Macon highrise hotel to get a new name — its sixth one in nearly 50 years

Macon's downtown highrise hotel most recently known as the Ramada Plaza has a new name — it will become a Wyndham Hotel. It will be the sixth name it's had since it was built in 1969.

A "coming soon" banner showing the new name was flapping in the wind from the top of the building Monday afternoon.

Gabriella Chiera, director of Global Communications for Wyndham, confirmed by email that the 297-room hotel "will be part of our namesake Wyndham brand. It's slated to open in early 2019."

When Toronto businessman Rupinder Sangha bought the hotel at 108 First St. in 2014, it had been vacant for about five years. The hotel was repainted and some interior work began that first year, and then two years later a $700,000 building permit was issued to Macon-based Kunj Construction, which also has an office in Canada. Both Kunj and Sangha declined to talk about what was being done. It was announced in 2014 that the hotel would become a Park Inn by Radisson, but a sign never appeared on the building.

On Friday, Sangha was on his way to a meeting and couldn't discuss the hotel.

The hotel's claim to fame: Elvis Presley stayed there during a 1977 concert at the Macon Coliseum. He died two months later.

The hotel has faced financial trouble nearly from the beginning. Two years after it opened, its owner filed for bankruptcy, then the new owners went bust in 1978. Later that year, Metropolitan Life Insurance Co, which held the mortgage on the property, took it over and put $8 million into its renovation. Later on, the hotel closed temporarily a couple of times in early 2011 because of problems with the boiler and old pipes before it closed in February that year. By 2013, it faced its second foreclosure in three years and Sangha bought it.

The nearly 200,000-square-foot hotel was built in 1969 and sits on 2.2 acres. When it was named Ramada Plaza in November 2006, it was the fifth name for the hotel. Prior to becoming a Ramada Plaza, the hotel held the name Crowne Plaza for 10 years. Originally, it was a Hilton from 1970 until 1991, and it was the Macon Downtown Hotel until 1993. From 1993 until 1996, it was a Radisson.

This story was originally published June 18, 2018 at 5:16 PM with the headline "Macon highrise hotel to get a new name — its sixth one in nearly 50 years."