be able to build this almost the same as if you’re building brand new from ground up. The cost will be the same, but it has added nostalgia about the location, about the history, about the city, people and the whole area.”
He pauses, allowing the weight of years of experience to reenter his voice.
“It’s a challenge,” he said simply. “And with historical buildings, you don’t know what you’re getting until you start tearing walls down.”
The Medical Arts Building was constructed between 1929 and 1930 on the site of the Rector Bath House, a resident of downtown’s famed Bathhouse Row since 1893. At the time it was completed, the building was the tallest in the state, a distinction it held for 30 years until Little Rock’s Tower Building supplanted it in 1960.
As the name suggests, the building housed various health care offices including a pharmacy and various physicians and dentists’ offices through the years. In 1978, it was enshrined on the National Register of Historic Places, but even by then it was clear the building’s best days were behind it. In less than a decade, the building was essentially vacant and stayed that way until it caught the eye of Parth Patel.
The younger Patel had been looking for an opportunity to expand the company’s holdings into the suddenly-hip historic district.
“We’ve been looking at a project to do in downtown Hot Springs for quite some time, even before what I would call the recent boom of redeveloping downtown since the Majestic Hotel fire [in 2014],” he said. “The Majestic fire is what kind of sped up the need for the community to want to redevelop downtown and a lot of the empty buildings.
“Me and my other business partner, who is also my cousin, moved here in 2005 and I always felt that Hot Springs had almost two distinct markets in one. Downtown was its own market.”
Parth said the company made their initial offer for the Medical Arts Building in 2015. That offer was rebuffed, negotiations resumed in earnest in 2018 and finally closed in May 2021, acquiring 15 of the 16 floors for a reported $1.18 million. Renovation of the property, to include about 100 guest rooms and other hotel amenities, is expected to cost between $12 and $14 million. Ownership hopes to have the project completed in two years or less.
“It’s going to be an Aloft Hotel by Marriott,” Parth said. “The focal point with the Aloft brand is a wonderful lobby bar. We will have a lot of social space in the lobby. Then we’re going to add a meeting room and another rooftop bar on the ninth floor. And we’ll have a fitness room. Unfortunately, due to the constraint of the land, there won’t be a pool.”
“But this won’t be like any other newly built Aloft. It might look like it on the inside in some areas, but because of the building being on the National Register of Historic Places, we have to incorporate a lot of the elements that make this building historic. We have to keep that along with meeting the needs of today’s modern traveler.”
“The target is all populations,” Vijay added. “Hot Springs is a tourist market. Young people come, families come, old people come. It’s not totally for Millennials only. It’s not that. It pleases all of the above. It will have modern amenities, computer outlets, everything you need. Plus, the rooms will be small, very efficient types of rooms up to a nice suite where a family can stay.”
The company is getting good at handling the additional challenges that come with historic properties. The Medical Arts Building is the third such project in their portfolio, the other two being another Marriott Aloft-branded project in downtown Chicago and the former Frederica Hotel in Little Rock, which is being rebranded as Fairfield Inn by Marriott.
Vijay said the difficulty of historic property rehabilitation versus new construction projects is that each individual historic project offers its own challenges.
Photo Caption:
1. Vipa Hospitality has acquired and developed nearly a dozen hotels in and around Hot Springs. Dr. Vijay Patel (center) and his son Parth (right) pose with business partner Vishal Patel in front of the historic Medical Arts Building, which is undergoing a multimillion-dollar renovation.
