Just more than two years after it began, the effort to restore the Lexington Hotel & Conference Center on the Southbank is nearly complete.
One day before the start of the annual Imperial Tattoo & Art Festival, workers were putting the final touches Wednesday on new the bar and lounge area, which was finished just in time for one of the hotel’s biggest annual events.
“Bringing back Lady Lexington, as we refer to her sometimes, has been a long, hard struggle as we were both operating and renovating at the same time, so it took longer to do some things than we would have liked,” said Bernie Moyle, chief operating officer of Coral Springs-based Red Lion Hotel Corp.
“We’ve redone this place down to the bones,” he said.
Vantage Hospitality, a subsidiary of Red Lion Hotels, bought the 37-year-old, 323-room hotel at 1515 Prudential Drive in June 2015 for $9 million.
The company made some immediate long-overdue upgrades in laundry and climate control equipment, then operated as the property as-is for the remainder of the year.
Renovations to the former Wyndham began in January 2016, starting with the 35,000 square feet of meeting space before moving on to the rooms. Laid out in three “wings,” one wing of rooms was shut down for renovation at a time.
In 2016, hotel officials estimated the renovation cost at $15 million to $20 million. Moyle declined to give an updated figure, but said the overall cost was considerably less than building a comparable new hotel.
“To build hotel like this in this market would run in the order of $170,000 per room,” Moyle said. That comes to $54.9 million.
“With the purchase and renovation, this will come in significantly under that,” he said.
In addition to bringing the 10,000-square-foot ballroom, 19 breakout rooms, other meeting space and restaurants up to contemporary standards, the guest rooms were stripped to the masonry.
Bathrooms were enlarged by relocating the closets. The dated furniture was replaced and donated to a local church.
In addition to a brighter color scheme, the hotel’s public spaces and rooms convey a subtle nautical theme, from the carpets to fixtures, including porthole-shaped decorative mirrors.
“It’s a gentle nautical theme,” Moyle said. “We didn’t want to put it in your face like the Gorton Fisherman kind of approach.”
That theme suits General Manager Art Casey, who stepped away from his final Navy duty station at Norfolk — retiring with the rank of master chief — and into his office at the Lexington.
“The first day I was supposed to go golfing or whatever, I was here,” Casey said. “Bernie made me an offer I couldn’t refuse.”
During his 23-year Navy career, Casey had spent 14 years in Jacksonville while stationed at Mayport Naval Station, and is happy to be here.
“I love this city,” he said. “How can you not?”
As retired military, Casey is making it a point to employ veterans, and much of the key staff remains from before the acquisition. Staff members interact with Casey and Moyle on a friendly, personal level as they walk the property.
Moyle said plans for a drop ceiling in the lobby were scrapped in favor of the original, five-story-high open space.
A new bar was built and new flooring and furniture installed on the left side of the lobby.
The bar and lounge was renamed Southbank Johnnie’s, a nod to its location on the Southbank of the St. John’s River. The refreshed main restaurant was renamed 1515, a reference to the hotel’s address.
The Compass Room public meeting space was renovated and seats 85 theater-style and accommodates 135 total.
Across from the bar, the registration desk was moved to the front of the lobby area. In its former place will be a barista-type space that provides access and views of the pool area, the lone remaining project of the renovation.
On the fifth floor, Topsider offers space for weddings, meetings and special events with access to a rooftop patio. The room offers a 180-degree view over the river from Riverside to TIAA Bank Field, the patio an even wider perspective.
The hotel has a 1,700-square-foot presidential suite, nine executive suites and, poolside, six “bridge suites” — each named after an area bridge — with connecting doors that can be combined for living space, meeting space and bedrooms and each with cabana-style access to the renovated pool area.
Some minor touches are awaiting completion: New lobby furniture has yet to arrive and custom railings to define lobby spaces are being manufactured. But otherwise, Lexington is fully open for business.
“As a meeting hotel, we’re a group space,” Moyle said. “There are two things most important to someone who books those kinds of events: The meeting space has to be good. And then the next thing they need to know is the rooms need to be good.
“Now that we have all the rooms done and all the meeting space done, those people who came here before and come back now can see we’re ready to rock ’n’ roll .”
