Developer Plans Boutique Hotel in Downtown St. Louis
Date Posted: February 17, 2016
Posted In: Projects,
From St. Louis Post-Dispatch: A developer plans to redo the historic, longtime home of International Shoe Co. in downtown St. Louis as a 140-room boutique hotel.
Fe Equus Development, of Milwaukee, bought the building at 1501 Washington Avenue on Feb. 12 and is beginning on the $47 million project’s design. Tim Dixon, the company’s owner, said Tuesday that he hoped to open the hotel in August 2017.
Dixon said he and his investment partners planned an independent hotel on Washington Avenue.
“We don’t bring a brand,” he said. “We develop a brand within the city.”
Among other Fe Equus projects is the 100-room Iron Horse Hotel in an old warehouse in downtown Milwaukee. Dixon said his hotels were “food centric.” He said the St. Louis hotel, which he has yet to name, would offer food and drink on the main floor.
“We like to say we’re a great restaurant with rooms upstairs,” Dixon said.
Planned hotel features include a rooftop swimming pool and a top-floor ballroom. The hotel’s food, beverage and event space will “become the ambassador to our rooms,” he said.
Dixon said downtown’s strong residential market factored in his decision to put a hotel in the loft district. The 10-story Washington Avenue building, opened in about 1905, was home to International Shoe, where playwright Tennessee Williams’ father worked as a manager in the 1930s. The building has been vacant since a charter school moved out in 2014, officials said.