Who doesn’t love a grand old hotel brought back to life?

Such is the Hotel Floridan, a product of the 1920s Florida real estate boom. When postwar tourists turned away from Tampa’s downtown hotels, it eventually catered to the by-the-month rental market. Decay ensued.

The building closed in 1989 and languished, being passed among five distinct owners like a beat-up antique chair before it was purchased for $6 million in 2005 by developer Antonios Markopoulos. That began a seven-year restoration and renovation project that returned it to its former glory.

It reopened in 2012 as the Floridan Palace Hotel. Where most downtown Tampa hotels cost northward of $200 a night, a large corner room on the 12 floor of the Floridan was booked by this author earlier this month for $107. Upscale without the sticker shock.

For architecture buffs, the location, on the northern edge of Tampa’s downtown core, is ideal. Nearby are the Sacred Heart Catholic Church (1905), the former United States Court House (1905) that has been transformed into the luxury Le Meridien Hotel, the abandoned St. Paul’s African Methodist Episcopal Church (1914) and the Tampa Theater (1926), one street over on Franklin Street.

The 18-story Floridan (it has a 19th floor but not a 13th) is a Beaux Arts-inspired, Renaissance Revival, steel-framed skyscraper that is clad in limestone, granite and brick, with terra cotta accents. Its architect, British-born Francis J. Kennard (1865-1944), was especially prominent in Tampa after moving there in the 1890s, and designed the Boca Grande’s Gasparilla Inn (Florida Buildings I Love, No. 5) in 1913.

The HOTEL FLORIDAN (not Floridian) sign on its roof is a local landmark and was re-installed during the recent redevelopment. The illuminated red letters are 6 feet tall.

The structure was Tampa’s tallest building until 1966, but is now overshadowed by many newer and taller skyscrapers.

Inside, the formal lobby, not especially large, opens to the elegant Crystal Dining Room, which is a few steps up from the lobby. As for pricing, a more-than-ample slice of key lime pie is $8, if that gives you an idea.

The ornate ceilings, of textured plaster with octagonal coffering and a floral motif, and column capitals were restored to their former glory and have guests looking up in awe. Stairs are in travertine marble bordered with black marble.

Such details reflected the economic and development boom going on outside the building’s doors in the 1920s. Developer A.J. Simms promoted the hotel project as necessary to meet the needs of the growing city, which doubled in size between 1920 and 1930.

But as the building was constructed for $1.9 million in 1926, the boom was starting to lose steam, and then went into full-fledged bust mode after the Great Miami Hurricane of 1926. That brought bad publicity and ended the supply of “suckers,” as one developer called them a few years later, who were flocking south in their Model-T Fords to speculate in Florida real estate.

After the Wall Street crash in 1929, noted Florida developer Barron Collier bought the building. The hotel did well until the downtown market declined in the 1960s. It was sold for only $351,000 in 1971 to a Minnesota investor who made it into a hotel for transients.

The structure was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1996.

“Florida Buildings I Love” is Harold Bubil’s homage to the Sunshine State’s built environment. This article originally ran on Dec. 23, 2017.

This article originally appeared on Sarasota Herald-Tribune: FLORIDA BUILDINGS I LOVE : No. 54: Floridan Palace Hotel, 1927, Tampa