Livonia’s Hotel Boom Continues With New Holiday Inn, More in Pipeline

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Holiday Inn Hotel Northwest is the latest hotel to open in Livonia. // Photograph Courtesy of Holiday Inn Hotel Northwest

Livonia has seen three hotels constructed in the last three years, with the latest – Holiday Inn Hotel Northwest, located at 17123 Laurel Park Drive N – now open.

The city also has seen two other properties undergo multimillion-dollar renovations in the same time period.

Group 10, a privately held hospitality real estate company based in Southfield, razed an old hotel and restaurant to build the Holiday Inn Hotel Northwest, which includes a Johnny’s Italian Steakhouse, a 5,400-square-foot banquet facility, a fitness center, and an indoor pool. The property is near I-275 and within walking distance of Laurel Park Place and the Phoenix movie theater.

“It has been great working with the city,” says Kenny Koza, president of Group 10 management. “They have worked with us in pursuing our business development projects. The hotel offers a great deal of amenities, and we are right off the highway. It is a convenient location.”

This is the second new hotel the group has opened in Livonia over the past 18 months.

Other recent projects include Group 10’s Hampton Inn on Schoolcraft near Middlebelt, which opened in fall 2017; Holiday Inn Express and Suites’ new facility on the site of a former industrial building on the southwest corner of Schoolcraft and Inkster, which also opened in fall 2017; the $14-million renovation of an Embassy Suites Hotel on Victor Parkway in 2016; and a multimillion-dollar overhaul of Hyatt Place near the corner of Seven Mile Road and Haggerty in 2016.

Livonia business leaders have long promoted Livonia’s convenient central business location. Residents and visitors are within a 30-minute drive of Detroit Metro Airport, the University of Michigan, downtown Detroit, the Detroit Zoo, and corporate centers along I-696 in Oakland County.

“This Holiday Inn-Johnny’s Steakhouse project has been a great addition and continues several years of incredible economic development in our community,” says Dan West, president and CEO of the Livonia Chamber of Commerce. “We are grateful for this latest project that converted a dated hotel and restaurant into a fresh new property.”

In addition, a business group has submitted plans to the city to raze the former Doc’s Sports Retreat on Victor Parkway to construct a new hotel, and city officials have talked to two other developers in recent months about the prospects of two additional hotels in Livonia.

The Detroit Visitors and Convention Bureau reported in 2015 that Livonia had the second-largest increase in overnight hotel stays in southeast Michigan, after downtown Detroit. The demand helped generate the need for added hotels.