Visitors to the new Drury Plaza Hotel in Downtown Pittsburgh will be able to stand atop the Art Deco-style building on a rooftop deck to view the Pittsburgh skyline and peek at PNC Park.
The hotel is scheduled to open November 30th at 745 Grant Street in the old Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland building near the intersection of Grant Street and Liberty Avenue.
The new 207-room hotel will have free hot breakfast and light evening meals as well as free wifi and other amenities such as the rooftop deck with city views. “Drury has the tagline ‘extras aren’t extra,’” says Chris Park, general manager of the Pittsburgh hotel.
Hotel guests will be able to use the 8th-floor pool and hot tub built out in the old firing range used by the bank’s guards. Two large 1,800- square-foot vaults that once held cash and bonds have been transformed into meeting rooms.
“The Drury company has a love of old buildings and roots in construction,” says Park who adds that the company is vertically integrated, meaning the general contractor, engineer and others involved in the rehab all work directly for the St. Louis-based company.
Drury Hotels owns 140 hotels in 21 states and purchased the building in 2013 to expand into the Pittsburgh market after the federal reserve bank branch was relocated to Oxford Centre. The building was originally designed by Walker and Weeks from Cleveland in 1931 and a second building was constructed as an addition in 1956.
Park says the 40-year-old family company has a history of saving old buildings. A number of the company’s other hotels are in historic structures such as in Cleveland where the striking downtown Board of Education building was rehabbed into an 189-room hotel.
Currently the Drury Plaza Hotel is accepting reservations beginning January 15th and later, though starting November 30th reservations will be taken for that date and beyond. Room rates start at around $200 for two queen beds to $239.99 for a two-room suite and up from there.
