Eight years after it was first proposed, the Ann Arbor Vanguard Hotel is nearly ready. “We are training our staff and getting everything [ready], from cooking meals to cleaning rooms,” developer Robert Finvarb says, in anticipation of an April or May opening. | Photo by Mark Bialek
In January, Finvarb expected hiring and installation of furniture and fixtures to take several more months. “We are training our staff and getting everything [ready], from cooking meals to cleaning rooms,” he says, in anticipation of an April or May opening.
When we last talked to him two years ago (Hotel Rebound, April 2023), Finvarb was looking forward to business from Michigan Medicine, whose new 264-bed Kahn Health Care Pavilion Hospital is scheduled to open this fall. As the opening date grows closer, he’s looking at the entire university community as his customer. With twenty-four suites and “about 12,000 feet of top-notch banquet space,” Finvarb says, the Vanguard’s service and amenities “will set a new standard in the market.”
But he’s not the only developer who sees opportunity downtown. First Martin Corporation’s Marriott AC Hotel is also under construction on E. Huron across from city hall. Approved in November 2023 for a site previously targeted for office use, it broke ground last spring.
“We were planning on building this hotel prior to Covid, and then Covid struck,” says First Martin president Mike Martin. “Obviously, the hospitality industry went through a long period of dislocation during the pandemic. It seems like it has found its footing since.”
After “some city delays,” Martin says, the six-story, 139-room building was 20 percent complete in early January. As they work through the challenges of winter construction, they’re “shooting for fall 2025” to open. That would be just in time for the U-M football season—along with graduation, the peak time for Ann Arbor hotels.
Martin says they’ll be “using First Hospitality out of Chicago as our hotel manager” and are looking to hire a director of sales this month.
A third player has since dropped out. In 2021, Iowa-based Hawkeye Hotels announced plans for a ninety-four-room Fairfield Inn on Huron and First. In 2022, the quaint former gas station on the corner was demolished and contaminated soil removed.
But last year, the excavation was filled in and grass planted on the site. Asked about the status of the project, a representative from Hawkeye emails, “We are not currently developing any property in Ann Arbor.”
