Dec. 31–BONHAM — Holiday Inn Express and Suites in Bonham is officially open and ready for business. The hotel's soft opening took place over the Christmas holiday with a grand opening and ribbon cutting to take place sometime in early 2016. Located at 1101 GK Reddy Avenue, Bonham Economic Development Corp. Director Stephen Filipowicz said this hotel is a cut above what the city had been able to offer the business traveler in the past.
"It adds a very important national hotel flag to our hotel community," he said. "We have a not insignificant number of business travelers who maybe aren't just comfortable staying at a bed and breakfast, they might rather stay at a Holiday Inn Express and Suites or a Hilton Garden Inn, something like that, and this will allow us to attract that business traveler and accommodate them in our community, rather than referring them somewhere else."
Rainy conditions slowed progress on the hotel some, resulting in construction lasting about a year, Filipowicz said.
"It has been a long road but with the help of some very special, hardworking people, we have made it," hotel developer G.K. Reddy said in a news release.
Filipowicz added that originally BEDCO had purchased the tract of land to prevent a junkyard from being set up there. It wasn't something a city wanted on their front porch, he said.
"This is a case of seeing a lemon and making lemonade," he said. "… (The hotel) really adds to the community entryway."
This is the first of two hotels planned in the Bonham area. Filipowicz said options for another 50-room extended stay hotel will be reviewed by Reddy and announced within the coming months. He has a set amount of time to make a decision and begin work on a second hotel there, or the land returns to BEDCO.
