Looks like someone wants to tear down the Regency hotel and build an upscale hotel at that location. The Regency is kind of a dump but it is in a great location and I believe it's the only hotel downtown. Hopefully they can work something out.

Commission recommends hotel TIF plan
http://www.columbiatribune.com/news/201 ... plan/?news

The Regency is kind of a dump, and it will be nice to see a decent hotel in it's place, but it sucks that the only half-way decent Thai place in Columbia has to go down with it. Now I can only get my fix at Bangkok Gardens, which is probably the worst Thai restaurant I've ever visited. We are really spoiled in stl by The King and I on South Grand.

"114-room hotel with three thousand square feet of meeting and office space, an indoor/outdoor rooftop lounge and a full-service dining restaurant by spring of 2013."

I'll be gone by the time this is really finished I guess. A rooftop bar would be cool looking down Broadway. There was some debate about a parking garage going up here and I see the article ignores that. One of the plans was to build the garage ACROSS Short Street, skybridge style.

Has this project moved forward at all? I seem to remember seeing the Regency still standing when I was in Columbia last fall.

I haven't been in Columbia since May, but I think demolition was mostly complete then.

Construction still hadn't started in June according to this Missourian article.
http://www.columbiamissourian.com/stori ... agreement/

I was in Columbia on Saturday. The former hotel is gone, and it appears that construction has either started or will start soon. The whole site is blocked off, so something is going on there.

Update: http://www.columbiatribune.com/news/201 ... own-hotel/