urbanSTL

Wow thats quite an extensive list! Thanks Deb.

I know that this post is quite old but I just thought that it was worth mentioning that The Shell Building has their sign back up and working again. It is really cool to see the green flashing lights as you drive East down Locust Street and you can also see it over the buildings if you are sitting at the Clark and Tucker light, heading North.

http://theshellbuilding.com

I think the re-emergence of the Shell building would make for a good building to house the many upcoming tech companies growing downtown. Right now the building is not in good enough shape to draw interest unless the landlord/developer will work with one of the larger companies beginning to look downtown for their next home.

I'd like to see this building go residential. The Jefferson Arms or Butler Brothers would move the needle more in terms of units and residents, but the iconic beauty of the Shell and Chemical buildings puts them at the top of my list for hopeful conversion to multi-family.

Downtown building under contract, developer plans new hotel

New project means 7 downtown hotels are now planned
Rock Capital Group, an alternative asset investment firm from Little Rock, Arkansas, has the Shell Building in downtown St. Louis under contract. Rock Capital CEO Blake Smith said the firm plans a new hotel that “will break the mold,” as part of an overall redevelopment that could cost between $20 million and $40 million.

read more
https://www.bizjournals.com/stlouis/new ... j=78508861

moorlander wrote: ↑

Jul 06, 2017

New project means 7 downtown hotels are now planned

I'm guessing this fact will easily mean the death of the Majestic and City Center hotels, and puts a nail in the coffin of any hope for the Millennium. Probably 1-2 others, but which ones?

I imagine all seven hotels under construction are getting generous tax breaks and public financing?

The Majestic was just bought last July, and renovations were planned. I take it those haven't started yet? That'd be a shame if they didn't move forward.

^ I could be wrong, but I don't recall the new owners of the Majestic announcing plans for any major renovations... anyway it's open and I'm not sure there's any reason to suspect it will fare poorly as others open.

As for the City Center Hotel, which bprop mentioned, I believe it and it's sister hotel, City Place Hotel (former Crowne Plaza), offer lower price points and while not particularly great places to stay that differentiates them from the boutiques which will be coming online.

Anyway, I wouldn't count on all seven proposals moving forward but even if they do I think the cumulative room count would still only be around 1,000 new rooms so it wouldn't be a huge flood of new rooms to market.... I think Millennium alone had 700 before its downturn. On the other hand, Downtown can't rely on tourism and the addition of a relatively small amount of low-paying service jobs to keep it going.... it's just not sustainable and stakeholders will need to figure out how to be more competitive on adding many more residents and higher-paying jobs.

Here's the article from shortly after the purchase of The Majestic by Hawkeye Hotels. I was told anecdotally by hotel management renovations would happen (this was our wedding hotel last fall), but they're also mentioned in this article.

http://www.stltoday.com/business/column ... ccfa8.html

“This acquisition is a win for our company and for the city of St. Louis,” Hawkeye's president, Ravi Patel, said in a statement. “We’re taking great care to restore and update a hotel that has been around for over a century."

The refurbished hotel will have a 24-hour business center, high-speed Internet access, a fitness room and 1,800 square feet of meeting room space in addition to other standard amenities.

Patel wrote in an email that "a full restoration" of the hotel will begin in six to nine months and take six months to complete. No decision had been made whether to close the hotel during the renovation, he wrote.

When a hotel is "de-branded" it causes all sorts of ripple effects. It loses name recognition. It doesn't benefit from being part of a rewards program (Omni Select Guest is fairly popular for a boutique chain). Most importantly, it tends to stop showing up in corporate booking engines. Over the years it was used extensively by AT&T; obviously that's plummeted in the past 10 years. Let's be honest - Omni didn't let go of a property that had stellar performance to begin with. Hints of maintenance problems are starting to show up on TripAdvisor reviews. The arrival of up to seven new subsidized hotels isn't going to help.

STLrainbow wrote: ↑

Jul 07, 2017

I think Millennium alone had 700 before its downturn. On the other hand, Downtown can't rely on tourism and the addition of a relatively small amount of low-paying service jobs to keep it going.... it's just not sustainable and stakeholders will need to figure out how to be more competitive on adding many more residents and higher-paying jobs.

Residential conversion of the Millennium would be the best thing, if and when the developer sells it. Those would be easy apartments/condos to fill in my opinion (and I'd be one of the first in line). You have world class views of the city and riverfront. Someone on here had said recently that the owner was waiting for the Arch grounds renovations to be completed to put it on the market. I guess I'll believe it when I see it.

