A small hotel in downtown Las Vegas with a retro feel is under new ownership and eyed for a wave of upgrades.
Las Vegas real estate investor Michael Poura purchased the Downtowner hotel and a cluster of nearby properties from the estate of the late Zappos chief Tony Hsieh, according to Clark County property records and Nevada business-entity filings.
The bulk sale, for about $10.3 million, closed on May 13, property records show.
The Downtowner, 129 N. Eighth St., at the corner of Ogden Avenue, was built in the 1960s and underwent a $2.5 million renovation several years ago.
According to its website, the mid-century hotel blends “retro charm with modern essentials.” It has a stylish lobby bar, as well as a courtyard that offers a “Palm Springs vibe.”
The courtyard has a six-hole mini-golf course, fire-pit lounge, retro-style furniture, and decorative pink flamingos scattered about.
Poura said the 125-room hotel is in great shape and profitable but offers minimal amenities, and he plans to expand its offerings.
“This hotel has a lot of potential,” he said.
Keeping the name
He envisions turning the Downtowner into a place where people can get affordable spa and salon treatments, hang out by the pool, and enjoy live music.
As he described it, he also wants to remodel the bar and pool areas; increase seating options around the putt-putt course, so people can order drinks and lounge around; and renovate two buildings across from the hotel that he acquired as part of the purchase, to boost the Downtowner’s room count.
He said the boutique property has an old-school, 1960s-vibe that is largely lacking in Las Vegas — a place better known for its towering, and rowdy, hotel-casinos. He also noted that he will keep the Downtowner’s name and “all the history” that came with the building.
All told, he acquired a swath of real estate in the Fremont Street area, and he said that his group wouldn’t have bought the Downtowner if the offering didn’t include the other properties around it.
Logic Commercial Real Estate had been hired by Hsieh’s estate to find a buyer. The firm said in marketing materials that the hotel is in the heart of downtown, “making it an attractive destination for tourists and business travelers alike,” and that the listing gave buyers a “value-add opportunity” to pick up several additional parcels.
Poura’s acquisition included a dirt lot at the northeast corner of Fremont and Eighth streets and two surface lots that charge for parking and are operated by the city of Las Vegas.
He said the city shares the revenue from those parking lots.
City spokesman Jace Radke said the city has operated these privately-owned lots for several years to add parking inventory downtown, and given the recent sale, a “new agreement is being negotiated at this time to determine revenue percentages.”
Motel holdings
Hsieh, the former CEO of online shoe seller Zappos and face of downtown Las Vegas’ economic revival, died in 2020 at age 46 from injuries suffered in a Connecticut house fire.
He was unmarried, and his father has been managing his estate through a probate case in Clark County District Court.
Hsieh left behind a vast portfolio of office buildings, apartment complexes, retail properties and other sites downtown. He assembled the holdings through a $350 million side venture launched in 2012 as the Downtown Project, becoming a one-man redevelopment engine for a long-neglected part of the city.
Hsieh acquired the Downtowner hotel in 2013, property records indicate. In spring 2019, DTP Companies, as his side venture became known, announced that it had wrapped up a $2.5 million overhaul of the property.
It renovated 88 rooms and spruced up the courtyard and the exterior, DTP said at the time.
Hsieh’s real estate portfolio included several other old motels along Fremont. He redeveloped one, Fergusons, into a commercial complex, but he didn’t do much with the others, aside from painting their plywood coverings to look like cartoonish doors and windows.
Since his death, the shuttered motels he left behind drew vagrants, were torched in fires, and had other problems, and in recent months, work crews demolished the blighted buildings.
Contact Eli Segall at esegall@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0342.
