The four-story Montgomery Hotel was built in 1911 and served as a downtown hotel until 1962 when it was converted to residential use. The San Jose Redevelopment Agency purchased the land and hotel in 1982 for $450,000.
Joie de Vivre Hospitality currently operates restaurants, health spas and 21 boutique hotels in Northern California, including hotels in Mountain View, Los Gatos, San Jose and Sunnyvale.
"The Montgomery Hotel is a timeless treasure and we are committed to preserving its character,'' said Chip Conley, Joie de Vivre founder and CEO. "We want to make an emotional connection with each person that walks through the doors of the Montgomery and to that end, we will closely follow the historic guidelines set locally and by the Department of Interior.''
Efforts to save the Montgomery began in 1999, when Mayor Ron Gonzales made the preservation of the hotel a major goal of his administration shortly after taking office. At the time, the hotel was dilapidated and non-operational after suffering extensive damage in the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake.
In order to begin construction on the Fairmont Hotel Annex, the Montgomery needed to either be moved or demolished, so the Redevelopment Agency teamed up with the Preservation Action Council of San Jose, the Historic Landmark Commission and Fairmont developer Lew Wolff to draft a plan to save the hotel.
In January 2000, the Redevelopment Agency relocated the hotel to First Street and Paseo de San Antonio, 186 feet south of its original location, at a cost of $8.5 million.
The agency also contributed $4.5 million for a seismic retrofit and $6 million for the historic renovation of the hotel. DivcoWest was then selected to renovate the 60,000-sf hotel. Restoration work is slated to begin in November and should be completed by spring 2004.
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