Coronado Hotel in downtown Phoenix to be demolished for new housing

Article originally posted on AZ Central on March 19, 2026

A nearly 100-year-old downtown Phoenix hotel that chronicled the transition of the area from residential to a commercial core and has fallen into disrepair is planned to be demolished.

Jonathon Vento, principal of True North Studio, the developer of the Pemberton, the Cambria hotel and other downtown Phoenix projects, is in escrow to buy the Coronado Hotel and an adjacent historic building, the former location of Matt’s Big Breakfast. The buildings are located on First and McKinley streets.

Vento developed the Herrera, a mixed-use residential and commercial building adjacent to the Coronado Hotel, and plans to use the Coronado site for a second phase of that project.

Vento’s projects around Roosevelt Row are noticeable because of their incorporation of art, like the Pemberton, with art installations throughout the grounds and the Cambria hotel with large-scale murals on the sides.

The last name Herrera in Spanish derives from the word “herrero,” meaning blacksmith or ironworker, so Vento said he wanted to incorporate iron artwork and finishes throughout the property. The front of the building and some of the sides feature murals painted by an artist who goes by Susanna.

The project features residential and what Vento calls a live/work space, where he envisions artists or small business owners will live and have a gallery or shop space that will be public-facing on the first floor. The first phase has taken about two years to develop, and Vento said he expects the second phase to take about the same time.

Vento said he spent the last year or so looking at the possibility of salvaging the Coronado building, but said it has serious issues that make it unsalvageable.

“The Coronado was built over phases, and structurally it is quite bad,” he said. “There are some definite environmental issues on the property that need to be addressed.”

The demolition application was submitted in late February, and the city requires a 60-day demolition stay on historic buildings.

The building has degraded in recent decades, and the house next door, also proposed for demolition, is covered in graffiti and litter. A strong smell of cigarette smoke wafts from the Coronado entrance and a piece of caution tape is wrapped around a front banister. Vento said the seller of the building is working with Phoenix to help relocate people who had been staying at the Coronado property.

“My whole thing about this neighborhood is I really want to make it a safe place,” Vento said. “Then we can curate it for fun and interesting things.”

Hotel developed as Phoenix grew for tourism

The project developed as a mirror to the growth of downtown Phoenix, Helana Ruter, historic preservation officer for Phoenix, said.

The first piece of the hotel was built in the late 1920s, Ruter said. The hotel piece was added to an existing single-family home, which has since been demolished. In the 1960s, another piece of the hotel was added, she said.

“It’s a reflection of the change of Evans-Churchill,” Ruter said of the building’s past and the name of the surrounding historic neighborhood. “It was residential but transitioned to more commercial as it got closer to Central. By the 60s, the whole area was becoming commercial.”

When the first hotel portion of the property was added, she said, other larger-scale hotel buildings, like the Hotel San Carlos or the Westward Ho, were beginning to open in Phoenix, signifying an era of tourism development in the city.

Ruter’s office does not assess the condition of the interior of buildings, she said, only the integrity of the historic value of the structure. Sometimes a building that is in poor structural shape can still have strong historical integrity because of the materials used or when it was built, she said.