Indigo Plainfield Article 2007

TERRE HAUTE — A hotel under construction where an icon once stood is scheduled to be open by October, an official with the project said Tuesday.

The Hilton Garden Inn-Terre Haute House is being built at Seventh Street and Wabash Avenue on the site of the former Terre Haute House. The construction is just one of several major downtown projects being developed by crews working in the scorching summer sun.

The Hilton Garden Inn, where work officially began during a groundbreaking ceremony in late July 2006, likely will open on Oct. 1, said Tim Dora, a partner in the Dora Brothers Hospitality Corp., which will run the hotel. The number of reservations already made has people involved in the project optimistic, he added.

“So overall, I think we’re in pretty good shape,” Dora said. “I think people will be very impressed with the final product.”

The hotel estimated to cost at least $11 million includes more limestone and brick than initially expected, “but we felt that was a good expenditure based upon what the city was looking for,” Dora said.

He remains busy with another project along Wabash Avenue. His group also will manage a Candlewood Suites extended-stay hotel in a renovated Tribune Building, with the Terre Haute Children’s Museum built in a new location next to it.

Project officials hope to finish the financing of the project and sell the neighboring parcel to the Children’s Museum before construction begins on both sites, Dora said.

He hopes the suites hotel, expected to cost $9.5 million, will open June 1, 2008.

About $3.7 million of the expected $5 million goal has been raised for the museum, said Steve Schrohe, a member of the museum’s board of directors. The money includes $4 million for the land, building and the initial exhibits, along with a $1 million endowment that would “support operations and keeping the museum current as we go forward,” he said.

The demolition work at the site is nearly complete. Officials hope the museum can open by next fall.

“That is not a cast-in-stone date,” Schrohe said. “Just, logically, if we can have it open when kids are going back in school, that would be fabulous.”

Those are not the only major construction sites downtown. Crews also are working on the parking facility at Seventh and Cherry streets. A crane is installing panels to columns at the site. The project will cost about $13.65 million when it is done and it is scheduled to open in early 2008.

The cost includes $400,000 to address complications associated with oil tanks found at the site that needed to be extracted. Soil that could not be compacted and old building foundations also had to be removed before construction could begin, said David Walker, public works administrator in Terre Haute’s Department of Redevelopment.

“But now we’re at the point to where everything we’re doing now was” in the plans, Walker said, “so I don’t look to have anything else other than really minor change orders.”

Jim Chalos, president of the City Council, momentarily glimpsed at the parking facility while he was doing business downtown Tuesday. He said that the current administration and council have worked to spur growth in the area, which was an ongoing effort for several years that is beginning to yield results.

“I think there’s a lot going on downtown,” Chalos said, “and it’s something that this community can be proud of.”