Senior housing center to close at the historic Park Lane Hotel

The Old West End hotel was used by celebrities such as Cary Grant, Bob Hope, and Marilyn Monroe.

An independent-living senior citizen facility that operates out of the historic Park Lane Hotel in the Old West End will close its doors at the end of January, the center's operator said.

All the residents must move out by then, and the building will be closed at the start of February, said Mary Sweeny, executive director of Emeritus Assisted Living.

The company has operated the independent-living facility since 1997.

Once one of the hotels of choice for celebrities such as Eleanor Roosevelt, Cary Grant, Bob Hope, and Marilyn Monroe, who all stayed in the hotel when they visited Toledo, the historic Park Lane building is a stately red-brick building at the corner of Jefferson Avenue and 23rd Street.

The building, which has undergone many changes over the years - including times when it was vacant - is owned by Columbia Pacific Management Inc., a real-estate management company based in Seattle.

"This is the only building that we own in Toledo, and we have tried to make it work in a number of formats since we bought it," said Jason Book-Symons, an asset manager for Columbia Pacific.

However, he said, "Nothing has worked, and at this point, we have put the building on the market."

"We have not turned a profit on the building ever since we bought it, and so we recently decided to cut our losses, but we certainly hope someone else can make something out of it because it is a beautiful building," Mr. Book-Symons said.

He added that Emeritus Assisted Living is a third-party company that his management group contracted with to operate the independent-living senior center.

The historic hotel building houses 40 residents, and about 25 of them are senior citizens.

The rest of them are either students or clients of corporations that rent corporate apartments in the building, Mr. Book-Symons said.

The historic Park Lane hotel building has 91 apartments ranging from studios to one-bedroom and luxury apartments.