On Wednesday morning, The Brownwood Historic Texas Hotel LLC finalized its purchase of the former Brownwood Hotel property, located at the corner of Fisk and Baker. The company, headed up by Jeff Tucker, owner of Teddy’s Brewhaus, intends to renovate the facility and create a boutique hotel that opens its doors to the public approximately three years from now.
“Our plan from the get-go was to approach it as a boutique hotel for downtown and the surrounding area,” Tucker said. “We closed on it today, now the hard work begins. We’re proud to finally acquire it. It’s been a four-year conversation for me with the owner, and it’s turned into a final result that we want.”
For the last 90 days, due diligence to determine the structural soundness of the structure has taken place. Upon completion, the decision was made to proceed with the purchase.
“We were encouraged by the engineer’s report first and foremost, that was really the lynch pin for it, ” Tucker said. “I even talked to a demolition company about what would it take to demolish the building both in cost and scope. You could demolish it, but I think that would be an unfortunate thing to this historic landmark of Brownwood. So, for us, if we could make it economically viable, which we feel we can off our studies, then you get to recreate it and preserve it. Preserving history has become something that is obviously my passion. Being able to see the old Weakley-Watson building not turned into a parking lot was an important project for me as well. It’s neat to be a part of keeping a legacy alive.”
Regarding immediate plans for the 12-story structure that opened in 1930, Tucker said, “We’re going to spend at least a year doing nothing but planning. We did our studies on the economic viability of the project and without incentives, these projects don’t hardly ever get done. We’ve already set up some meetings with the City, and we’ve been talking with the City prior to the purchase. We’ve got some meetings set up now that we’ve taken ownership about our expectation for what we could look toward for state, local, and federal incentives for that kind of project. We’ve got a long list of things that need to be done, and some of those are going to be talking to the City about what we could do through the Brownwood Municipal Development District. We’ve got third-party vendors that we’re contracting with for the restoration and the preservation. Their job will be to help guide us, much like what we did over here at Teddy’s Brewhaus. We used them as a vendor to guide us for the historic preservation and there’s incentives for that on the state and federal level as well for Historic Preservation projects like this hotel.”
When that year is up, Tucker is hopeful construction will begin.
“The ultimate goal is within a year or less we finish all the headache work that needs to be done so we can pull the trigger on actual construction,” Tucker said. “Once the actual construction begins, you’re probably looking at a two-year component. It could be less, it could be a little more, but I think two years is a good projection.”
In terms of the chore that awaits in refurbishing the building, Tucker said, “The last 90 days we’ve crawled over it and on top of it. We brought in engineers who performed core samples of the physical concrete and they were a wealth of expertise as far as how it was constructed and what it’s strengths are. The good news is it didn’t have any serious weaknesses. Structurally, it’s very sound and probably over-engineered for a building of its design.
“That also creates other issues when you start trying to say if we were to have to follow compliance for sprinklers, how do we get that through 10 inches of concrete? We’ve looked at things like MEP, which is mechanical electrical plumbing, and all the engineering components that would need to be done for that building, along with things that would need to taken out.
“Our initial worry was, it has set for the last couple of decades, open to the elements, so what are our issues? There’s obviously been vandalism to the property, it’s never been truly secure and that’s unfortunate. That’s the only reason the building’s in rough shape.”
As for The Brownwood Historic Texas Hotel LLC, Tucker said of those he is partnering with, “They have an interest in the community as well and creating developments for Brownwood. We set up this new LLC and partnership strictly for this development.”