Downtown Best Western to become Quality Inn & Suites

/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/BR_web_311x311.jpeg

The Best Western Starlite Village of Des Moines will soon become a Quality Inn & Suites as the hotel’s owner seeks to upgrade the property to appeal to families and executives who are expected to patronize the Iowa Events Center.

The total number of rooms available at the hotel will drop to 150 from 165 because 20 suites will be added. The renovation will also add a business center when it is complete by mid-November.

The change in affiliation will bring to three the number of Quality hotels that operate in Greater Des Moines. The two others, which aren’t owned by Bocken, are located in West Des Moines and on Merle Hay Road.

“We’ve signed the contract and it will take place later this year,” said Brian Bocken, the hotel’s general manager, whose family has owned the hotel since 1983. The Bocken family owns six other hotels in Des Moines and across the state.

Bocken wanted to make the change because Quality Inns and Suites “is a little more upscale” and the Quality Inn and Suites franchise offers guests better services.

The Starlite Village’s revenues are running below last year, slowed by the construction surrounding the hotel. Bocken’s hotel is located at 929 Third St., between the Iowa Events Center and Interstate 235. Road construction, which had led to the closure of the Second Avenue and Third Street bridges, hasn’t helped, he said.

“Obviously, it’s affected us,” he said. “It’s taken about 15 percent to 17 percent right off the top.”

Last week, both of those bridges reopened, though the entrance and exit ramps that link Second Avenue and Third Street to I-235 are not yet complete.

Quality is a unit of Choice Hotels International Inc., which operates hotels and motels under the Comfort Inn, Comfort Suites, Sleep Inn, Clarion, MainStay Suites, Econo Lodge and Rodeway Inn names.