This handsome, historic structure is located on Lafayette Street, directly across from the Hilton Capital Center, scheduled for opening this summer....
Renovations planned for Hotel King
Group to turn seven-story building into boutique hotel
By CHAD CALDER
Advocate business writer
Published: Apr 12, 2006
The investment group that bought the Hotel King downtown plans to work with a newly formed, locally based consulting firm to turn the seven-story building into a boutique hotel.
The group, which includes Buddy Leach and Cyntreniks Group, plans have the building at 200 Lafayette St. open next year, offering between 90 and 100 rooms, said Cyntreniks President John Schneider.
Schneider and Cyntreniks chairman Brace Godfrey offered a few details on their plans at the monthly meeting of the Downtown Development District on Tuesday. Godfrey and Schneider said they will be working with Nu Vieux, a hotel and real estate consulting firm formed by Gayle Carnahan, formerly with the Belle of Baton Rouge, and Francis Grayson, former general manager of the downtown Sheraton. Grayson and Carnahan formed the company a few months ago, and the Hotel King will be their first project.
The Hotel King was opened in the late 1920s. The seven-story building, which has 46,000 square feet of space, operated as an office building from 1973 until it closed in 2004.
Schneider said it’s not yet clear whether the Hotel King will be affiliated with a national chain or be run independently. He said it would feature a bar and a glass-enclosed rooftop terrace, but probably not a restaurant. That in part is because the company is considering bringing a high-end, nationally known restaurant to the nearby Lyceum Dean, which Cyntreniks Group also recently purchased from developer Bob Dean.
Schneider said that with 700 rooms to be open on the south end of downtown, Cyntreniks is looking at a restaurant. The other option for Lyceum Dean could be making it home to a bank or other financial institution.
Schneider said plans have also solidified for Dean Plaza at 327 North Blvd., the third building Cyntreniks bought from Dean last month, though it will continue as an office building because of its proximity to the courthouse and governmental building.
Cyntreniks bought the Kress/Welsh & Levy building from Dean in November, and plans on a mixed-use development that would include residential and office space, as well as a memorial to that building’s role in the civil rights movement.
Last edited by fla_tiger; Apr 19, 2006 at 7:03 PM.
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