The 75-year-old Hawks Dairy Building at 11th Street (aka Route 66) and Lewis Avenue will be converted into part of a 100-room, full-service boutique hotel.
Local developer Kimberly Honea, along with her business partner, Daniel Dolins of Chicago, told the Tulsa World newspaper about her plans for the large building located almost directly across from the Mother Road Market.
It will be called The Avery Hotel, named after the so-called Father of Route 66 and longtime Tulsa resident Cyrus Avery. It will be part of the Hilton Tapestry Collection group.
“First and foremost to me was preservation,” Honea said. “Tulsa has just so many architectural gems, and this one just really stuck out.”
Honea said she just couldn’t let the approximately 30,000-square-foot Moderne Art Deco building along America’s iconic roadway continue to sit empty. The neighborhood didn’t hurt, either.
“You have to be smart, too. Are your neighbors going to provide you room nights? You can’t build a hotel and sit empty,” Honea said. “So being next to the University of Tulsa, and obviously everything the Lobeck Taylor Family Foundation has done in this area, Route 66, Hillcrest Hospital. It’s a no-brainer.”
The hotel will have a restaurant, retail space and its entrance on the first floor. The second floor will have a 3,600-square-foot meeting room and three smaller meeting spaces.
A second structure, a five-story hotel, will be constructed and connected to the Hawks Dairy Building by an enclosed glass walkway. The hotel will have a courtyard space with a pool and lawn.
Part of the financing for the $17.5 million project will come from state and federal historic tax credits. The developers want to incorporate as many of the building’s glass blocks and wall tiles into the design. The project also has been given a $1.5 million Route 66 Enhancement Fund grant from the city.
Honea said she hopes to have The Avery Hotel open by the summer of 2027.
According to Historic Tulsa, the Hawks Dairy Building, designed by Kansas City architect Gerad W. Wolf, opened in 1948. It closed in the early 1960s.
(Excerpted image from Google Street View of the Hawks Dairy Building in Tulsa)