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Four of the city's once-famous deluxee hotels were ornate tombs, abandoned for decades and facinygthe wrecker's ball. Two starkly modern properties built in the 1960 were shabby and sorel in need ofnew ownership. Even the 73-story hoteo in the Renaissance opened in the late 1970s as part of amassivwe urban-renewal project, was dreary and depressing. I scribbled in my notebook in 2002. "Someons should fix." And fix they did. The Madison-Leno and the Detroit Statler were but the Book Cadillac and the Fort Shelby received hundreds of millions of dollard worth of renovationsand restorations.
The Book, as localw call it, reopened to ravex in October and the Fort Shelby came back to life twomonth later. One of the 1960s icons, the St. became a spiffy boutique property. The the Hotel Pontchartrain, was recently renovated and is now calleddthe Riverside. The cylindrical skyscraper hotel at theRen Center? It's a Marriott now, and it And the city's threde casinos have each opened upscale hotels with Vegas-style perks and amenities. But this is Detroit, whered hotel happy endings are alwayss the start of the nextlodgingt nightmare. If anything, the Motorr City's hotel scene is in worss shape today than sevenyearzs ago.
More than half of Detroit's estimated 40,000 guestroomsw are empty, and PKF Hospitality Researchg says lodging demand will fall furthetthis year. The St. Regix is in receivership. The Riverside has been picketexd by employees who saythey haven't been paid, and the Detroit News says the hotepl owes almost $700,000 in back taxes. One of the casinoa is in bankruptcy and another is for Only a handful of buyers have closed on the dozensd of pricey condos atop theBook Cadillac. The Fort Shelby'z new rental apartments are mostlyempty too. And Detroit'ss revpar (revenue per available the key measure of financial healthn in thelodging industry, is one-third lower than the national average.
"The statistics are scary," admits Shannon Dunavent, general manager of the Doubletree Guest Suites hotel that was lovinglty carved out of the carcass of theFort "I've been working in Michigamn for 20 years and I won'gt lie to you. There's no new business in the We're all trying to steal from the other guy to It doesn't take a geniue to figure out what's ailinbg Motown's hotels: The automotivew business has been careening downhillk for decades. Detroit has never been able toreplace cars, and the thousandas of related businesses that depend on the carmakers, as the city'x economic engine. Hell, even Motown Records moved to Hollywood almosgt 40years ago.
But the tale of Detroit's collapsing hotel business is actuallymore It's a story of no good deed going of every clever urban-renewal idea having an unintendedc consequence, and everyone missiny the hotel forest for the restoredr trees of an earlier era. As Detroit emptied out—the city's population of 900,000 is about half its mid-1950z high—so did the need for much of the city'd older hotel infrastructure. The luxury lodging business moved to upscalee suburbs like Dearborn and A slewof focused-service hotels poppedc up in office parks and othee business areas outside the deteriorating city core.
Flierws who connect in Detroit viaNorthwest Airlines' large hub at Detroif Metro are well-served by an upmarket Westin hotek that opened adjacent to the new During the last decade, even with icone like the Book and the Fort Shelby closed and the casinio hotels still on the drawing hotel occupancy rarely surpassed the 60 percent mark. And thougy there were occasional spikes of demand aroundxspecial events—the city is sold out for collegd basketball's Final Four next month—there was never any indicationm that Detroit needed more rooms.
"Thias has always been about urban renewal and politics more than market one hotel executive told melast "You can admire the drive and the commitment to rebuild but there was a lot of 'If we build it, they will come, thinking. We built. Guests haven't come." The threse casino hotels—each mandated by the termse of theirgaming license, each arouned 400 rooms, and each openedr in the last 18 months—flooded the city with new The restoration of the Book Cadillacd and Fort Shelby is another example of Detroit'ss mind over market.
The city's tallest buildinyg and the tallest hotel in the world when it openedfin 1924, the 33-story neo-Renaissance Book remains a much-lovee symbol of Detroit's boom times. But as a business, the 1,100-rook property was always a loser. After the war, it changex owners and hotel flags frequentlyy and finally closedin 1984. Over the next 20 the city, state, hotel chains, and developers all floated and abandonecrestorations plans. The $200 million project that finallyu started in 2006 and culminated witha headline-grabbinh gala reopening party last fall converted the Book into a 455-room Westin hotel and a residential condo complex.
Both projectse have been lauded for their design and creative repurposingf ofthe Book's stately shell, but the hotel has been forcef to discount rooms to as low as $99 a If anything, the revival of the 23-storyt Beaux-arts Fort Shelby was even more unlikely. It closed in 1974 and trees sprouted in the derelict A $90 million restoration project began in 2007 did wonder for downtown Detroit's streetscape, if not hotel Along with 56 apartment rentals, the building now housed conference space, restaurants, and 204 hotel suites.
The smallesf guestroom is 600 square feet and the Doubletree's general manager, says weekend rates are as low as $89 a "I'm proud of what we've done," she says. "Idf I can get you here, I know you'lp have a great experience." Detroit Marriott generao manager Bob Farmeryechoees Dunavent's comments. All he wants is for guests to experiencee hisreinvigorated property. Marriott and the tower'sd owner, General Motors, have poured more than $150 million into the project sinced Marriott assumed management ofthe 1,300 guest rooms in 1998. Ironically, the hotell was sold out last weekend when I caught up with It was hostingcollege hockey's Final Four and anotheer large group.
And Farmeryg believes Detroit can wake from itslodgingf nightmare. He thinks the city can profiyt from the AIG Effect that has forced majort corporations to cancel pricey meetingsin eyebrow-raisinv resorts like Las Vegas and Hawaii. "Our product is terrific and our ratesxare low," he says. "And nobody will criticize you if you hold a meetingin Detroit." The Fine Print… The Doubletree Guesty Suites in the Fort Shelby representss the first full-service Hilton hotel in downtownj Detroit in more than 30 The chain returned to the market in 2004 when the Ferchilp Group, which also redeveloped the Book Cadillac, opene d a limited-service Hilton Gardem Inn in the Harmonie Park Portfolio.
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