April 11–Salina’s central location makes it an excellent spot for corporate meetings, and hotel owner Larry Patel is capitalizing on that.

On Thursday, the CEO and president of Liberty Hotel Group is opening a full-service Holiday Inn, located just south of the Daimaru Steakhouse & Sushi Bar on South Ninth Street. In addition, the group soon will start work on a Fairfield Inn & Suites, located near Menards on Magnolia Road.

The hotel will have a restaurant/lounge, pool, hot tub, gift shop and 3,000-square-foot convention center.

Returning to Salina and to Holiday Inn as general manager is Kevin Williams, who for 19 years was the general manager at the Holiday Inn-Holidome on West Crawford.

“Salina is a busy town,” Patel said. “We get tons of calls from big corporate people that want to hold a meeting in Salina, but there is no space to hold meetings.”

The Liberty group also owns Salina’s Holiday Inn Express on North Ninth Street, near Interstate Highway 70.

Highest occupancy rate

Patel said Salina has the highest occupancy rate among the 16 hotels Liberty operate.

As soon as the Holiday Inn on South Ninth Street is opened, Patel said, the group plans to start construction of an 88-room Fairfield Inn & Suites, located just north of Menards. That is expected to open in August 2016.

Liberty owns hotels in McPherson — Holiday Inn Express, Days Inn and Best Western Holiday Manor. It also has hotels in Missouri, Georgia and Orlando, Fla.

“Salina is so in the middle,” he said. “It’s a great city to work with. They do need a big convention center.”

That Holidome dining

Many in Salina will remember the Holidome, 1616 W. Crawford, which before that was the location of the former Rocket Drive-In movie theater. Williams and chef Bill Fekas teamed up on Friday nights at the Holidome to produce a seafood buffet.

Williams said that back then the restaurant had five hostesses on Friday nights to attend to the 800 people who would walk in for dinner.

The Holidome won the Holiday Inn Torchbearers Award in 1989 and 1990.

“We did a great job there, and hopefully we can do the same thing here,” said Williams, who has 40 years experience managing hotels.

“Salina has always been kind of my home,” Williams said. “I’ve worked with Larry (Patel) before on different projects. He told me he was building me a hotel.”

Gourmet hamburgers

Williams said the restaurant/lounge will be a Burger Theory specializing in fresh gourmet hamburgers. Former Salina Mayor Barb Shirley will be the restaurant manager, Williams said.

“We are really, really excited to work with Barb,” Patel said. “She is going to have a good operation. The teamwork is really good.”

He said he visited a Burger Theory that recently opened in a Holiday Inn in downtown Omaha, Neb.

“They (Holiday Inn) only have a few of them open, so we will be a test site,” Williams said.