The owners of MainStay Suites on South Dirksen Parkway have filed a zoning petition with the city of Springfield for a permit to convert the extended-stay hotel into apartments.
Hazur Hospitality is seeking to turn the 109 hotel units in the property at 3185 S. Dirksen Parkway into 109 apartments, including a mix of 450-square-foot studio apartment units and 900-square-foot family apartments, according to the zoning permit.
According to Anu Arora, owner/operator of Hazur Hospitality, the company currently works with area nonprofit organizations such as Helping Hands and Fifth Street Renaissance to provide housing to individuals and families being assisted by those agencies. Fifth Street Renaissance, which provides transitional housing and other social support services, already rents one full floor of the MainStay Suites property, Arora said.
All the hotel units already are equipped with kitchenettes, and no additional construction would be necessary to make the transition to operating as an apartment complex, Arora said.
“We would no longer be a hotel,” he said. “We just decided — let’s convert these into furnished studio apartments and rent them to people in need.”
The property originally opened as a Hampton Inn before being converted to a Wingate hotel in 2017. Hazur Hospitality acquired the property in 2021.
The permit request will be considered by the Planning and Zoning Commission at its Nov. 18 meeting.