From the Hyatt Place website (stock photos of guest rooms, etc. look nice):
Hyatt Place, a new kind of Hyatt for today's relaxed lifestyle.
We are pleased to introduce Hyatt Place, a new kind of hotel that puts style, innovation and The Hyatt Touch® within everyone's reach. Our guests will enjoy a spacious guestroom with a 42" flat-panel HDTV, our signature Hyatt Grand Bed™, a plush Cozy Corner oversized sofa-sleeper that is separated from the sleeping area, and complimentary high-speed Wi-Fi internet access throughout the hotel.
Guests at Hyatt Place may purchase signature hot breakfast entrées along with Starbucks® specialty coffees or enjoy a free continental breakfast. Hyatt Place also offers a variety of freshly prepared, café quality items, including made-to-order entrées, sandwiches, soups, salads and pizza which guests can order 24 hours a day, seven days a week via a touch screen menu in the Guest Kitchen or from the Gallery Host.
Discover how perfectly a hotel can fit your lifestyle. Hyatt Place. It's so you™.
Sounds great. Now all they have to do is build it. Or they can sit on the plans for another year, change them again, and announce that the new project will be done in another 14 months.
Wow. That's good news. I'm glad something is finally going there. I had thought that area needed a small boutique-style hotel. Should be very interesting to see how it fits in with the results of the SLU RFP for the vacant corner and Mo. State Building. Could be a big year for Grand Center.
I think it will be exceptionally great for SLU and the theatre district for groups and visitors interested in the arts.
In addition, this hotel is located just steps away from the new univerity arena, central west end, theatres (both live and of course Moolah Cinema), museums, and several resutaurants now plus...
The retail portion could be occupied by two unidentified national restaurant chains already signed by Pyramid.
What those may be - very good for local theatre traffic too - and as well as the soup "nazi" kitcken itself - The Best Steakhouse (if you have never been here - go - it is great!) The restaurants at the Coronado, etc...
I really believe that this will be a turning point project for Grand Center. A big one at that. Further development with a 24 hour fixture as Hyatt will produce many heads turning in the direction of residential and restaurants/retail.
Could Grand Center really become a new "entertainment district" besides theatres, symphony and museums? I think it could - it has great qualities to become that - especially with the university next door and the yound population in the district.
Grand Center is moving forward (I've been working with some insiders, lately). Several important projects will get off the ground this year, and GC will soon reach that much-needed critical mass to maintain the momentum.
I just returned from Pittsburgh, and the Oakland neighborhood is what Midtown should strive to be. It's a university district about the same distance from downtown, and its main drag, Forbes Avenue, bustles with pedestrians day and night, and spills onto the side streets. The storefronts are filled with bars, restaurants, stores and basic services such as laundromats, banks and ethnic markets. It's a fully-functioning district that benefits from nearby Pitt and Carnegie-Mellon.
Grand Center has all the bones in place to thrive in the same way. Let's hope the Metropolitan jumpstarts something around here.
Here's a pic of Oakland taken from my visit to Pittsburgh several years ago...
I will throw out a different opinion. I think this is yet another mistake along with most of Grand Center's other major rehabs in recent years (the Woolworth and the Medina). In all three cases, GC has failed to build the residential base in both close proximity to the district and SLU nessisary to add the shops, resturants, and offices that are needed to make GC a true sucessful and attractive district. In each case GC has made a mistake in reusing a building. While I like the Medina reuse as an 'arts' building, this space should be all arts, no housing the Grand Center offices. The Woolworth, while a great build and a great locaiton for a resturant or, if the market does not support it yet, Grand Center's offices, will instead be used by the Big Brothers and Big Sisters, a good organization, but not what Grand Center needs to be adding. And finaly we come to the Metropolitan building, which should have been apartments as orginaly proposed in the TIF plans not a hotel. You need people living in the area, the consisten level of population, not a hotel that will be filled a few select times a year.
