Sunday, August 23, 2020

Holiday Inn Bryan

Before its ill-fated life as apartments, the Holiday Inn became an independent motel.


While we have discussed the College Station Holiday Inn in the past (and recently updated it with a new restaurant ad with delicious-sounding entrees) Bryan's Holiday Inn began construction in 1964 and presumably opened in 1965. From what I can tell, it was a fairly standard Holiday Inn of the mid-1960s, all exterior-entranced rooms, swimming pool in the courtyard (which appears to be still functional today, if operated seasonally), and equipped with a small restaurant/coffee shop and meeting rooms. During the late 1970s and early 1980s, it co-existed with the Holiday Inn in College Station (with this hotel being dubbed as the Holiday Inn North in listings). In the late 1980s, it briefly became "The Bryan Inn", though had ditched the restaurant inside the motel. From there, however, the fortunes of the hotel changed. It fell into the hands of Leonard Ross' holdings, and like the former Ramada Inn was converted into private dorms (and listed under "Furnished Apartments" in the phone book), going under the name "The Forum" through the 1990s, and by the mid-2000s had shut down entirely.

Remarkably, in the late 2000s, the building managed to reopen as a Travelodge despite minimal remodeling done (and even getting the Travelodge name to begin with, how the mighty have fallen), but trouble soon surfaced when Rossco Holdings defaulted on loans. Not too long after, the hotel changed hands again and became University Inn.

Here's the Google Street View of the motel today.

UPDATE 12-29-2023: University Inn closed in 2022. ([defunct] added).