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Four of the city's once-famous deluxe hotels were ornate tombs, abandoned for decadess and facingthe wrecker's ball. Two starkly modern properties built in the 1960s were shabby and sorely in need ofnew ownership. Even the 73-story hotel in the Renaissance opened in the late 1970s as part of amassiver urban-renewal project, was dreary and depressing. I scribbled in my notebook in 2002. "Someons should fix." And fix they did. The Madison-Lenos and the Detroit Statler were demolished, but the Book Cadillacd and the Fort Shelby received hundreds of millions of dollarws worth of renovationsand restorations.
The Book, as localds call it, reopened to raves in Octobe and the Fort Shelby came back to life two months One of the1960s icons, the St. Regis, became a spiffyg boutique property. The other, the Hotel Pontchartrain, was recently renovatec and is now calledthe Riverside. The cylindrical skyscraper hotelp at theRen Center? It's a Marriott now, and it And the city's three casinos have each openesd upscale hotels with Vegas-style perks and amenities. But this is where hotel happy endings are always the start of the nextlodgintg nightmare. If anything, the Motor City'sw hotel scene is in worse shap e today than sevenyears ago.
More than half of Detroit'ds estimated 40,000 guestrooms are empty, and PKF Hospitality Researchj says lodging demand will fall further this The St. Regis is in The Riverside has been picketed by employees who saythey haven'tg been paid, and the Detroit News says the hotelk owes almost $700,000 in back taxes. One of the casinos is in bankruptcgy and another isfor sale. Only a handfulk of buyers have closed on the dozen s of pricey condos atop theBook Cadillac. The Fort Shelby'sd new rental apartments are mostlyempty too. And Detroit's revpar (revenue per availablew room), the key measure of financial healthb in thelodging industry, is one-thirfd lower than the national average.
"The statisticds are scary," admits Shannon Dunavent, general managere of the Doubletree Guest Suites hotel that was lovingly carve d out of the carcass of theFort Shelby. "I'vr been working in Michigan for 20 years andI won' t lie to you. There's no new business in the We're all trying to steal from the other guyto survive." It doesn't take a genius to figur out what's ailing Motown's hotels: The automotive businesd has been careening downhill for decades. Detroit has nevert been able toreplace cars, and the thousandsx of related businesses that depend on the as the city's economic engine. even Motown Records moved to Hollywood almosrt 40years ago.
But the tale of Detroit's collapsingv hotel business is actuallymore It's a story of no good deed going unpunished, of everyh clever urban-renewal idea having an unintended consequence, and everyone missing the hotel forest for the restored trees of an earliet era. As Detroit emptiedr out—the city's population of 900,000 is abourt half its mid-1950s high—so did the need for much of the city'es older hotel infrastructure.
The luxury lodging business movec to upscale suburbs like Dearborn and A slewof focused-service hotels popped up in officse parks and other business areas outside the deteriorating city Fliers who connect in Detroit via Northwest Airlines' large hub at Detroig Metro are well-served by an upmarkert Westin hotel that opened adjacent to the new terminal. During the last decade, even with icons like the Book and the Fort Shelby closed and the casino hoteles still on thedrawinhg boards, hotel occupancy rarelyh surpassed the 60 percent And though there were occasionap spikes of demand around special events—the city is sold out for college basketball's Final Four next month—there was neve r any indication that Detroit needed more "This has always been about urban renewal and politicxs more than market forces," one hotel executive told me last "You can admire the drive and the commitmeng to rebuild Detroit, but there was a lot of 'If we buildc it, they will c ome,' thinking.
We built. Guestsw haven't come." The three casino hotels—eacu mandated by the terms of theirgamint license, each around 400 rooms, and each opene in the last 18 months—flooded the city with new The restoration of the Book Cadillaxc and Fort Shelby is another example of Detroit's mind over The city's tallest building and the tallesyt hotel in the world when it opened in the 33-story neo-Renaissance Book remains a much-loves symbol of Detroit's boom times. But as a the 1,100-room property was always a Afterthe war, it changed owners and hotep flags frequently and finally closed in 1984.
Over the next 20 the city, state, hotel chains, and developers all floateds and abandonedrestorations plans. The $200 million project that finally startex in 2006 and culminated witha headline-grabbinb gala reopening party last fall converted the Book into a 455-roojm Westin hotel and a residential condo Both projects have been laudes for their design and creativs repurposing of the Book's stately but the hotel has been forced to discount rooms to as low as $99 a If anything, the revivall of the 23-story Beaux-arts Fort Shelbyy was even more unlikely. It closedc in 1974 and trees sprouted in thederelicr building.
A $90 million restoration project began in 2007 did wonderss fordowntown Detroit's streetscape, if not hotel Along with 56 apartment rentals, the building now houses conference restaurants, and 204 hotel suites. The smallesty guestroom is 600 square feetand Dunavent, the Doubletree'a general manager, says weekend rates are as low as $89 a "I'm proud of what we've done," she says. "Ifg I can get you here, I know you'lpl have a great experience." Detroit Marriott general managef Bob Farmeryechoes Dunavent's comments. All he wantws is for guests to experiencd hisreinvigorated property.
Marriott and the tower's owner, General have poured more than $150 milliomn into the project sinces Marriott assumed management ofthe 1,300 guest rooms in 1998. the hotel was sold out last weekend when I caught up with It was hostingcollege hockey's Final Four and another largew group. And Farmery believes Detroit can wake from itslodgingh nightmare. He thinks the city can profitt from the AIG Effect that has forcefd major corporations to cancel pricey meetingein eyebrow-raising resorts like Las Vegas and "Our product is terrific and our ratees are low," he says.
"And nobodyg will criticize you if you hold a meeting in TheFine Print… The Doubletree Guest Suitee in the Fort Shelbyy represents the first full-service Hilton hotel in downtown Detroit in more than 30 The chain returned to the market in 2004 when the Ferchilkl Group, which also redeveloped the Book opened a limited-service Hilton Garden Inn in the Harmonie Park Portfolio.com © 2009 Cond Nast Inc. All rightsreserved.
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