Hotel Statler (Statler Office Tower)

The Statler Office Tower operated first as an exceptionally high-end Cleveland hotel for several decades until a lack of occupancy led to its conversion into an office building in the 1970s. The luxurious, 700-room Hotel Statler opened in October of 1912 as an impressive addition to the Hotel Statler chain consisting of hotels in such cities as Washington, D.C., Detroit, St. Louis, New York City, and Los Angeles. Dignitaries and celebrities regularly frequented the Statler Hotel (George Burns and Gracie Allen spent their honeymoon there), and it also held the distinction as a known mob hangout. The hotel opened during a time when stores and arcades drew multitudes of residents to Euclid Avenue, and it later (during the 1920s) benefited from the construction of several theatres.

The fourteen-floor, 192-feet tall, 700-room hotel offered guests a wealth of amenities. Guests of the hotel enjoyed luxurious dining, lounges, a lavish ballroom, big bang music and dancing, and rooms that appealed to the wealthy, but remained relatively affordable. Despite the Great Depression, the hotel expanded and modernized during the 1930s resulting in the addition of 300 rooms, new dining areas, a gentleman's club, and a library. The hotel opened amidst a boomtime for Cleveland's downtown region, with plenty of shopping and entertainment businesses in operation. The hotel also got a boost from its location near the city's theatre district, known as Playhouse Square, where investors planned and constructed five theaters between 1920 and 1922.

The Hilton Hotel chain purchased the chain of Statler hotels in 1954. Still, the Cleveland property, despite a reputation as the chain's finest hotel, suffered from aging and competition that resulted in declining occupancy. During the 1950s and 1960s, the theater district also declined in popularity as many middle-class and wealthy fled to the suburbs. Thus, four of the five theaters closed down by 1969. The Hyatt had planned to renovate the hotel but instead sold it to investors who converted several floors into office spaces in 1971. By 1980, yet another ownership group completed the building's transformation by turning the entire building into an office building. The once-grand hotel again enjoyed a metamorphosis in 2001 (with an update and modernization in 2019) when it was converted into an apartment complex that coincided with the early stages of downtown Cleveland's residential and service-industry resurgence.  

DeMarco, Laura. " A Visual History of Cleveland's Fascinating Hotel Statler ." The Plain Dealer (Cleveland) February 15th 2018. https://www.cleveland.com/entertainment/2018/02/a_visual_history_of_clevelands_1.html.

--- --- ---. "Historic Statler Hotel hosted movie stars, mobsters and Cleveland glitteratti: A (fascinating) visual history." The Plain Dealer (Cleveland) Sep 19, 2019. https://www.cleveland.com/life-and-culture/g66l-2019/01/e128d019f19879/historic-statler-hotel-hosted-movie-stars-mobsters-and-cleveland-glitteratti-a-fascinating-visual-history.html.

Encyclopedia of Cleveland History. "Downtown" Case Western Reserve University. case.edu. Accessed August 16, 2020. https://case.edu/ech/articles/d/downtown.

--- --- --- "Playhouse Square" Case Western Reserve University. case.edu. Accessed August 16, 2020. https://case.edu/ech/articles/p/playhouse-square. 

--- --- --- "Statler Office Tower" Case Western Reserve University. case.edu. Accessed August 16, 2020. https://case.edu/ech/articles/s/statler-office-tower. 

Kosich, John. "Renovations at the former Statler hotel reveal century-old building's storied past." ABC News 5 Cleveland. news5cleveland.com. Oct 30, 2018. https://www.news5cleveland.com/news/e-team/the-statlers-renovations-reveal-some-of-the-century-old-buildings-storied-past.