urbanSTL

St. Louis Texan wrote:tell you what, fix that building up and anyone on Earth would be glad to live there. thats a peace of history, look at the architechture. (is that how you spell architechure i'm so confused?)

architecture. glad that 150 iq is treating you well.

hey, i did not claim to have a high iq. i know i can't spell, look at almost all my other posts, but my being in the feild of architecture makes me beleive that i can spell at least that word.

My guess is that the library building is the last in the line right now. I mean the other projects completed, esp. the Arcade and St. Louis Centre would do alot to make that development alot more attractive. One must hope they have not taken more than they can chew.

I thought they were selling he Mercantile floor by floor for office space...am I outdated or what?



I had been under the impression it wasn't a historic structure, so no tax credits were there for redevelopment. The idea then was to sell out the floors and let the owners build out...

Anyone know where we are on this project? Has it been tied up by the TIF appeal or something? Nothing seems to be happening yet at this place.

Midtown's Metropolitan Building will be area's first Hyatt Place hotel

By Riddhi Trivedi-St. Clair

ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH

04/05/2007



The century-old Metropolitan Building in midtown St. Louis will be converted into a 126-room hotel, according to sources involved in the deal.



St. Louis-based Pyramid Cos. and Brentwood-based Equis Hospitality have entered into an agreement to build the area's first Hyatt Place hotel, said Mike Mullenix, chairman and chief executive of Equis.



The eight-story, 100,000-square-foot building at 500 North Grand Boulevard is part of the Grand Center arts and entertainment district. Until recently, the building had been scheduled to be converted into a 63-unit condominium complex.



It's unclear why the original plans were changed, and the fate of the condos is uncertain. However, a sign at the site promoting the units has been taken down. Advertisement



Calls to Pyramid owner John Steffen and other officials at the company were not returned Wednesday.



Construction probably will begin soon, Mullenix said, and the hotel is scheduled to open in 14 months.



Hyatt Place is a new hotel brand of the Chicago-based Hyatt Corp.



Conversion of the Metropolitan Building will cost about $15 million, Mullenix said. The first floor will include the hotel's lobby and retail space. The retail portion could be occupied by two unidentified national restaurant chains already signed by Pyramid.



The Grand Center district is a public-private partnership aimed at revitalizing a portion of the city that had lost some of its luster.



The Metropolitan Building, one of the more prominent buildings in the district, has been largely empty for years. The last of the building's tenants vacated the space about 1 1/2 years ago.



The building recently received $1.4 million in brownfield redevelopment credits from the Missouri Department of Economic Development. The program provides financial incentives to redevelop buildings that have been underutilized or abandoned, or have environmental-contamination issues.



The project also will receive $2.5 million in a local tax subsidy, which is part of a larger program to revitalize the Grand Center district. In addition, the project will receive state and federal historic-tax credits.



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