FORT WAYNE, Ind. - An 84-year-old Fort Wayne hotel that's set empty for decades could be returned to life under a plan to transform part of it into a two-story ballroom and a roof-top bar.

Embassy Theatre Foundation officials said in December 2011 they would take a year to talk to donors, stakeholders and others about their plans for the Indiana Hotel.

Executive Director Kelly Updike tells the Journal Gazette the parties hope to have "something significant" to announce by late March.

The former hotel wraps in an L-shape around the Embassy Theatre, which expanded its stage into the old hotel in 1995.

Even with the loss of that space the seven-story hotel still has thousands of square feet of space, but the estimated cost of renovating the hotel is $10 million.