History of Days Inn Elyria Ohio

In the 1960s with a growing commercial district nearby to the Ohio Turnpike, I-80. Many commercial places were built including the Midway Mall, which began planning in 1964 and opened in 1966. The Holiday Inn (Later Days Inn) began construction in 1963. The hotel provided high volume, reliable lodging for visitors to nearby industrial and corporate entities, including Ford Motor Company, Invacare, the Nordson Corporation, and Parker Hannifin, as well as academic institutions like Oberlin College and Lorain County Community College. For over 50 years the on site restaurant inside the hotel, known as Mr. D's Restaurant and Pub, became a local landmark. It served as a staple dining establishment for both transient hotel guests and Elyria residents. The hotel itself had 148,303 sf of space, including the Regency Ballroom a event venue that held up to 350 reception guests. Other amenities included a Indoor heated pool, a outdoor pool, a fitness center, and as mention before Mr. D's Restaurant and Pub. In total the hotel featured 240 rooms. The hotel operated for decades as the Holiday Inn Hotel Elyria, frequently marketed as the Holiday Inn Cleveland-Elyria/Lorain. The hotel served as a premier venue for significant civic and corporate events into the 2000s hosting the South Elyria Neighborhood Development Corporation Annual Education Luncheon in 2007, which featured the attendance of the United States Treasurer. In 2010 Holiday Inn pulled out of the space, as the building became outdated and not up to standards the chain was known for, it was sold to ramada by wyndham to become a Days Inn. Between 2013 and 2016 the hotel was updated and modernized with flat screen TVs, updated carpeting, and improved HVAC. Due to the size of the building and its now budget tier status as a hotel it struggled with unsustainable rates at $64 to $89 per night. This caused the hotel to become a victim of crime, and lack of preventative maintenance. The decline of the commercial district surrounding the hotel also didn’t help, Midway Mall that had opened a year after the hotel was becoming and still is today a very dead mall. The final nail in the coffin for the Days Inn would come after Human Tracking claims came out of the hotel, leading to a lawsuit that was filled in May of 2020 and is still ongoing. This lawsuit lead the hotel to close in 2021. Today the city feels the hotel only path forward is demolition, however still stands in 2026, in its 5 years of abandonment the hotel has developed a serve case of black mold on the walls of the rooms and hallways.