Rooks buys Holiday Inn in downtown Muskegon

Rooks buys Holiday Inn in downtown Muskegon

The Holiday Inn is at the intersection of West Western Avenue and Third Street. Photo via fb.com

West Michigan developer Jon Rooks announced today that his development business Parkland Properties has acquired the Holiday Inn Muskegon Harbor in the heart of downtown Muskegon.

Rooks, who also owns the Shoreline Inn a short distance away on Muskegon Lake, did not reveal the price paid for the Holiday Inn, but said, “We’re keeping the franchise” and that, “it’s going to stay a Holiday Inn.”

Rooks said the property was purchased from a group of four individuals who are not from the Muskegon area. He declined to identify the previous owners.

The Holiday Inn is an eight-story structure with 201 hotel rooms, a full-service restaurant and bar seating 200, with additional banquet/meeting space of about 10,000 square feet. Rooks said it was originally built as a Hilton Hotel in 1986.

The occupancy rate at the Holiday Inn in 2012 was 38 percent, according to Rooks.

“We plan to raise the occupancy rate,” said Rooks. “We’ve done that at the Shoreline Inn; we started at 19 percent occupancy and we’re over 50 percent at the Shoreline now.”

The Shoreline Inn — a 140-room, 10-story luxury hotel — was acquired by Rooks in 2009. It was built in 2002.

Rooks noted that the Holiday Inn is “in the very heart of the urban core which is being revitalized in downtown Muskegon.” Two other major new commercial buildings have gone up at the same intersection since 2008.

Rooks also owns a vacant 91-year-old building in downtown Muskegon. The eight-story former bank building now is called Highpoint Flats, and Rooks plans to renovate it into apartments starting this year. He acquired the building several years ago but said he had to “reinvent the project after the recession.” He had originally planned to convert it to condominiums.

Rooks, 50, started his Parkland Properties development business in Grand Rapids in 1988. He has converted former industrial and school buildings into condo developments now called Boardwalk Condominiums, Union Square Condominiums, Cityview Condominiums and others.

Parkland Properties also owns Terrace Point, a former industrial property adjacent to the Shoreline Inn on Muskegon Lake, which Rooks is having developed for 70 home sites, many of them on the water.