May 22, 2003 - ST. LOUIS -- Pigeons still flew through the gutted lobby of the old Statler Hotel in St. Louis a few years. Today, reborn as the Renaissance Grand, this city's landmark hotel once again stands as the anchor for St. Louis' convention and tourist trade. 

For a visiting Detroiter, the most remarkable thing about the Renaissance Grand is the promise it holds for Detroit's own Book-Cadillac Hotel. Historic Hospitality Investments, the same Dallas-based company that remade the Renaissance Grand over the last couple of years at a cost of $265 million, is putting together a deal to do the same for the Book-Cadillac. 

Details remain to be worked out, but an announcement by Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick and George Jackson, head of the Detroit Economic Growth Corp., who is negotiating the deal, is expected to occur in the next few weeks. 

In St. Louis, the remade Renaissance Grand features 918 guest rooms and some of the most sumptuous ballrooms in the city. Room rates range from $129 to $229 with various discounts available. The hotel is a combination of the historic original structure and a tastefully designed addition that blends seamlessly into the old. 

A smaller companion hotel, the Lennox, now called Renaissance Suites, opened a year ago across the street. Between them, the hotels offer a bevy of dining options, from a Starbucks coffee shop to fine dining, 70,000 square feet of meeting space and a location steps way from this city's America's Center convention hall and blocks from the famed Gateway Arch. 

After opening in February, the Renaissance Grand has hosted several major meetings. So far, customers have been happy. 

Occupancy rates are not available, but business has been good and is building, said Traci Russell, director of marketing for the hotel. 

"It was absolutely phenomenal," Heather Wegge, director of conventions and meetings for the National Wood Flooring Association. Her group used the Renaissance Grand for its annual meeting in April and rented two-thirds of the rooms. 

The hotel was "the most gorgeous, well-serviced hotel that we have been in, in a long time," she said. "The service level was impeccable, everything to a T and every situation anticipated. It made us feel really special." 

Meanwhile, the restaurants and lobby bar have become popular with locals. 

"Many convention hotels are very functional, but they don't have the warmth and the feel that would make you come back with your family for a getaway weekend," Russell said. 

Local artists benefited, too. Historic Hospitality Investments spent $700,000 for artwork produced by 200 St. Louis-area artists for the Renaissance Grand. 

One reason to be optimistic about the Book-Cadillac is that the stories of the Renaissance Grand and the Book-Cadillac are so similar. 

Built in 1917, the former Statler Hotel's location on Washington Avenue made it the center of St. Louis' central business district, just as the Book-Cadillac's opening in 1924 on Washington Boulevard in Detroit made it an instant landmark. Each hotel saw its fortunes fade as residents and businesses fled to the suburbs. 

Today, both hotels are surrounded by other faded 1920s-era buildings with romantic facades but vacant and boarded up storefronts. Some of the older buildings nearby each hotel are being converted into loft housing. 

The Statler in St. Louis and the Book-Cadillac even spent about the same amount of time vacant and dark. The former Statler was closed and shuttered for 17 years before the renovation began in January 2002. The Book-Cadillac has been empty for 19 years. 

Like the derelict Book-Cadillac, the former Statler was in poor shape when Historic Hospitality Investments arrived. Much of its plaster walls and ceilings had been ruined by water damage. Many of the light fixtures were missing. The plumbing and electrical systems all needed to be replaced. 

But through exhaustive research into photo archives and other sources, the company was able to replicate key decor characteristics much as they existed in the hotel's best years. 

"We came here with video cameras and this whole structure had pretty much collapsed," Susanne Voeltz, a spokeswoman for Historic Hospitality Investments, said during a recent tour of the reborn hotel. "We still saw remnants clearly. The room was filled with rubble, but it was a jewel. You could see it." 

Voeltz won't discuss the Book-Cadillac project until all the financial details are final. But she noted that the company is about to open two more such projects in Houston and New Orleans, and has several more projects at various stages of planning, including the one in Detroit. 

Jackson, president of the Detroit Economic Growth Corp., a city public-private partnership that finances development deals, has been putting together a deal with the company to use a variety of tax credits, government loans, and other sources of money to pay for the $150-million remake. 

Historic Hospitality Investments is a subsidiary of Kimberly-Clark, the Dallas-based producer of consumer products including Kleenex and Huggies. The company uses the tax credits with a dual objective: to give back to older communities while helping its own bottom line. 

"It became a win-win program for K-C," Voeltz said. "It allowed us to go into communities, revitalize neighborhoods, create economic generators, while at the same time accomplishing something vis-a-vis the tax obligation" of the company. 

There's a final interesting similarity in the Renaissance Grand and the Book-Cadillac. Ellsworth Statler, the visionary builder who created the hotel in St. Louis, also built hotels in Buffalo, Cleveland, New York and Detroit. 

His former Statler Hotel on Detroit's Grand Circus Park stands vacant, but Jackson's staff at Detroit Economic Growth Corp. are also trying to find ways to save that. 

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