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Downtowner Motor Inn

Hotel buildings completed in 1965Hotel buildings on the National Register of Historic Places in New MexicoHotels in Albuquerque, New MexicoMotels in the United StatesNational Register of Historic Places in Albuquerque, New Mexico
New Mexico Registered Historic Place stubsNew Mexico State Register of Cultural PropertiesU.S. Route 66 in New Mexico
Hotel Blue, Albuquerque NM
Hotel Blue, Albuquerque NM

The Downtowner Motor Inn is a historic motel on Central Avenue (former U.S. Route 66) in Downtown Albuquerque, New Mexico. Opened in 1965, it was originally part of the Downtowner chain, which operated economy-priced motels in city centers across the U.S. In 1972, the motel was sold and became a Quality Inn. It has also operated as a Ramada and most recently as the Hotel Blue, which closed in 2017. In 2020, it was announced that the motel would be renovated by the Los Angeles-based ARRIVE Hotels & Restaurants to reopen in 2022. These plans were delayed by the COVID-19 pandemic, and ARRIVE Hotels was purchased by a different hotel company, Palisociety, in 2021. Renovation work began in early 2022.The building was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2020 as "an exceptional example of a mid-20th-century motel on Route 66 in Albuquerque."The motel was designed by James L. Burke of the Memphis, Tennessee-based firm of Burke & Beaty Architects. It is a six-story building of reinforced concrete construction and is an example of International Style architecture with an emphasis on simple rectangular forms. It has 145 rooms, which are accessed in typical motel fashion via open-air exterior walkways with metal railings rather than a central lobby. Elevators are located in a breezeway near the center of each floor. The ground floor has scalloped concrete portes-cochères on the south and west elevations, facing Central Avenue and 8th Street, respectively. The south elevation includes stylized Southwestern symbols cast into the exterior concrete panels, which was unusual for International Style architecture. These elements have been obscured and damaged by new exterior trim which was glued onto the panels during a 2007–08 remodeling. ARRIVE Hotels reportedly planned to restore the exterior of the building closer to its original appearance.

Excerpt from the Wikipedia article Downtowner Motor Inn (License: CC BY-SA 3.0, Authors, Images).

Downtowner Motor Inn
Central Avenue Northwest, Albuquerque Downtown Albuquerque

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Wikipedia: Downtowner Motor InnContinue reading on Wikipedia

Geographical coordinates (GPS)

Latitude Longitude
N 35.0852 ° E -106.6561 °
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Address

ARRIVE Albuquerque

Central Avenue Northwest 717
87102 Albuquerque, Downtown Albuquerque
New Mexico, United States
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Hotel Blue, Albuquerque NM
Hotel Blue, Albuquerque NM
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Southern Union Gas Company Building
Southern Union Gas Company Building

The Southern Union Gas Company Building is a historic building in downtown Albuquerque, New Mexico, which is notable as one of the earliest International style buildings in the city. Built in 1951, it was the largest of several Southern Union offices around the state designed by southwestern architect John Gaw Meem. Meem was much better known for working in the Pueblo Revival style but did design a handful of other modernist buildings, such as the Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center.Meem completed the design for the Southern Union building in 1949, intending to "project the image of a progressive, public-spirited company". The building has two stories, with the former appliance showroom on the ground floor and a multipurpose "hospitality room" upstairs. The main showroom space is 17 feet (5.2 m) high, with a sweeping staircase to the upper level and expansive plate-glass windows on the south and west sides.The Southern Union Building was added to the New Mexico State Register of Cultural Properties in 2003 and the National Register of Historic Places in 2004. In 2004–5, the then-vacant building was renovated and converted into a Flying Star restaurant at a cost of $3.5 million. The Flying Star location closed in October 2015 as part of the chain's bankruptcy proceedings. Just two months later, it was announced that the building would house the Albuquerque offices of Rural Sourcing, Inc., an Atlanta-based tech company. The building was renovated a second time in order to convert the restaurant space to offices, costing over $1 million.