A historic boutique hotel along San Antonio’s Riverwalk has been put up for sale.
The Riverwalk Plaza Hotel has hit the market with a price tag of $20.75 million, according to a commercial real estate listing.
The 129-room property, located at 100 Villita St. and situated across from the Bexar County Courthouse, is currently owned by Warwick Prestige Hotels LLC, which purchased the hotel in 2015 from La Villita Motor Inn, county records show.
According to county records, Warwick secured a $7.22 million loan from Texas Capital Bank in 2017, which was later increased to $8.3 million in 2019. The original $4.1 million from Mercantile Capital used for the acquisition was fully repaid in 2016.
Records also show that the current ownership sought federal historic tax incentives last year and obtained approval from the National Park Service in October. The property was also approved for approximately $2.5 million in Texas Historic Preservation Tax Credits.
Allan Miller, executive director of the hospitality division of real estate firm Marcus & Millichap, is handling the listing for the hotel.
“Of the 40 hotels I’ve sold in San Antonio over my 20-year career, this has been one of the more enjoyable assignments,” Miller said in an email to the San Antonio Report.
The Riverwalk Plaza Hotel sits on a site with deep local history.
The original 12-story Plaza Hotel, built in the 1920s, was once billed as the “finest hotel in the South,” according to the hotel’s website, formerly boasting a rooftop restaurant, a grand ballroom, 500 guest rooms, and what was advertised as the city’s largest open dance floor. Over the years, it’s said to have hosted an array of famous guests, from movie stars and athletes to the notorious Al Capone. The Plaza Hotel was eventually sold in 1956.
The site where the boutique Riverwalk Plaza Hotel now stands used to be an island separated from the land by the San Antonio River. This island, which has gone by Galveston Island, then Bowen’s Island, then Central Park, disappeared in 1926, when the river channel was straightened as a flood control measure.
While the main Plaza Hotel no longer stands, the Riverwalk Plaza Hotel’s current structure, built in 1968 and renovated in 2011, occupies the former site of the Plaza Hotel’s garage, which once stood at the corner of Soledad and Villita Streets and even featured a rooftop miniature golf course in its heyday.
