The renovated Kirkwood Hotel will have plenty of doors along its hallways. However, most of them won’t open.

As part of the effort to retain the historic hotel look of the 1930s-era building at Fourth and Walnut streets, many of the 160-some original guest room doors will be returned to the halls, the side with fine inlaid wood exposed and the back side buried in the wall. You’ll know the entryways to its 53 apartments by their much more modern doors.

The lobby will keep its classic look, too, and even go slightly backward in time; the raised deck has been removed, exposing the original terrazzo floor beneath.

But for the most part, the past seven months have brought intensive demolition in the Kirkwood, on the way to a radically different interior. The former corner café on the ground floor is now a 2,500-square-foot vacancy that won’t get its finished look until a tenant signs a lease. “We see a restaurant, a convenience store or possibly a lounge in here,” said Joe Coppola, whose family has owned the Kirkwood since 1975.

Next to that area and fronting on Walnut, workers are preparing a 6,000-square-foot space with a 24-foot ceiling. Coppola envisions a mid-level or high-end restaurant there. “A big, cavernous space like this is hard to find downtown,” he said.

The old ballroom is destined to become a fitness center, possibly divided into separate usage areas by the improbably tall folding doors that remain in place.

Coppola hopes to find tenants for the ground-floor spaces by early spring. The upper floors are expected to be ready for renters by late spring or early summer, he said.

Those apartments will range in size from 1,000 square feet to 1,300 square feet, with rents projected to be $1,000 to $1,400 per month.

The Lift bar will remain in the building and a couple of skywalk-level businesses – a restaurant and a barber shop – are expanding.

Next door at 218 Fourth St., workers are sandblasting the interior of a three-level parking ramp and beefing up its steel supports; the old structure will provide about 66 parking stalls for Kirkwood residents. Coppola wants to provide a secure passageway from the ramp into the Kirkwood, but negotiations continue with the city on that issue.

On the ground level, a glass wall will separate the public lobby area from the entrance to the private residences.

“We think the lobby will be a prime amenity,” Coppola said. “Our history is one of our assets, along with a wonderful central location” near the Civic Center of Greater Des Moines, downtown offices and the Court Avenue entertainment district.

Metro Engineering of Omaha is the general contractor for the renovation, and company President John Chudy is a partner in the $10 million project. The developers have been granted a 10-year tax abatement and received some tax-increment financing money; they also were granted historical renovation tax credits.

The historical designation imposed some limitations on the interior remodeling and also requires that the residential units be rented, not sold, for five years after completion. Coppola expects to convert the apartments to residential condominiums after that.

He said the partners will have model apartments ready to show to prospective renters two or three months before the entire apartment remodeling phase is complete.