Infamous Center City flophouse sold

The Wankawala Organization has purchased the Parker Spruce Hotel for $3.47 million and plans a total overhaul of the infamous property in the heart of the Gayborhood.

Spruce Hotel Corp. was the seller. Wankawala, a Philadelphia company that owns hotels, had been managing the property for some time before recently closing on its acquisition. The 12-story property at 261 S. 13th St. totals 50,000 square feet.

With economy doing better and lenders more willing to finance commercial real estate projects, the new owner feels like the time is right to move forward with the project.

“Our intention was always to make it a nice hotel,” said Mihir Wankawala, an executive at the hospitality firm. “That’s what we do and that is our business.”

Back in 2010, the company had hoped to launch renovations to the property but the struggling economic climate interfered with those plans.

“There was nobody lending in our industry,” Wankawala said.

Wankawala hasn’t finalized how much will be spent upgrading the property but the aim is to make it a high-end hotel in the three-star to four-star range, he said. Once completed over the next 12 to 15 months, it will reopen with 110 to 120 rooms.

The Parker Spruce Hotel has a deep history and has long been a fixture on 13th Street. Built in 1929, it was considered a nice place to stay back in the day. In the 1960s, it took a turn for the worse when it became a haven for prostitutes and drug addicts and that sealed its reputation as a flophouse.

Last fall, a small fire broke out in the building. The blaze didn’t cause much damage but Wankawala decided it made sense to close up and cease operations.

“It has a good history and bad history,” he said. “We want to go into it and make it a good history again. Our plan is to work with the neighborhood and enhance it and get rid of the bad association with it.”

Source: Philadelphia Business Journal