At a recent meeting, members of the executive committee of the St. Paul Convention & Visitors Bureau agreed that the time is right to look into the need for a new hotel--a move that should spawn a study on the subject. But the need is there: Downtown St. Paul hotels sometimes aren't big enough hotel or the rooms to accommodate the needs of visitors.
The last new hotel in downtown St. Paul was the 210-room Embassy Suites, which opened in 1983. Since that time, St. Paul's share of the region's hotel business has fallen sharply. One hotel after another has risen in downtown Minneapolis, along the I-494 corridor in Bloomington and throughout the suburbs.
Late last year, the Greater Minneapolis Convention & Visitors Association circulated a request for proposals to build a 1,200-room hotel near that city's Downtown convention center. Moreover, Bloomington is considering proposals for up to 2,100 new hotel rooms, mostly near the Mall of America.
St. Paul's convention bureau did an analysis that found that the city is losing millions of dollars in convention business either because it doesn't have a single hotel large enough to accommodate meeting-goers or a series of hotels close enough to its RiverCentre convention venue. Potentially adding to the need for a hotel is the city's bid to build a new ballpark for the Minnesota Twins that would be across the street from the Xcel Energy Center.
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