Bethel African Methodist Episcopal Church was built in 1869.
AB Wire
Indian American hotelier Bharat Patel’s company Sun Development & Management Corp., based in Indianapolis, has got into contract to build two hotels estimated to cost $30 million on the site of the city’s oldest African American church.
The project could add more than 200 rooms to downtown’s lodging inventory, reported the Indianapolis Business Journal.
Bethel African Methodist Episcopal Church on downtown’s west side was built in 1869 and has served the black community at its current location for nearly 150 years. But dwindling membership and an aging building requiring costly repairs are forcing the congregation to sell the historic property near the Central Canal, the Journal reported.
Patel’s plans for the Bethel site call for two hotels — one a redevelopment of the historic church building and the other to be built next to it on a lot fronting West Street. The second hotel would include three levels of parking and roughly 10,000 square feet of retail space.
“I think it will be a dynamite development along the canal,” said Patel, Sun’s CEO. “That quadrant (of downtown) doesn’t have enough hotels.”
The closest are the Marriott’s Courtyard at the Capital and its Residence Inn, both across the canal from Bethel.
Patel expects the two hotels will total about 200 rooms and serve visitors to IUPUI, the hospitals on the campus, and the NCAA headquarters along the canal to the south, said the report.
It’s yet to be determined what flags the hotels will fly. Patel said one will be a full-service boutique hotel and the other will be select service, a hotel class between full and limited service. Bethel’s 150 members decided to seek offers on the property after learning it would take $2 million to repair the church, said the Rev. Louis Parham.
Redeveloping a historic building that dates to the same decade as the Civil War will pose some challenges, but that is Patel’s goal for the building, which has been listed on the National Register of Historic Places since 1991 but isn’t protected from demolition. Patel plans to save the bell tower and church façade as part of the hotel design.
Patel offered another incentive to ink the deal, promising to contribute $50,000 a year to Bethel over the next decade to help the congregation buy or build another church.
Whether the local preservation group Indiana Landmarks will support the project is uncertain. The not-for-profit wants additional conversations with Patel before endorsing it, said Mark Dollase, Landmarks’ vice president of preservation services, said the report.
And besides agreeing to buy Bethel church, Patel has signed on to develop a 12-story, 150-room Cambria for Rockville, Maryland-based Choice Hotels International. Choice first presented plans last October for the $20 million project to be built on a surface lot on South Meridian Street.
Patel’s group has since become involved in the project, which would be built at the northwest corner of South Meridian Street and Jackson Place, on the surface lot just south of The Old Spaghetti Factory.
The $20 million project includes 15,000 square feet of retail space. The timing of the project is uncertain pending city approval of design changes that are in the works