Grand Center is in dire need of a brand hotel. I think Hyatt Place will be a good fit because of its proximity to SLU, Harris-Stowe State University and the CWE.
Grand Center is a little underwhelming - although it has world class institutions, architecture and venues. But commercial development - especially a brand like Hyatt - is certainly going to be a catalyst for more development.
The reuse of the Metropolitan as a hotel doesn't bother me at all. Grand Center already has residential there - The Coronado, Lindell Place Towers, University Club Tower, Jesuit Building, SLU's on-campus dormitories, Continental Tower and Renaissance Place to the north. This is not to say that more residential shouldn't be built. In time I see lots of cool infills and mid-rises going up. However, Grand Center needs commercial/retail development that will draw pedestrian activity.
I had the fortune of seeing Midtown - the Grand Strip - between Lindell and Bell Ave. hopping with retail/commercial activity back in the day (70's & 80's). This was even when the Fox Theatre was dark and the only functioning theatre venue was Powell Hall. Despite this, the commercial/retail activity of this area was unbelieveable. There was an urban Mercantile bank on the corner where SLU's fountain rests, small office buildings, Woolworth and Walgreen's stayed packed, other little shops like barber shops, Sunrise Chinese and other chinese restaurants sat on Grand, beauty supply stores, a uniform store, Jack-in-the-box (which was Wendy's first), amongst others, kept this sliver of Grand Blvd. bustling. And keep in mind that the Continental Building was dark and rotting above Grand.
While the depopulation of the city did not help, what especially did not help was the departure of retail/commercial activity from this area. Theatres/the arts/music venues are going to garner only so much activity. One thing that Grand Center hasn't had in years is a viable hotel. Hotels usually help produce and support nearby restaurants. Restaurants and retail usually feed off one another.
It's good that Grand Center has emerged into an arts and entertainment district, despite poor management and empty visions in my opinion, but a major corridor like Grand Blvd. needs just as much commercial/retail activity as it does art/theatre/music venues. The hotel, I believe will be a linchpin in the revitalization of this area. I think this is a smart move by Pyramid.
Although, they have done a remarkable job in St. Louis City, it's time for Pyramid to diversify its portfolio with new construction. Perhaps they will build on one (or a few) of the lots in Midtown.
Arch City wrote: "While the depopulation of the city did not help, what especially did not help was the departure of retail/commercial activity from this area. Theatres/the arts/music venues are going to garner only so much activity."
Agreed, there is nothing to do or even buy around the Fox or Powell. I think some national restaurant tenants will help improve this area greatly.
If the Rep moves into Grand Center ..... then things will really pick up. We'd have two world class theaters on the same street - throw in the sheldon and Powelll .....
If I had the money, I'd pay to replace EVERY single marquee sign that is no longer there. And what is up with the Fox Theaters HUGE missing theater sign above the building? Is it too old to support a new marquee/rooftop sign? There's also on on the other side of the street. Why can't these be lit up again? I think another A/B sign, or Emerson? It could be our own little Times Square/Grand Center.
you're right, it was a lighted marquee sign, not a billboard. billboards were elsewhere in the district. I know a large chevrolet sign was above the bistro.
The century-old Metropolitan Building in Grand Center, formerly owned by Pyramid Cos., will be put up for sale at noon on Friday.
Pyramid Cos., led by John Steffen, bought the 100,000 square foot vacant building at 500 N. Grand in 2006 for $2 million. Pyramid planned a $30 million redevelopment of the building with a hotel and ground floor retail. The development company ceased operations in April with more than 3 million square feet of real estate in its portfolio in Missouri and Illinois.
Centrue Bank holds the first mortgage for $3.8 million on the building. The Business Bank was Pyramid's lender for Brownsfield tax credits in the amount of $1.1 million.
Pyramid's lenders began foreclosure proceedings on the Metropolitan Building in early May.
The building will be sold at noon in the lobby of the Civil Courts Building at 10 N. Tucker Blvd. downtown.
