Oct 22, 2014

Hotel Chisca Tour

Last week we were able to tour the old Hotel Chisca with our AIA LuniTects group.

Bryan has long been obsessed with this building. A couple of years ago plans were announced to turn it into apartments and they have been doing steady work over the last couple of months. This is a huge building that is on Main St connecting the core downtown to the South Main area. It will be great to have it be functional and busy again.

It was from the Hotel Chisca that Elvis was first broadcast on a local radio show. They didn't point out that area to us, but there is nothing remaining from the studio regardless.



I didn't get a good picture of the building from the street, but above you can see the building from the courtyard area on the 2nd floor. This area used to be a ballroom, but will soon be an open common space for the tenants.









The inside of the original hotel (built around 1910, I think) is not in the best shape, but it was cool to see some features, like wallpaper and flooring.

The modern addition, added in 1960, is already well under way in the construction process. On the second floor the apartments were already framed out and we were able to get  sense of what the layouts would be.  I'm sure the original building apartments will be interesting to see once they are finished. The architect said they were going to try to preserve what was remaining, such as the wallpaper on the columns.

The building should be finished by next summer. I'm hoping that we get to go back and see the finished work!

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