For developer Tony Troppe and his new BLU-tique Hotel, the number one means a lot.

"We may not be the first (downtown hotel), but we are the one," Troppe said Tuesday, Jan. 7, as he gave a tour of the new spot that sits at 1 S. Main St., right in the heart of the city center.

The 71-room hotel in the nearly century-old, redeveloped United Building that Troppe and his partners own was unveiled Dec. 31, and the BLU-tique opened up to its first overnight guest just this week. The hotel's name is a reference to Troppe's nearby BLU Jazz+ club.

The eight-story hotel sits at what Troppe calls "Ground One," at Market and Main streets right in Akron's arts district, with the Akron Art Museum, restaurants, clubs and the John S. Knight Center only steps away.

Akron's other downtown hotel is the Courtyard by Marriott in the city's Northside area, which opened in 2016. The Akron City Center Hotel closed in 2017.

While a downtown hotel had been "a distant dream for over a decade," Troppe said, the $10 million project finally came together over the past few years. Troppe didn't want to bring in a chain and instead turned to the Riley Hotel Group in Medina as a development partner and to manage the property. Riley manages independent hotels in Key West, Fla., and Traverse City, Mich. It also manages the Kent State Hotel and Conference Center.

"We wanted it to be Akron-centric," said Troppe, who has worked on historic preservation projects, such as the Everett and Kaiser buildings.

"We can call our own shots here," he added.

Being independent means you get to call your own shots, but it also means you have to find a way to pay for it. Getting the financing for the project took some time, but the partners eventually secured a $1.6 million Ohio Historic Preservation Tax Credit and a $1.28 million loan from an affiliate of the Development Financing Authority of Summit County. The developers also worked with various lenders, such as Cleveland-based Village Capital Corp. and Cortland Bank, Troppe said.

The 1923 building, which originally housed the United Cigar Co., was renovated into offices in 2000. Pride One Construction in Medina worked as the contractor to turn it into the BLU-tique, and Invision of Atlanta worked on the interior design, which combines jazz music and art with a sleek, midcentury look.

The era — which Troppe deemed "the birth of cool" because it's when jazz icon Miles Davis debuted his "Kind of Blue" album in 1959 — is one of the developer's favorites.

The hotel houses five different room types, from kings to suites. About 11 to 18 workers currently staff the property, Troppe said.

The color blue, of course, dots the hotel and the lobby-level restaurant, which is called The One, another nod to Troppe's fondness for the numeral. The hotel includes an on-site kitchen that will operate room service and serve the restaurant, which will feature a mix of small and chef's plates with lot of healthful, plant-based options, Troppe said.

Work on an outdoor courtyard continued this week, and Troppe said he plans to have a turnaround off of Market Street to give guests good access to the hotel when Main Street construction moves in front of the site later this year.

While the arts district surrounding the hotel is a natural draw, the Ohio & Erie Canal Towpath Trail is close by as well and can serve as a gateway to the Cuyahoga Valley National Park. Troppe hopes to attract those visitors as well.

He's marketing the new venture with some of his national arts partners, such as DownBeat magazine in Chicago, and getting the word out through chambers of commerce, hospital systems and the University of Akron, he said. He'll focus on corporate clients, too.

"We've got some large-demand generators that are our initial go-to's," he said.

Troppe added he hopes the business community will see the spot — with its full-service kitchen and meeting rooms capable of holding 30 to 50 people — as a meeting place as well.

"We're interested in having business get done here," he said.

Troppe said he hopes that the BLU-tique is just in its first phase and that someday he'll be able to build an additional 85 rooms on vacant parcels that border the property.

"Take blight and turn it into light," he said.