Gateway Arch Backers Buy Vacant St. Louis Hotel
Date Posted: September 24, 2024
Posted In: News, Organizations, Projects,
From St. Louis Post-Dispatch: The nonprofit dedicated to the preservation of the Gateway Arch grounds has announced it will buy the long-vacant Millennium Hotel on downtown’s riverfront. The group does not yet have a plan for the property, its leader said Thursday.
Gateway Arch Park Foundation Executive Director Ryan McClure said his organization has two goals for the site: have the property once again generate revenue for the region, and better connect the south end of the Arch grounds to downtown. The Millennium is one block away at 200 South Fourth Street.
“St. Louis as a community has a role in this development,” McClure said. “It’s such a critical location to be an economic engine.”
The 780-room Millennium Hotel, once the region’s largest, has been closed for a decade, and is one of four vacant downtown properties that civic and political leaders see as hamstringing progress. Its redevelopment could be a shot in the arm for the downtown economy, which has yet to fully recover from the pandemic and which is struggling to get a handle on lawlessness.
The pending sale follows the announcement by business lobby Greater St. Louis Inc. that its real estate investment fund would buy the Wainwright Building at North Seventh and Chestnut streets after the state of Missouri announced it would pull out. And the city plans to acquire the troubled Railway Exchange Building at Sixth and Olive streets to clear the way for a long-awaited redevelopment.
The deal for the Millennium also comes six months after city and economic development officials threatened to use eminent domain against the longtime owner, Singapore-based real estate corporation City Developments Limited, which had done little maintenance on the property, according to city records.
City Developments eventually decided to list the property for sale and, in its announcement, blamed the pandemic for not re-opening the hotel.
The Millennium, noted for its rotating restaurant on the top floor, opened in 1969 as Stouffer’s Riverfront and later carried the Clarion and Regal Riverfront names.