Back in the day, the old Decker jail was quite the fancy hotel.(Flickr user Coltera)
It would appear Dallas County has found a taker for the old Cabana Motor Hotel on Stemmons Freeway, best known as The Hotel Where The Beatles Stayed in September 1964. But many questions remain, chief among them: Does it have a date with the wrecking ball? And, is the county playing favorites with a developer?
A few developers who vied for the property, which was bought by the county in 1985 and converted into the Bill Decker Detention Center two years later, say the commissioners court agreed to sell the 399,000-square-foot property sitting on 3.275 acres near the Design District to apartment developer Lincoln Property Company last week with the intention of razing it and replacing it with a residential high-rise. The county, which was asking $7 million for the property last month, won’t comment on its fate.
The sale of the property was discussed in executive session, behind closed doors, during commissioners court on October 7. Teresa Guerra Snelson, the assistant district attorney who sits in on exec sessions, says via email, “I am not at liberty to discuss matters discussed in executive session.”
Competing developers say Lincoln offered a bid of slightly more than $8 million for Doris Day’s old hotel, where Raquel Welch worked as a cocktail waitress and where Led Zeppelin stayed in the summer of 1970. They also say at least one other bid came in at the exact same offer, and are questioning why the county didn’t ask for presentations outlining their plans for the property.
Robert Plant at the Cabana in August 1970, when Led Zeppelin played the Tarrant County Convention Center(From Led Zeppelin's website)
“We would be very pleased to participate in such an exercise,” says Hercules Development’s Charles Brower, “and we are confident that our strong concept and vision would stand up well against any plans to demolish the structure.” Brower says he wanted to restore the Cabana to its former glory and keep it as a hotel; another well-known local developer, who did not want to be identified, said he had similar plans — but his offer, just under $8 million, put him out of the running.
CBRE, which is handling the sale on behalf of the county, confirms the former Decker Jail is under contract. “We’re still negotiating,” says Austin-based spokesperson Emily Fraser, “but it has not closed.”
Last week, Lincoln’s executive vice president of finance, Clay Duvall, said his company had not yet acquired the Cabana. The county, he said, “is still running a process on the deal.” He stressed that it has “not traded hands yet.” He said there were “no definitive plans” for the 53-year-old hotel that was the brainchild of notorious developer Jay Sarno, who was behind Caesars Palace and Circus Circus in Las Vegas. When asked if Lincoln planned to raze it, Duvall said only that “we’ve looked at it a bunch of different ways.”
And that’s all he’d say on the subject.
Brower says he’s convinced Lincoln is going to raze it — which, he says, “is no surprise given Dallas’ history. It just confirms that tipping point has not yet happened where historical properties have a lot of value.”
Brower and his partners, including Houston-based Aristides Trifilio, have launched a Save the Cabana Hotel Facebook page. Says Trifilio via email, he and his partners are “still mystified by the county acting so precipitously and hastily with a significant architectural asset. The Cabana certainly could be magnificent once more!”
This isn’t the first time someone’s talked about repurposing the old hotel: In 2009, the year the county “depopulated” Decker, the Central Dallas Community Development Corporation wanted to buy it and turn it into affordable housing for income-restricted residents wanting to live near downtown Dallas. That, of course, didn’t happen, and the county has been leasing the “cabana” part of the hotel to a private operator that has converted it into a halfway house for sex offenders.
Preservation Dallas, which has been tracking the Cabana’s sale, is also concerned this could be “another demolition of a historic building” since it has no protection from the city of Dallas.
“It’s not on the city’s list of landmarks, and it not on the National Register,” says Preservation Dallas Executive Director David Preziosi. “But it would potentially qualify for both. It’s one of the additional buildings we’ve added to the list we hope the city will put more protections in place for. But that may be difficult, since it’s owned by the county.”
For now.
From CBRE's for-sale flier