In 1928, the year before the Great Depression, Clarence Scharbauer opened the Hotel Scharbauer at the corner of Loraine Street and Wall Street in downtown Midland. He was a rancher, entrepreneur, and businessman who knew little about operating hotels, but he knew Midland needed new accommodations for the growing numbers of people and businesses that were coming to town at the time. For years, the Hotel Scharbauer was a show place where people stayed, dined, and did business, whether they were visitors or Midlanders.
Then – 45 years later - in 1973, Clarence Scharbauer, Jr., (son of Clarence Scharbauer, and a man who continued the family legacy of serving on the Board of Directors and as Chairman of the First National Bank of Midland), agreed to sell the Hotel Scharbauer to the First National Bank so that the hotel could be demolished to make way for a new Midland Hilton, that opened in 1975 on the same corner downtown. The Midland Hilton, like the Hotel Scharbauer before it, was under-sized when it opened and was soon expanded to almost double its capacity with a second tower that was added to the south.
The vision and initiative of these two hotels drove growth and investment for Midland that is still paying enormous dividends as downtown continues to be our city’s greatest concentration of non-mineral property values in the community. Thanks to the Hotel Scharbauer, to the Midland Hilton, and to the Doubletree by Hilton – and to the far-sighted investors who put them in place – these properties have provided high-value accommodations, jobs, and property, sales, and room tax revenues over the last nearly 100 years. It is, however, time again for a new full-service, high-quality hotel to come to downtown Midland.
Soon, the Midland City Council will consider whether to invest in helping bring such a project to downtown for the benefit of the entire community. Using funds from the Midland Development Corporation - that are intended to stimulate local development - the Council can energize growth for the next 100 years that has already begun with the Bush Convention Center, Centennial Park, and other infrastructure now in place. A new downtown hotel will also accelerate the recently added Centennial Entertainment Overlay District and a Tax Increment Reinvestment Zone (TIRZ), both of which are downtown.
This is a remarkable opportunity to trigger more than $100,000,000 in new private investment beyond any public incentive that will serve the global energy center that Midland has become. We should all hope the Council says yes to growth.
Grant Billingsley has been active in Midland community development since moving to Midland in 1975. He became the first Manager of Economic Development for the Midland Chamber of Commerce, served as a charter member and the first President of the Board of Directors of the Midland Development Corporation, and now serves as Vice President on the Board of Directors of the Midland Downtown Park Conservancy