Former Crowne Plaza OKC Sold for Hilton Redevelopment

The long-vacant 10-story hotel tower at 2945 Northwest Expressway in Oklahoma City has a new owner and a new future: Champion Hotels has purchased the former Crowne Plaza property and plans to redevelop it into an approximately 200-room dual-branded Hilton hotel. The sale positions the 4.5-acre site for renewal along a corridor that has already seen one major hospitality overhaul in recent years. According to The Journal Record, the sale was brokered through HotelBrokerOne, whose Oklahoma City office co-listed the transaction alongside Price Edwards & Company, with HotelBrokerOne securing Champion Hotels as the buyer. The property has sat empty for years, and the outlet reports it endured a protracted foreclosure and legal dispute before landing on the market. Champion Hotels, headquartered in Oklahoma City, is now positioned to lead the site's transformation. The building at the center of the deal has a long history under different flags. It was originally developed as a Hilton hotel in 1969 and later operated as a Crowne Plaza and a Wyndham-branded property. The tower's vacancy followed a period of significant capital investment. In June 2017, commercial lender iBorrow provided $12 million in refinancing for the then-218-room hotel to an owner who had purchased the property in 2016 and put $8.1 million into capital improvements before rebranding it from Crowne Plaza to Wyndham, according to REBusinessOnline. That upgrade cycle came less than a decade before the building went dark. Marketing materials from Price Edwards & Company show the vacant structure spans 102,850 square feet on its 4.5-acre parcel. That gives Champion Hotels a substantial footprint to work with as it plans the site's next chapter, though the Journal Record reports the companies have not disclosed a development timeline or the total investment figure for the redevelopment. The new hotel is expected to serve as the core of what Champion Hotels describes as an innovative and diverse mixed-use development, rather than a standalone hotel rebuild. Peter Holmes said the project represents an exciting vision for the revitalization and rejuvenation of the area, adding, per the Journal Record's report, that the location, corridor success and property size create an opportunity for that kind of development. The planned roughly 200-room hotel will be dual-branded and franchised by Hilton, though the specific Hilton brands that will occupy the property have not been disclosed. Champion Hotels is no stranger to this stretch of Northwest Expressway. The company, founded in 1979 by Champak 'Champ' Patel and his wife Bhanu, has grown into the largest privately held hotel operator in the United States, managing more than 150 franchised properties nationwide, including roughly 70 in Oklahoma, according to Hotel Management. The company began with a single small motel in Weatherford, Oklahoma, before expanding into a national hospitality operator. The planned redevelopment would add another hospitality project along Northwest Expressway, giving the corridor another opportunity for renewal. The planned redevelopment would add to ongoing changes along the Northwest Expressway corridor. A Familiar Brokerage Relationship HotelBrokerOne's role in this deal centers on the sale of the former Crowne Plaza property. Champion Hotels is now working with Hilton on the planned redevelopment. The company's recent activity extends beyond hotels, too, though the sources cited here do not establish the details or cumulative retail square footage of that activity.