Hilton Garden Inn – Flint

As Architect of Record and Historic Consultant on the 101-key Hilton Garden Inn, Downtown Flint, Kraemer Design Group lead the conversion of an abandoned office building into a hotel while preserving significant architectural features of the building. The Genesee County Savings Bank Building is an eleven-story, Italian Renaissance Revival building that is one of the earliest built high-rises in Flint, MI. Located on the northwest corner of West Kearsley Street and South Saginaw Street, the building anchors the main commercial street in downtown Flint and stands across from the U of M, Flint campus. A widely overhanging copper cornice with decorative brackets accents the tower and stands out against the white Indiana limestone facade. In 1947 the double-height ground floor banking hall and street façade were remodeled to a late-deco style. The adjacent Sherman Building was annexed to the tower and conjoined at each floor. This annex now serves as the entrance to the hotel while the banking hall at the base of the tower provides a magnificent destination restaurant. A new rooftop addition to the annex includes a rooftop bar with views over Buckham Square to the west and down the activated Buckham Alley to the south. For the interiors, our team integrated bold geometric patterns and splashes of color with the historic materials that remains, including marble wainscoting in many of the corridors, wood paneling in the former board room, the original steel and etched glass balcony guard rail, plaster detailing in the former banking hall and of course, the massive bank vault doors.