City Center hotel seems to do fine after losing the Sheraton branding at least from what my in-laws tell me who own a condo in the building. Parking lot is constantly full when we visit them. I think there is demand for more rooms. Room rates have ticked up just a bit even in the past few years per Downtown STL's report

bprop wrote: ↑

Jul 07, 2017

When a hotel is "de-branded" it causes all sorts of ripple effects. It loses name recognition. It doesn't benefit from being part of a rewards program (Omni Select Guest is fairly popular for a boutique chain). Most importantly, it tends to stop showing up in corporate booking engines. Over the years it was used extensively by AT&T; obviously that's plummeted in the past 10 years. Let's be honest - Omni didn't let go of a property that had stellar performance to begin with. Hints of maintenance problems are starting to show up on TripAdvisor reviews. The arrival of up to seven new subsidized hotels isn't going to help.

This is all true, and I can speak from first hand experience that the Majestic needs work.

With that said, this wasn't a case of a hotel just losing it's flag. Omni owned the hotel and sold it to Hawkeye Hotels, who bought it with the intention of renovating it and re-marketing it to find a new flag. So I think there is more reason for optimism with this one.

With that said, yes, the market is becoming saturated, and I'm not sure if the scheduled work ever began. So who knows.

jstriebel wrote: ↑

Jul 07, 2017

bprop wrote: ↑

Jul 07, 2017

When a hotel is "de-branded" it causes all sorts of ripple effects. It loses name recognition. It doesn't benefit from being part of a rewards program (Omni Select Guest is fairly popular for a boutique chain). Most importantly, it tends to stop showing up in corporate booking engines. Over the years it was used extensively by AT&T; obviously that's plummeted in the past 10 years. Let's be honest - Omni didn't let go of a property that had stellar performance to begin with. Hints of maintenance problems are starting to show up on TripAdvisor reviews. The arrival of up to seven new subsidized hotels isn't going to help.

This is all true, and I can speak from first hand experience that the Majestic needs work.

With that said, this wasn't a case of a hotel just losing it's flag. Omni owned the hotel and sold it to Hawkeye Hotels, who bought it with the intention of renovating it and re-marketing it to find a new flag. So I think there is more reason for optimism with this one.

With that said, yes, the market is becoming saturated, and I'm not sure if the scheduled work ever began. So who knows.

It doesn't sound like the market is saturated currently. We might be saturated with proposals but that's a great problem to have and shows just how bullish hoteliers are on downtown St. Louis.

If their were 7 hotel proposals in any other St. Louis neighborhood we'd be claiming the market was BOOMING!

^^
I'm scratching my head on all the hotels proposals. Would make a lot more sense to me if their was some kind of CVC conventions upgrades going forward in place/agreed upon. Downtown is slowly losing some convention business and a major driver of hotel room bookings or is that perception incorrect?

LHM will drive some more tourism/attractions with Union Station aquarium and Ferris wheel but that will be limited. At some point, I can see an private indoor water park coming to the landing/downtown as part of some other hotel proposal. But those attractions will drive only a moderate tourism bump to downtown.

The only other thoughts I can think of is the NGA commitment for north side where downtown hotels is logical choice and or some behind scene progress for privately funded downtown MLS stadium to be announced this fall..

More info on the Shell project:

http://www.stltoday.com/business/local/ ... 2c457.html

dredger wrote: ↑

Jul 07, 2017

^^
I'm scratching my head on all the hotels proposals. Would make a lot more sense to me if their was some kind of CVC conventions upgrades going forward in place/agreed upon. Downtown is slowly losing some convention business and a major driver of hotel room bookings or is that perception incorrect?

LHM will drive some more tourism/attractions with Union Station aquarium and Ferris wheel but that will be limited. At some point, I can see an private indoor water park coming to the landing/downtown as part of some other hotel proposal. But those attractions will drive only a moderate tourism bump to downtown.

The only other thoughts I can think of is the NGA commitment for north side where downtown hotels is logical choice and or some behind scene progress for privately funded downtown MLS stadium to be announced this fall..

