SAN JOSE — Hotel De Anza in downtown San Jose is open and operating again amid renovations taking place as it prepares for guests slated to attend a major Nvidia conference next month.

The 10-story lodging tower at 233 West Santa Clara St. closed its doors in May 2024. General Manager Amelia Hernandez said it reopened in December 2024.

Hotel De Anza, a 100-room, 10-story historic highrise at 233 West Santa Clara Street in downtown San Jose, as seen on Feb. 6, 2024. (George Avalos/Bay Area News Group)

A hotel staffer previously said the repair work during 2024 was focused on water damage that had occurred. Officials with the hotel are now working to complete one or more renovation endeavors, Hernandez said. She didn’t specify the nature of the work.

Hotels all over the South Bay, and in San Jose in particular, are preparing for an upcoming Nvidia conference focusing on the AI sector and other fields. The 2024 event brought throngs of visitors to downtown San Jose.

Side entrance of Hotel De Anza, a 10-story, 100-room historic highrise at 233 West Santa Clara Street in downtown San Jose, as seen on Feb. 6, 2024. (George Avalos/Bay Area News Group)

Earlier this month, work was underway in a large room next to the West Santa Clara Street entrance, according to a direct observation by this news organization.

The 100-room hotel is one of San Jose’s few Zig Zag Moderne, or Art Deco, buildings. Built in 1931, it was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1982.

The hotel faced demolition in the 1970s after it had become dilapidated. The San Jose Redevelopment Agency, which is now defunct, was able to rescue the building and arrange for its reconstruction. In 2015, the hotel was renovated.

Hotel De Anza, perched on a prominent spot at the corner of West Santa Clara Street and Notre Dame Avenue, was bought for roughly half of what it was previously worth in October 2024.

An ownership group headed up by Dhaval Panchal, a Northern California hotel owner, purchased the property for $11.5 million, a figure that was 54% below the hotel property’s value of $25.2 million in January 2024, as estimated by the Santa Clara County Assessor’s Office.

Panchal, the head of the group that is the new owner of Hotel De Anza, owns smaller hotels along the California coast, according to Alan Reay, president of Atlas Hospitality Group, which tracks the California lodging market.

The ownership group headed up by Panchal also obtained a combined total of $13 million in financing at the time of the purchase, county public documents show.

The loans consisted of $5.9 million in Small Business Administration-backed financing from CalPrivate Bank, $3.6 million from Mortgage Capital Development and $3.5 million from Lincoln Capital Management, according to property records.

The Hotel De Anza property was the collateral for all three loans.