A 5-story hotel opens Tuesday in downtown Fresno. Why it took decades to happen

Fresno is finally getting its long-promised downtown hotel.

The aptly named, Courtyard by Marriott Fresno Downtown, officially opens to guests on Tuesday, with 144 rooms in five stories at the corner of M and Inyo streets. It sits on what had been an empty lot within site line of the Fresno Convention Center and the Saroyan Theatre and an easy walk to Chukchansi Park and the Brewery District.

The hotel, operated by Axis Hotel Group, Inc., features 94 king rooms, 42 double-queen rooms and eight suites, according to a press release announcing the opening. Amenities include a pool and fire pit, fitness center, guest laundry and an on-site bistro that is open to guests (and the public) 6 a.m. to 10 p.m. daily.

It also adds nearly 5,500 square feet of meeting and event space in Fresno’s urban core, with a 4,000-square-foot conference room, plus meeting and boardroom space. “Our commitment is the same across our portfolio,” Axis Hotel Group Regional Vice President, Nicholas Bains, said in the release. “High-quality hotels, a great guest experience, and the most comfortable stay in all of Fresno County ... We’re proud to be part of Downtown Fresno.”

The opening represents more than $30 million of investment in an area that hasn’t seen this kind of new-hotel construction since the 1980s, and follows the closure of the nearby Radisson hotel in 2022.

Downtown Fresno’s new hotel offering

The idea to put a hotel on this particular plot of land has been floating around since the late 1990s, at least.

A 10-story, 400-room hotel was first proposed as part of the Fresno Convention Center expansion in 1998. It would have included three restaurants and a full-sized health club, according to reporting in The Fresno Bee. Several years later, a 12-story development (or 14-story depending, on the source) was proposed, with a second-floor that would have connected directly to the convention center.

Neither project came to fruition and the city ended up with a $3 million corner lot that sat empty until 2017, when it was sold for $644,688 under a plan that would have a new hotel opened by 2020.

At the time, the hotel was one of nine planned or already under construction in Fresno and Clovis.

It was the only one downtown.

And it was plagued by delays.

The Courtyard by Marriott Fresno Downtown finally broke ground in 2022 under a revised timeline (thanks to the pandemic) and slimmed-down design. Other delays and redesigns followed.

“Infill was tough to work with. The underground PG&E lines were degraded somewhat, so we had to have a lot more work in developing this project than expected. That anticipation grew heavily, but the delays kept coming, and we’re finally here,” Bains told The Bee during a tour the hotel in June.

At the time, the hotel was been expected to open in August.

Axis Hotel Group currently operates six Marriott, Hampton Inn and Holiday Inn Express branded properties in Fresno and Clovis.