Detroit Riverside Hotel

Detroit Riverside Hotel
General information
Type	hotel, residential, high-rise
Architectural style	Modern
Location	2 Washington Blvd. Detroit, Michigan USA
Completed	1965
Height
Roof	75 m (246 ft)
Technical details
Floor count	25
Floor area	367 hotel rooms
Design and construction
Architect	King & Lewis

The Detroit Riverside Hotel, is a closed high-rise hotel in downtown Detroit, Michigan.

It is located across the street from Cobo Center and from 150 West Jefferson, as well as neighbouring Hotel Fort Shelby to the south. The building was constructed in 1965 to a height of 25 floors (75 metres, or 245 feet). It contains 367 rooms, and is used as a hotel, restaurant, and fitness center. Originally known as The Pontchartrain, King & Lewis designed the hotel in the modern architectural style with contemporary French interior employing angular bay windows in its design, which provides every room with views of the Detroit Riverfront.

History

The hotel was originally intended to have a twin tower, on the other side of the plot, but it was never built. George H.W. Bush stayed at the hotel during the 1980 Republican National Convention.

The hotel is built on the same exact site as Fort Pontchartrain (for which it was originally named), Detroit's first permanent European settlement, built in 1701, which later became known as Fort Detroit.

In 1985, the hotel was purchased by Crescent Hotel Group, a subsidiary of Lincoln Savings & Loan for $19.5 million. Lincoln S&L Chairman Charles Keating soon thereafter arranged to buy the hotel outright from the company and set up the Hotel Ponchartrain LP, controlled by Keating, his family, and executive contacts, to hold it. The sale was financed by a series of ethically questionable loans from Lincoln and its subsidiaries and totaled $38 million.^[1] This arrangement was later cited by Sen. Donald W. Riegle (D-MI) as his basis for considering Keating a constituent during his involvement in the Keating Five scandal.^[2]

It later operated as the Crowne Plaza Detroit Pontchartrain. In 2006, Shubh LLC purchased the hotel and in 2007, the building underwent a major renovation and became the Sheraton Detroit Riverside. Within a year, however, the hotel had its Sheraton branding taken away due to poor management and was renamed the Detroit Riverside Hotel. The hotel was eventually foreclosed on in 2009, and formally shuttered in August of that year. United Central Bank of Garland, Texas, subsequently acquired the bank after the bank that had originally foreclosed on the property, Mutual Bank, was deemed insolvent by the Illinois Department of Financial Professional Regulation’s division of banking.^[3]

Notes

1. ^ Cramer, James J., Messing, Brett, and Sugarman, Steven. The Forewarned Investor: Don't Get Fooled Again by Corporate Fraud. Franklin Lakes: Career Press, 2006.
2. ^ Berke, Richard L. (November 5, 1989). "Helping Constituents or Themselves?", The New York Times.
3. ^ John Gallagher (August 31, 2009). "Former Pontchartrain is shuttered again". Detroit Free Press. http://www.freep.com/article/20090831/BUSINESS06/90831036/1320/Former-Pontchartrain-is-shuttered-again. 

References and further reading

• Hill, Eric J. and John Gallagher (2002). AIA Detroit: The American Institute of Architects Guide to Detroit Architecture. Wayne State University Press. ISBN 0-8143-3120-3. 
• Meyer, Katherine Mattingly and Martin C.P. McElroy with Introduction by W. Hawkins Ferry, Hon A.I.A. (1980). Detroit Architecture A.I.A. Guide Revised Edition. Wayne State University Press. ISBN 0-8143-1651-4. 

External links

• Detroit Riverside Hotel at Emporis.com
• SkyscraperPage.com's profile of Detroit Riverside Hotel