Sheraton Dallas Hotel

The Sheraton Dallas Hotel, formerly the Adam's Mark Hotel and originally the Southland Center, is a complex of International Style skyscrapers located in the City Center District of downtown Dallas, Texas. The hotel is the largest and second tallest hotel in Dallas and Texas with 1,840 guest rooms and 260,000 sq ft (24,000 m2) of meeting space.[3] It has been host to pop culture conventions such as Project A-Kon and TwiCon.

Sheraton Dallas Hotel
The Sheraton Dallas Hotel pictured as the former Adam's Mark
Hotel chainSheraton
General information
Address400 N. Olive Street
Dallas, Texas
Coordinates32.785066°N 96.794884°W / 32.785066; -96.794884
OpeningApril 12, 1959 (entire Southland Center complex became a hotel in 1998)
CostUS$35 million
Height167.64 m (550.0 ft)
Technical details
Floor count42
Design and construction
ArchitectWelton Becket & Associates
Other information
Number of rooms1,840
Number of suites242 Suites: Executive Suite
Dallas Suite
Jr. Suites
22 Presidential Suites
Number of restaurantsDraft Sports Bar & Lounge
Open Palette
The Parlor
Website
[1][2]

History

The complex was originally designed by Welton Becket & Associates from Los Angeles for the Southland Life Insurance Company.[4] When groundbreaking for the buildings took place in 1955 it was compared to Manhattan's Rockefeller Center, as Southland Center was the first mixed-use project in downtown containing both hotel and office space.[5]

Southland Center was the second major development in the northeast end of downtown now known as the City Center District.[4] The original two buildings, completed in 1958, consisted of the 42-story (550 ft) center tower, the Southland Life Building, and the 28 story (353 ft) south tower, the 510-room Sheraton Dallas Hotel.[4] Celebrities Johnny Weissmuller and June Lockhart appeared at the dedication ceremony in 1959.[6] In early 1981, the 31 story (448 ft) north Skyway Tower was added as additional office space. All three buildings are rectangular slab structures and surrounded by a common base. The facade was covered with curtain walls of glass and 1,000+ spandrel panels of light weight precast concrete faced with blue Italian glass mosaic tiles.

The Southland Life Building overtook the Republic National Bank Building and became from 1959 to 1964 the tallest in the city and the tallest building west of the Mississippi River.[6] Its height was later surpassed in the city by Republic Center Tower II.[7] For many years after the building's opening, the most exclusive restaurant in downtown Dallas was the Chaparral Club on the 37th floor, and an observation deck was located at the top of the tower.

Southland Life vacated the complex when Cityplace Center was opened in 1988. The hotel tower left Sheraton in 1990 and was renamed the Harvey Hotel in 1994.[8] In 1990, a central tower addition of 25 floors and bay windows was proposed to make the complex competitive to newer projects going up in the city.[9] However, the office towers sat vacant until 1996, when HBE Corp. purchased the entire 1.5 million-square-foot complex from New York Life,[8] as well as the entire block across the street, for a total of $40 million.[6] At a further cost of $170 million,[6] HBE redeveloped all three towers into one large hotel and built a convention center on the adjacent block, linked by skybridges. The Harvey Hotel tower remained open throughout the work. HBE placed the finished hotel within their Adam's Mark chain, naming it the Adam's Mark Dallas. The 1844-room hotel opened in October 1998.[6] DART's adjacent light rail line and Pearl Station were major factors in converting the complex into a first-rate convention facility. A parking garage and 3-story convention building were constructed on an adjoining block to the southwest, and the building's facade of glass mosaics was painted gray during the building's conversion.

In 2007, the Adam's Mark Dallas was sold and the new owners reflagged it as a Sheraton, returning the complex to the hotel's original name from nearly fifty years before, the Sheraton Dallas Hotel.[10] A $90 million project began in 2009 to renovate guestrooms, public spaces, and the convention center.[11]

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References
  1. Sheraton Dallas Hotel at Emporis
  2. "Sheraton Dallas Hotel". SkyscraperPage.
  3. Hotels in Dallas: Sheraton Downtown Dallas Hotel - Reservations at Sheraton.com. Starwoodhotels.com. Retrieved on 2010-10-21.
  4. Adam's Mark Hotel - Architecture in Downtown Dallas Archived 2009-11-18 at the Wayback Machine. Dallasarchitecture.info. Retrieved on 2010-10-21.
  5. Southland Skeletor Flickr - Photo Sharing!. Flickr. Retrieved on 2010-10-21.
  6. Templin, Neal (9 December 1998). "Dallas Landmark Finds New Life As the Biggest Hotel in Texas". Wall Street Journal. Retrieved 18 March 2017.
  7. Emporis
  8. "Dallas landmark being sold". www.bizjournals.com. Retrieved 18 March 2017.
  9. Steve Brown. "Race to the top of Dallas' skyline heats up." The Dallas Morning News 10 Aug. 1990, HOME FINAL, BUSINESS: 2D. NewsBank. Web. 18 Jan. 2010.
  10. Adam's Mark hotel chain being sold | News for Dallas, Texas | Dallas Morning News | Dallas Business News. Dallasnews.com (2007-05-31). Retrieved on 2010-10-21.
  11. Sheraton Dallas Hotel Launches Redesigned Guest Rooms as Part of $90 Million Renovation. Reuters. Retrieved on 2010-10-21.
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