"We have to make it so that the guests in the restaurants and hotel are compatible with the people watching boxing," Orens said. "We have to make sure that all blends together in a functional kind of way."
In early August, plans for converting the Blue Horizon, on the 1300 block of North Broad Street, into a hotel to cater to Temple students and their families were revealed. The hotel also would help meet new room demand resulting from the expanded Convention Center.
The 84-room hotel is being built with the aid of a $6 million state grant from the Corbett administration. Details on the restaurants, one of which will be a catering hall, are still being worked out.
Orens said Thursday that work on the 146-year-old property likely would start at the end of May, to meet the grant's timeline requirement.
"Construction will begin shortly. . . . We are talking to several different flagship hotels," he said. "It's still very difficult these days to get financing. You can't just walk to a corner bank and fill out an application. [But] I absolutely believe it will happen."
Leslie Lewis, who runs Mosaic Partners with Greg Reaves, said the developers were getting the proper approvals and zoning from the city for the hotel conversion.
"There are a lot of pieces still being put together," Lewis said. "We've garnered a lot of support."
That includes support from Vernoca Michael, the Blue Horizon's president and CEO, whose vision has been "to preserve the facility, and not tear it down." The venue hosted its last fight on June 4, 2010.
"We wanted to have it as a place for entertainment, restaurants, a museum for boxing, and of course, a hotel," Michael said earlier this week. "Mosaic was the one group that wanted to work with my vision."
The Blue Horizon occupies what once were three mansions, built in 1865 and combined by the Loyal Order of the Moose into one large lodge in 1912.
