DETROIT—The Royal Dearborn, Hotel and Convention Center in suburban Dearborn is up for sale, and big changes could be on the way when a new owner takes over. The 773-room hotel, until recently part of the Hyatt Regency chain, is the second largest in the state, but was completed in 1976, an era when having one brand occupy such a massive structure, which stands across the street from the Ford Motor Company World Headquarters, may have made more economic sense.

Savills Studley's US Capital Markets Hotel Group is handling the sale, and its officials have floated the possibility of repositioning the property, perhaps splitting the asset into two smaller hotels or even reducing the size of the hotel component by converting the top floors to residential use and transforming parts of ground-level space into retail.

“We are seeing the repurposing of older, larger properties into dual-branded hotels,” Marc A. Magazine, executive managing director of the Savills hotel group, tells GlobeSt.com. “In some cases, markets have shifted and demand patterns have changed since the hotel originally opened. The idea of effectively shrinking the hotel by dividing the room count between two brands with separate reservation systems and loyalty programs makes great sense.”