By NICK GOSNELL
Hutch Post
HUTCHINSON, Kan. — As progress continues downtown on the Hoke Building, Mark and Phoebe Davenport with Levare Properties explain what they mean by a boutique hotel.
"It was an office building and the building is still set up that way floors two through four," Mark Davenport said. "When we say boutique, we're saying, we're retaining the original spirit of the building, like those original spirit of the building. Those original wall partitions, the original doors, transoms, trim work, a lot of original plaster and lathe will be there, a lot of original wood floors that will be refinished."
Boutique hotels typically have fewer than 100 rooms.
"It's custom to the history of Hutchinson," Davenport said. "It's to celebrate what that building was and kind of repurposed and brought into the 21st century."
Levare Properties is also still working on renovating Plaza Towers and Leon Place as apartment buildings, and they are still looking for investors in their latest purchase of the Landmark Building. There are also commercial spaces in the lowest level of the Hoke Building.
"At the Hoke Building we have a couple of tenant spaces," said Phoebe Davenport. "We're hoping for one that will be more like a coffee shop, breakfast and lunch type of place for both the hotel guests, but also members of the community to be able to come and enjoy. We also have a place that we're hoping for a sort of evening hangout spot, whether a wine bar or a whiskey bar or something along those lines. As we have these buildings where there's residential, either hotel or people living in apartments up above, there's just already kind of a captive audience there."
The hope is that the renovations can spark revitalization in downtown as a whole. Below is a radio interview that goes into more of their vision for each of their properties...