Double take: Crowne Plaza at historic Union Station

The 158-year-old building offers several challenges

16 cars: The Pullman train cars sit on their original tracks and have been converted into guestrooms. "Ghost people" sculptures reflect the period costumes of the original train station's heyday.

When remodeling an old building into a hotel, developers often encounter a series of obstacles and challenges like outdated electrical circuits, bad plumbing, odd spaces, or in the case of General Hotels Corp., train tracks and a 13-car train.

The Crowne Plaza Indianapolis at Historic Union Station was originally the Indianapolis Union Station, built in 1853 as a huge elevated-track train station. In 1984, developer James Dora, of General Hotels Corp., turned the building’s head house and West train shed into a hotel, essentially building out the hotel inside the architecturally unique original station buildings while retaining as much of the original architecture as possible.

Today the hotel has 273 guestrooms in the old West train shed on three floors. On the second floor, along with regular hotel rooms, there is a unique feature: a train.

Doug Allison, the property’s GM, said there are 13 authentic Pullman train cars on the second floor sitting on the original tracks that went through the West train shed. Each of the cars has two connecting guestrooms: a double and a king. Allison said the narrow layout of the cars and stepped entry make maintenance difficult, but it’s worth the extra upkeep.

“Not very many people have to wipe down or dust a railroad car on the outside,” he said. “So there is a cleaning challenge, but it is something we are accustomed to. Once a month we wipe these things down from top to bottom.”

Another popular element in the hotel is the grand hall, which features Romanesque Revival-style architecture. With a glass barrel ceiling, the grand hall adds another operational challenge for the hotel.

“About every three years we bring in special equipment and we touch up the ceilings. It takes a lot of planning to take care of it,” Allison said.

The city owns the building and the hotel leases the space, so taking care of the building is a collaborative effort when it comes to maintenance and renovation.

Allison said when hotel was built, there was a lot of effort between the historical society and the developers to make sure many of the historical elements could be maintained.

“If you like history, this place will just absolutely blow your mind,” Allison said. “Everything from the architecture to the amount of steel in this building is amazing.”

Windows

Grab the Windex
The grand hall, which is located in the head house and attracted around 80 weddings in 2011, includes 20-foot leaded, stained-glass wagon wheel windows.

Housekeeping

Step by step
Three steel steps lead up to each train car room, which adds a cleaning challenge for the staff, who must leave their carts outside the train and travel back and forth.

ADR

Premium rate
Average daily rate for the train car rooms runs about 20-25 percent higher than standard rooms.

Station

The grand tour
The union station includes three sections: the head house (the central station), and the east and west train sheds, which used to house the elevated train tracks.

Source: Doug Allison, GM, Crowne Plaza at Historic Union Station