New downtown Fresno hotel almost ready. When will it open? Get a sneak peek
Downtown Fresno is getting its first grand hotel in decades. Axis Hotel Group is preparing to open the Courtyard by Marriott Fresno Downtown at the corner of M and Inyo streets by August.
“It’s an elevated experience. This is a more upscale lodging facility than the surrounding properties, and any properties that have come to the downtown area in a very, very long time,” said Axis vice president Nicholas Bains, giving The Bee a tour of the facility.
The company invested $30 million to build a five-story hotel, with 144 rooms, including eight suites, a 4,000-square-foot banquet hall, and an outdoor, courtyard pool. The 95,000-square-foot hotel features 5,000 square feet of meeting space. The hotel will also feature a first-floor restaurant.
The downtown property is nine years in the making. Axis purchased the land through an agreement with the city in 2017 — an empty lot at the corner of the convention center — for $644,688.
After breaking ground in 2022 and several delays and redesigns, the hotel is nearly ready. Adjacent to — but not connected to — the convention center, workers are finishing off the lobby, ballrooms, guest rooms and pool.
“Infill was tough to work with. The underground PG&E lines were degraded somewhat, so we had to have a lot more work in developing this project than expected. That anticipation grew heavily, but the delays kept coming, and we’re finally here,” Bains said.
Parking will be at the convention center garage, about a block away.
The initial concept called for an eight-story hotel with 220 rooms and a larger banquet hall.
“Those plans weren’t feasible with the costs going up, so we just scrapped that, redid the plans and downsized the hotel a bit to make it feasible,” said Axis Hotel Group COO Taren Thandi.
Thursday, the Fresno City Council granted Axis more time to open by October, although hotel management says it will happen months sooner.
City officials said this is the first downtown hotel of its type to open since the 1980s.
City, visitors bureau excited
Visit Fresno County, the regional convention and visitors bureau, says the new hotel “opens up the possibility of larger conventions being hosted in downtown Fresno,” and fulfills the need for enough rooms for conventions.
“Having this hotel downtown will allow us to encourage some of our current clients to expand their events,” said Vanessa Puopolo, Visit Fresno County vice president. “Those additional hotel rooms downtown, especially right next to the convention center, does change some of those conversations for us.”
The city estimates an annual increase of $900,000 in hotel tax revenue, in part because of the opening.
“It’s significant to have a new Marriott in our downtown. It will open us up to host additional conventions,” Fresno City Manager Georgeanne White said.
