CLEVELAND, Ohio - The former Cleveland Board of Education building, a historic beauty neglected for decades, is readying for her second act: as an upscale hotel in the heart of downtown.

The transformation is nearly complete: Cubicles and workspaces are being remade into modern guestrooms; slabs of marble are being restored on the walls; and the well-worn, two-story auditorium is in the midst of a conversion into an elegant gathering space for business meetings and weddings.

A 189-room Drury Plaza Hotel is scheduled to open in the 85-year-old building in mid-April, after a three-year, $52-million renovation that will likely wow the building's former school district employees (and plenty of others, too).

The Cleveland Board of Education building, under construction, in 1930. The building is being converted into a Drury Plaza Hotel, scheduled to open in April 2016. (Photo courtesy of Michael Schwartz Library, Cleveland State University)

But those oohs and ahhs will have to wait.

The six-story building, on East 6th Street between Public Auditorium and the Cleveland Public Library, is still a construction zone, with as many as 100 workers on any given day laying flooring, plastering ceilings, restoring murals.

"It's so big and stately and truly magnificent," said Krisandra Lippert, development project manager.

The building, completed in 1931 for the school district, is part of the city's original Group Plan, the grand early 20th-century downtown development that includes the Mall and seven public buildings that surround it.

The sandstone building, neoclassical in style, was designed by the architecture firm Walker and Weeks, who also designed Public Auditorium, the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland and Severance Hall.

It was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1975; $13 million in federal and state historic tax credits are helping to finance its restoration.

"It's an important civic building from the finest era of building construction in Cleveland," said Kathleen Crowther, president of the Cleveland Restoration Society, who is excited to see the restored property.

More information

The Drury Hotels website is currently accepting reservations for Cleveland's new Drury Plaza starting in late July (despite a target opening date of mid-April). The rate for a room with two queen beds is listed at $180.

"The district was struggling to maintain it," she said. "It's better for the building to have a new and different use if it is preserved for another 100 years."

The school district was occupying about half of the building when Drury Hotels bought it at auction in early 2013 for $4.5 million. The family-owned company, based in St. Louis, operates more than 130 hotels in 21 states. This will be the first in the Cleveland area, though a second is being considered for the Chagrin Highlands area near Harvard Road and I-271.

Historic renovations are a small but important part of Drury's business. The company also is in the midst of converting the former Federal Reserve building in Pittsburgh into a hotel.

In Cleveland, work is continuing at a rapid pace, to make sure the hotel is open well in advance of the Republican National Convention in mid-July.

The hotel's two-story lobby will be the building's showstopper, with marble columns, massive arched windows, bronze chandeliers and two Depression-era murals flanking the space, "The Progress of Education" and "The Branches of Education," by Cleveland artist Cora Holden.

(Interesting side note: The building's main entrance was originally on its west side, until East 4th Street was removed in 1988; since then, visitors have entered off of East 6th Street.)

Other interior spaces taking shape:

* The two-story auditorium is being converted into an elegant meeting space, with the original stenciled ceiling and wall murals by Cleveland artist Rolf Stoll. The auditorium stage will remain, and a small patio added for outdoor gatherings.

* The Board Room, where the board of education used to meet, also will be available as meeting space, with decorative marble columns and elaborate dentil molding.

* The library, with wraparound wood shelves and hand-painted linen on the walls, will be the hotel's 900-square foot Executive King Suite, with a bedroom, living room and large conference table for meetings.

The design style of the guestrooms is just now starting to take shape, with contemporary carpeting and wallpaper installed in some rooms. Large photos of the Cleveland landscape - the Rock Hall, Free Stamp and other iconic sights - decorate the walls.

Lippert said there will be 49 different room configurations in the hotel, including rooms with two queens, a single king, suites and more. Room rates start at about $180.

The hotel also will feature a swimming pool and fitness center in the basement; a large guest dining area for the hotel's complimentary breakfast and evening beverage and food service; and a small public bar and restaurant.

The building's most prominent architectural features are on the bottom three floors, where extra-wide hallways feature high, curved ceilings and elegant accents decorate the walls, including bronze display cases, a mail chute and two old-style telephone booths.

The company already replaced the building's massive copper roof. More than 300 original doors are in the process of restoration, and 1,500 pounds of brass hardware from the original windows are being cleaned and reinstalled.

Lippert, initially resigned to replacing the windows, was thrilled to discover they, too, could be restored.

"It's a magnificent building with a mighty stubborn streak," she said. "You just have to take it slow and gently."

Lippert and her crew are making plenty of unexpected discoveries in the old building, even with just one occupant over the years, including flooring installed atop flooring, hidden ceilings and lots of lead and asbestos.

The first full year of renovation was spent clearing out the building and remediating environmental hazards.

Now, with just over three months to go until opening, much of the fun, finishing work remains: restoring the decorative railing overlooking the lobby; touching up the historic murals; refitting dozens of slabs of marble that were removed to the basement for safe keeping.

Substantial landscaping work also needs to be done, including the addition of a patio overlooking the Mall.

"What a great back yard," said Lippert, overlooking the grassy park from a guestroom on the sixth floor. "We couldn't ask for a better back yard."

The building being renovated in the middle of that yard isn't too shabby either.