April 02, 2013--The hotel by the river isn't called Holiday Inn anymore.

The sign is still up, but employees answer the phone, "Garden Plaza Hotel." The name change is part of a multi-million dollar renovation to the more than 40-year-old hotel.

Upgrades include makeovers to guest rooms, meeting rooms, the lobby and indoor recreation center. The renovations are expected to be completed by the end of the year.

"The upgrades will tremendously impact the city," hotel general manager Andy Safiano said. "It will become a first-class facility and create a lot more marketing opportunities for us and the city."

Safiano said the hotel will use only the Garden Plaza name during construction. Once the renovations are complete, the hotel's owner, Scottsdale, Ariz.-based Cooper Companies, will announce its permanent name.

"We have to get through an extensive process to be rebranded," Safiano said. "Part of that process is these renovations don't meet specific Holiday Inn requirements, so we have to change the name."

Cooper Companies executive vice president David Cooper said in a news release that the company planned to bring a "new, upscale hotel brand to Decatur for some time." Cooper said the company has used the Garden Plaza name as an interim brand in the past.

The hotel opened as Pavilion Inn, then became Holiday Inn in 1973. The hotel was last renovated in 2005.

Out-of-town visitors are often routed to hotels in other cities because of a lack of Decatur rooms when visiting the city for big events, such as the upcoming Open Cup youth soccer tournament. But hotels struggle to fill their rooms between big events.

Thirty-six exterior rooms at Garden Plaza will be eliminated during renovations, bringing the total from 205 to 169.

"We have found that people who visit the city don't mind driving somewhere else, like Huntsville, and spending a little more money for an upscale hotel room," Convention and Visitor's Bureau President Melinda Dunn said. "We have a need for a high-quality hotel."

Dunn said upgrading can raise the average daily rate, a metric used to determine hotel performance. If an area's hotels have high average daily rates, other hotel chains can be lured to build there. The last hotel built in Decatur was the Courtyard Marriott in 2001.

Morgan County has 1,679 rooms, of which 1,366 are in Decatur. Athens has about 800 hotel rooms. Madison County has about 7,000.

Ben Montgomery can be reached at 256-340-2445 or [email protected].

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