Tucson used to be at the top of the list for Aloft, a trendy Generation-X-and-Y-centered hotel brand being launched by Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide this year.
The Old Pueblo was supposed to be one of the first five cities to receive an Aloft hotel, according to a spokesman quoted in a previous story in the Star. That plan didn't materialize. But an Aloft might still be coming in the near future.
Summit Builders in Phoenix has filed plans with the city to raze the Four Points by Sheraton Tucson University Plaza, at 1900 E. Speedway, and build an Aloft hotel.
The transformation is expected to start sometime after Starwood completes a purchase of the land underneath the hotel, owned by the University of Arizona and local development partnership Sundt Plaza LLC.
The new hotel would have 161 rooms and no conference center, according to plans filed with the city. The current Four Points Sheraton has 150 rooms and about 3,800 square feet of conference space, according to the filed information.
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The plans are still under review but likely will be approved after some minor issues are cleared up, said Jessie Sanders, the deputy director of the city's Development Services Department.
Starwood representatives did not return calls for comments on the plans.
Paul Graver, operations manager of the Four Points Sheraton in Tucson, said the conversion is "still up in the air."
"Starwood has not made a decision," he said.
The hotel company is in the process of opening its first Aloft hotels in Rodgers, Ark. (near Bentonville, home of Wal-Mart); Rancho Cucamonga, Calif.; Rosemont, Ill.; Lexington, Mass.; Philadelphia; North Charleston, S.C.; and Montreal. The company's Web site lists four Phoenix-area locations — in Chandler, Glendale, Phoenix and Tempe — coming in 2009, but no future locations in Tucson.
The company expects to have 500 Aloft locations across the world by 2012, according to its Web site.
Written as "aloft" by Starwood — because apparently people in their 20s and 30s don't like capitalization — the hotel brand features loft-style rooms with contemporary furniture, wireless Internet, and high-tech office and entertainment centers.
In what appears to be a nod to e-mail and text-message subject lines, the hotel brand also has a fitness center called "re:charge", a food and beverage area called "re:fuel" and a bar area called "re:mix".
Before launching the brand in the real world, Starwood announced Aloft's presence to its target demographic by "opening" a preview hotel in the virtual world Second Life (an online simulation game where people assume identities and interact in cyberspace).
Debbie Johnson, president and CEO of the Arizona Hotel & Lodging Association, said in an e-mail that she thinks the concept of Aloft is "unique and creative and definitely has a target market that we are striving for in Arizona."
"I think the more unique and different the product, the more likely it will work in our economic times right now," she said.
We'll see how that goes.
DID YOU KNOW
The Plaza International Hotel opened in July 1971 at a location that had previously been an A.J. Bayless market. With 150 rooms, the hotel could accommodate as many as 500 guests. Original cost estimates were $1.5 million for the seven-story building.
The president of the hotel was Tucson developer Jack S. Sarver, who was affiliated with the Aztec Inn and American Savings and Loan. Over the years, the hotel has also been called the Plaza Hotel and the Four Points by Sheraton Tucson University Plaza Hotel.
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