Morgan’s dad wants to build a hotel.
Gordon Hartman, the former homebuilder who created the Morgan’s Wonderland theme park named for his daughter in 2010 and reshaped the recreation and care space for people with disabilities and their caregivers, has set his sights on a new venture.
With a theme park, water park, sports facility and comprehensive health care and services facility already in place in Northeast San Antonio, Hartman and Morgan’s CEO Brent Fields hosted a town hall meeting Wednesday to ask community members and stakeholders what an “ultra-accessible” and inclusive hotel should look like.
“Everything is always done with communication with everybody — you who know what is necessary, what is needed,” Hartman said.
With feedback in hand, Morgan’s dad, as Hartman likes to call himself, wants to build an accessible hotel that will lead to more like it. “We believe that by doing things, it will cause other people to say, ‘That’s a good idea,'” he said.
Speaking to a room of people with disabilities, their parents and spouses, park staff, and hotel executives — along with Morgan and her friends — he said development of a hotel on the Morgan’s campus is already underway.
Hartman said he has met with hotel flagship companies and is working with architect Robert Luna, CEO of Luna Associates, to design guest rooms and plan the hotel.
A site southwest of Heroes Stadium has been selected, a choice location for its elevation and potential views, he said. The other Morgan’s Wonderland facilities are nearby.
“We’ve got some work still to do to … say we’ve got 100% of the green light,” to build the hotel, Hartman said. But the positive feedback he’s received so far is making him want to go for it.
“And as you all know, anytime we kind of get an idea and it has Morgan’s name on it, we move pretty quick,” Hartman said.
Despite Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) regulations, more hotels that provide accessible accommodations are needed, he said.
About 1 in 4 adults in the United States, or 61 million people, live with some type of disability, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and about 1 in 6 children has a disability.
A 2022 study by MMGY Travel Intelligence revealed that 96% of travelers with a disability have encountered problems with accommodations, including with showers that are often inaccessible and beds that are too high. ADA regulations do not require any hotel with fewer than 50 rooms to have a roll-in shower room.
“Ultra accessibility is something different” than what the ADA requires, Luna said. The term has been trademarked by the Morgan’s Wonderland nonprofit organization in order to describe its offerings.
“It means it has more function,” he said. “It means it accommodates more individuals. So our challenge was, how do we do this to accommodate everyone to where any one of us can go to a hotel room and understand that it is accessible, that we don’t feel like we’re in a half hotel room, half hospital room?”
The study also found people with mobility disabilities aren’t sitting at home. Instead, they spend over $58 billion a year on travel.
Seventeen-year-old Jada Cano, who uses a motorized wheelchair to compete in soccer, said she often runs into problems while traveling to compete.
Cano delivered a long list of needs for an ultra-accessible hotel, from wider doors throughout to bathrooms with accessible grab bars, varying floor textures and lobby furnishings that accommodate wheelchair users.
Supporting independence is key, she said. “Not all disabled athletes have help when they’re traveling.”
Audio cues are also important, said one man attending the town hall who is blind. While attending San Antonio College, he came to rely on the sounds of a water fountain to orient himself and find his way around campus. When that fountain was turned off at one point, he walked in circles.
Other sensory issues were also mentioned — light dimming and sound mitigation are important for people with autism or other disabilities. A mother suggested creating a sensory calming room that would help her care for her son, and another woman said minimizing sharp edges and slick floors would improve safety for her.
In addition to wider doorways, doors should not be heavy to open and close, said several attendees, including Kristy Durso, a San Antonio woman who spoke up during the meeting. Durso relies on a wheelchair and owns a travel agency focused on accessibility.
She pointed to the Schoolhouse Hotel in White Sulphur Springs, West Virginia, as a model of accessibility.
Several people who spoke during the meeting also thought about the needs of others, with one suggesting lower stair rails for a travel buddy with dwarfism and another suggesting some sort of visual aids to help her sister with Down syndrome navigate the hotel independently.
The manager of a nearby La Quinta Inn, where many visitors to Morgan’s Wonderland stay, also recommended that the proposed hotel consider affordability to better accommodate cost-conscious people with disabilities and their families.
The list of suggestions was long and growing, especially via social media, CEO Fields said. And while it would be cost-prohibitive and unsustainable to include everything, it is a step toward building a hotel that will serve as a model for other hotel developers.
“It’s not perfect. It doesn’t capture things,” Fields said. “But one of my favorite things about Morgan’s is while the rest of the world is thinking about it, curious about it, we choose to do something about it.”
Hartman compared it to the work of building the theme park. When he first asked to meet with amusement ride manufacturers about making the equipment accessible, they questioned why he would want to do that.
Only a decade later, at a recent conference, Hartman said they came to him, asking for advice. He called it a movement.
Hartman said after the town hall that he estimates the cost to build such a hotel would be in the “high-teen” millions and that it would be supported by the Gordon Hartman Family Foundation. Hotel revenue would help fund the park.
In addition to the theme park, the Morgan’s organization also manages Morgan’s Inspiration Island splash park, Morgan’s Wonderland Sports complex and Morgan’s Wonderland Camp.
The theme park is currently closed through February for a major expansion that will include a a 4D cinema, wheelchair-accessible boat rides across the park’s lake, a zipline and more.
A second Morgan’s Wonderland park is also planned. Hartman would not reveal the location other than to say it is “north of Texas.” But he’s confident the park and location will be announced in 2024.
To make suggestions for the Morgan’s hotel, send an email to Director of Inclusion and Culture Sharon Newhardt, snewhardt@morgans.org.
