Commodore hotel sold after foreclosure saga

 The Commodore on the Beach, a once-famous mid-century hotel on Seawall Boulevard, has been sold after a long foreclosure process. This is the start of a new era for one of the island's most obvious empty buildings.

Good Bull Capital, an investment company based in The Woodlands, said Monday that it now owns the 92-room hotel that has been closed since the beginning of 2023. The company described the purchase as an important part of its plans to restore the old beachfront property. The sale price was not made public.

The new owners want to entirely change the building while keeping its traditional look. They want to add a tapas-style restaurant and several different types of bars. CEO Luke Cheatham said, "We are so excited to bring this historic icon back to life." The Commodore is the most important part of the Galveston seawall, and that's how we plan to treat it.

When it opened in 1966, the Druss family owned the hotel for almost 50 years. In 2017, a Houston-based business group bought it from them. The property changed hands again in 2021, this time between the Galveston Restaurant Group and entrepreneur Jerome Karam, whose company JMK5 Holdings took ownership of the land.

Plans to renovate the house that was previously owned fell through. The most recent work permit expired in January 2025. A sale to Good Bull that was supposed to happen in 2025 never occurred, and the property was still on the list of properties the court was set to foreclose on as recently as last month.

Good Bull said that it has chosen WC Construction and Powers Brown Architecture to lead the redevelopment now that the latest purchase is official. According to the company, they will work with the City of Galveston to make the hotel a top coastal attraction again.

People have long considered the Commodore to be both a nostalgic landmark and, more lately, an eyesore along the seawall because it has been closed for so long, and renovations have been put on hold.

Officials and investors have not said when the building will be finished or when it will reopen. Representatives for both Karam and Good Bull have been asked for more information.