The Warrior Hotel is a historic hotel opened in 1930 and restored in 2020, located in downtown

Sioux City, Iowa Sioux City () is a city in Woodbury and Plymouth counties in the northwestern part of the U.S. state of Iowa. The population was 85,797 in the 2020 census, making it the fourth-largest city in Iowa. The bulk of the city is in Woodbury County, ...

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...

Description

The building is eleven stories tall, and rises above the ground. The building was designed by Kansas City architect Alonzo H. Gentry in the

Art Deco Art Deco, short for the French ''Arts Décoratifs'', and sometimes just called Deco, is a style of visual arts, architecture, and product design, that first appeared in France in the 1910s (just before World War I), and flourished in the Unite ...

style. The brick exterior features

terra cotta Terracotta, terra cotta, or terra-cotta (; ; ), in its material sense as an earthenware substrate, is a clay-based unglazed or glazed ceramic where the fired body is porous. In applied art, craft, construction, and architecture, terracotta ...

ornamentation. The hotel opened on December 20, 1930, built by the

Eppley Hotel Company The Eppley Hotel Company was located in Omaha, Nebraska. At the time of its acquisition by the Sheraton Corporation in 1956, it had 22 properties, and it was the largest privately held hotel business in the United States. About Owned by hotel mag ...

. Eppley was bought by

Sheraton Hotels Sheraton Hotels and Resorts is an international semi-luxury hotel chain owned by Marriott International. As of June 30, 2020, Sheraton operates 446 hotels with 155,617 rooms globally, including locations in North America, Africa, Asia Pacific, Ce ...

in 1956, and the hotel was renamed the Sheraton-Warrior. Sheraton remodeled the hotel in 1962, moving the lobby from the second floor to the ground floor and converting the hotel to a motel, renaming it the Sheraton-Warrior Motor Inn. In 1968, Sheraton sold the hotel to Gotham Hotels Limited, along with seventeen other aging properties, and it was renamed the Warrior Motor Inn. The hotel closed in 1971 following a strike by employees, but was sold and reopened the following year as the Aventino Motor Inn. It closed permanently in 1976. It was listed on the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the United States federal government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures and objects deemed worthy of preservation for their historical significance or "great artistic v ...

in 1985. The structure was tagged for building violations in the late 1990s, but was given a reprieve by the city due to its historical significance and the estimated $5 million it would cost to demolish. In 2006, the interior was gutted in preparation for converting the building into low-income senior housing, but the project stalled for lack of financing. In November 2012, a group led by the Winnebago Tribe of Nebraska applied for a gaming license for a proposed $122-million casino and entertainment complex that would integrate the Warrior and the neighboring Davidson Building. State gaming regulators rejected the bid, awarding the license instead to a Hard Rock Casino to be built at the city's historic Battery Building. In July 2017, Restoration St. Louis & Warrior ownership announced a plan to renovate the Warrior Hotel and adjacent Davidson Building into a 148-room Marriott Autograph Hotel at an estimated $73M. The hotel reopened in September 2020.

References

External links

The Warrior Hotel - official website

The Warrior Hotel - official chain website
{{NRHP in Woodbury County, Iowa Hotel buildings completed in 1930 Hotels established in 1930 Buildings and structures in Sioux City, Iowa National Register of Historic Places in Sioux City, Iowa Hotel buildings on the National Register of Historic Places in Iowa Art Deco architecture in Iowa Sheraton hotels 1930 establishments in Iowa