It really makes sense. A very large and outdated hotel, the Millennium, closed and took a huge number of rooms off the market. There is also a national shift in preference to smaller boutique hotels. So these 7 proposals are looking to make up for the loss of hotel rooms and the change in 2017 american hotel trends. I think we should be thrilled if 4 of these 7 become reality.

framer wrote: ↑

Jul 07, 2017

More info on the Shell project:

http://www.stltoday.com/business/local/ ... 2c457.html

Interesting building history and how this was the HQ for the Wood River refinery operations.

dredger wrote: ↑

Jul 07, 2017

^^
I'm scratching my head on all the hotels proposals. Would make a lot more sense to me if their was some kind of CVC conventions upgrades going forward in place/agreed upon. Downtown is slowly losing some convention business and a major driver of hotel room bookings or is that perception incorrect?

LHM will drive some more tourism/attractions with Union Station aquarium and Ferris wheel but that will be limited. At some point, I can see an private indoor water park coming to the landing/downtown as part of some other hotel proposal. But those attractions will drive only a moderate tourism bump to downtown.

The only other thoughts I can think of is the NGA commitment for north side where downtown hotels is logical choice and or some behind scene progress for privately funded downtown MLS stadium to be announced this fall..

Per Explore St. Louis, hotel occupancy increased in 2016 (city/county combined) to 68% from 66.4%. Based on the bookings it appears they are filling in a lot of slots at the convention center they had to leave open in the fall due to the Rams schedule. These are some I see that would have probably conflicted with the schedule thus potentially losing that booking.

Association of Computing Machinery
November 2021, 2025 - 56,800 room nights

Sweet Adelines International
October 2021 - 10,020 room nights

Learning Forward
December 2019 - 8,395 room nights

Competitor Group, St. Louis Rock ‘n’ Roll Marathon & 1/2 Marathon
October 2016 - 6,980 room nights

American Anthropological Association
November 2020 - 6,595 room nights

American Association of School Librarians
October 2025 - 5,650 room nights

Scott Gallagher Soccer Club, Girls Fall Classic
November 2016 - 5,232 room nights

National Society of Histotechnology
September 2018 4,545 room nights[/list]

All of those events are during the NFL season so no way they could have booked any of those except maybe the Scott Gallagher one as it was same year. They did 273 bookings in 2016 compared to 234 in 2015. So it's definitely true that hotel business will in higher demand in the next 5+ years

moorlander wrote: ↑

Jul 07, 2017

dredger wrote: ↑

Jul 07, 2017

^^
I'm scratching my head on all the hotels proposals. Would make a lot more sense to me if their was some kind of CVC conventions upgrades going forward in place/agreed upon. Downtown is slowly losing some convention business and a major driver of hotel room bookings or is that perception incorrect?

LHM will drive some more tourism/attractions with Union Station aquarium and Ferris wheel but that will be limited. At some point, I can see an private indoor water park coming to the landing/downtown as part of some other hotel proposal. But those attractions will drive only a moderate tourism bump to downtown.

The only other thoughts I can think of is the NGA commitment for north side where downtown hotels is logical choice and or some behind scene progress for privately funded downtown MLS stadium to be announced this fall..

It really makes sense. A very large and outdated hotel, the Millennium, closed and took a huge number of rooms off the market. There is also a national shift in preference to smaller boutique hotels. So these 7 proposals are looking to make up for the loss of hotel rooms and the change in 2017 american hotel trends. I think we should be thrilled if 4 of these 7 become reality.

Have to agree, 4 of the 7 getting off the ground would be a pretty good outcome.

Who knows on what hotel proposal succeeds or not but having the block with Jeff Arm proposal, McGowan garage work and now Shell building if it all comes together as stated would be a big step forward. More residential, two hotels, meeting space and more commercial/retail including a Turkish furniture store (didn't see that coming but then again the developer says it all)

moorlander wrote: ↑

Jul 07, 2017

It doesn't sound like the market is saturated currently. We might be saturated with proposals but that's a great problem to have and shows just how bullish hoteliers are on downtown St. Louis.

Deny one of them tax breaks, credits, and subsidy and see how bullish they remain. I'd be bullish too if I could get half of my outlay paid for upfront.

bprop wrote:

moorlander wrote: ↑

Jul 07, 2017

It doesn't sound like the market is saturated currently. We might be saturated with proposals but that's a great problem to have and shows just how bullish hoteliers are on downtown St. Louis.

Deny one of them tax breaks, credits, and subsidy and see how bullish they remain. I'd be bullish too if I could get half of my outlay paid for upfront.

Gosh I would be too! Which hotel project received half their outlay paid upfront?