Art Deco building in downtown Phoenix - the Professional Building


I visited the Professional Building today for the first time since 1994, and it looks great. If you're a fan of Art Deco, it's worth a look. It's on the southeast corner of Central Avenue and Monroe, in Phoenix, Arizona. Its modern name is the Hilton Garden Inn Downtown.

Originally built in 1931 as a building for medical offices, and as the headquarters for Valley National Bank, this building has been sitting boarded up since the 1980s. There have been several attempts to restore it over the years, and all of them have failed to get this far. As of this writing, December 2015, the hotel is open, although they're still doing some finishing touches on it.

The exterior of the building is original, but the interior is mostly brand new. The reason for that is the the interior was completely gutted in 1994. And I mean there was just about nothing. I remember that the elevators were still there, but the interior was essentially blank. So the interior that you're seeing now is inspired by Art Deco Design, but it's not original.

There is an amazing feeling of time-traveling when you walk around in this building. Unlike a lot of old buildings that make you feel as if you were in a museum (and an old dusty one at that), this building looks like it was just built this year, and that this year is 1931.

I like what they did to my favorite building.


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