Mike Whalen is a serious guy who likes to have a good time. As the founder of commercial real estate development company Heart of America Group, he’s business serious with a playtime sense of wonder.

Some of that imagination is expressed in Heart of America’s design studio, an operation that Whalen established early on when he decided that the company’s hotels and restaurants should not be designed from a template. 

His wife, Kim, leads the team, which consists of four architects who are full-time employees and, during summers, one intern.

It was Kim Whalen who, after dining at an East Village restaurant a few years ago, told her husband that the neighborhood would benefit from a hotel that offered a unique experience for tourists and business travelers. The result is the AC Marriott, a boutique brand that was first launched in Europe, now  under construction at East Fourth Street and East Grand Avenue.

Another example of the Whalens’ flights of fancy can be seen at Hotel Renovo, a $5 million reconstruction of the Comfort Suites at Living History Farms in Urbandale that was completed in July 2015. Renovo means to revive, renew, restore, repair and repeat. 

Mike Whalen said the concept was a 21st-century farmhouse. The result was a virtual reconstruction of the entire property, with an emphasis on vaulted ceilings, thick support colums and clean lines. The design even includes a wrap around porch. 

The process is “like making the next cool toy,” he said.
Heart of America’s design team is at work on another Hotel Renovo, this one in the Museum Place development in Fort Worth, Texas. Whalen said the hotel will be art-themed.

Having a design team on board allows Heart of America to maintain momentum on projects.

When the company started out in the Quad Cities in Iowa and Illinois, few architects had experience designing hotels, and Whalen did not want designs that were derived from prototypes.

“We decided we wanted to control the process,” Whalen said. 

That carried out to furniture. He was not satisfied with what amounted to off-the-shelf tables and chairs for a restaurant project. He found a vendor who would supply furnishings that met his approval.

“You want to keep as much control from start to finish as you can,” Whalen said.

In the hospitality business, it is important to come up with designs that meet the changing tastes of travelers. Hotels stamped out of prototypes might have provided some comfort to travelers a few years ago, but not these days, he said.

“The professional millennial and the more affluent boomer want a more localized experience, they don’t want an off-the-shelf prototype,” Whalen said. “At one time, it was assuring to travelers; now they want a cool, differentiated product. They want cool design. Obviously the millennials will be a major part of business travelers by 2018. They want localized, unique experiences.”

With the design team, the “cool” factor is close at hand, and it provides a product that Heart of America can hold long enough to justify a major rehab every 20 years or so.

“We’re not merchant developers. We hold things. We can design it up. We can look at life cycle costs of something. It might not be the cheapest going in, but over the long run it makes a lot of sense,” Whalen said.

And just to keep the “cool” factor aligned with the “fun” factor, Whalen noted that he would like to find an old building here with “good bones” that could stand a major rehabilitation and take on a new life as a hotel.

You might expect to find a box of Martha White Cornbread mix on a shelf in Hotel Renovo’s culinary and event space.

The 102 rooms at Hotel Renovo were designed with simple creature comforts in mind, with luxurious amenites that include Carrera marble floor tile and vanities and glass barn shower doors.

For travelers with time on their hands, Hotel Renovo offers this bocce ball court. A wrap around porch is in the background.

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