2016 Economic Impact Awards Entrepreneurs of the Year: John and Billy McQueary

Billy and John McQueary made a unique splash on the Queen City lodging industry last year.

In July, the brothers’ $13.5 million downtown Springfield Hotel Vandivort opened for business at a 110-year-old building that once housed a masonic temple.

Now, the McQuearys are using the hotel, with its 50 rooms, 14 suites, three meeting spaces and The Order restaurant, to capitalize on a hole in the Springfield-area lodging market.

“I feel like we’re in a process of rediscovering our identity. People crave culture here,” John says. “After 20 or 30 years of suburban sprawl, seeing the same strip centers with the same stores, it falls to downtown to be the real identity of the city. We wanted to do something different.”

With a mix of clientele primarily composed of young professionals and 40- and 50-year-old businesspeople, Hotel Vandivort hit 50 percent occupancy within a few months of opening. Declining to disclose current occupancy rates, Billy says it has increased ever since. The city’s average hotel occupancy rate was 65.6 percent in May, according to the Springfield Convention & Visitors Bureau’s July newsletter.

The brothers view the hotel as part of what they call downtown’s second renaissance involving the likes of the Heer’s building and The Vecino Group’s Park Central East.

“It’s one more piece to the puzzle to make downtown a destination,” Billy says. “The hotel is a big piece of bringing the money downtown that’s needed to track some larger tenants.”

Last year’s opening of the niche hotel continued the brothers’ professional relationship. They started working together in 2002, programming for the family’s McQueary Drug Co. Their work together continued via software development, but eventually they decided to make their mark on the development scene.

In 2012, the McQuearys closed on the purchase of the five-story Vandivort office building that had been listed by downtown property owner Scott Tillman for $1.5 million. A year later, construction work by general contractor Larry Snyder & Co. was underway.

In the two years that followed, the brothers secured a City Council-approved, 25-year tax abatement on property improvements for the 44,000-square-foot hotel, and brought on IDM Hospitality Management to run it.

“I think it’s had a positive impact on the economy as a whole,” Billy says, noting both residents and out-of-towners are known to visit. “We’re seeing a mix.”

The siblings say residents have flocked to Hotel Vandivort to have a seat and talk with friends in what they call the living room of downtown. There also were some unexpected quirks.

The hotel became a social media craze when people started taking advantage of the bathroom mirror’s lighting, known to mimic professional studio lighting and make people look their best. It even spawned a hashtag dubbed #HotelVandivortBathroomSelfie.

The hotel also has a partnership with comedian Jeff Houghton and The Mystery Hour. Celebrity guests on the TV show head to Hotel Vandivort for an after-show party and are invited to lodge.

“We wanted it to be something Springfield is proud of,” John says.