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Mobile Landing

Rendering of Mobile's future waterfront, including the cruise terminal, maritime center, and RSA Battle House Tower:

waterfront-masterplan.jpg

Aerial rendering of Mobile Landing:

mlaerial.jpg

Cruise terminal, completed September 2004...

3034arehcrppromenadeview.jpg

Maritime Center (museum/visitors' center/ferry terminal) [2009] ...

Night-Shot-Maritime-RSATower.jpg

For details see www.mobilelanding.com

Edited by ExpatBaman
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Proposed I-10 Suspension Bridge

This is an old rendering, with an obsolete depiction of the cruise terminal.

Waterfront-bridge-1.jpg

I hope that this thing gets moved further down the river -- it'd be a shame to drop it right on top of all the nice new developments on the waterfront.

Edited by ExpatBaman
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Crowning achievement

Sunday, February 20, 2005

By KATHY JUMPER

Mobile Register

The 28-story Riverview Plaza Hotel will get a $32 million facelift including a new, distinctive metal top to match its sister, the Battle House hotel and adjacent 35-story office tower, according to David Bronner, chief of the Retirement Systems of Alabama.

"From I-10 it will look like the Renaissance complex," Bronner said. "I want the Riverview to look the same as the big guy, only a little smaller."

RSA paid $11.8 million for the Riverview at 64 S. Water St. last July and has signed with Marriott Corp. to put its four-star Renaissance brand on both that hotel and the 250-room Battle House.

The Riverview renovations will begin in late March and should be done by late 2006, according to Ron Blount, RSA's project director for the hotel renovations. The Battle House is expected to open in March 2006.

RSA originally had planned to invest almost $19 million to renovate the 377-room Riverview, but the project now includes a major redo of the exterior including a metal top, or crown, and a new, canopied main entrance or motor court on Royal Street. The glass exterior of the building will be recaulked to prevent water leaks.

RSA also plans to gut every guest room and bath.

"We didn't want people to say they stayed at the Battle House, even though it was more expensive, because (the Riverview) was a dump," Bronner said. "We want it to be a nice, presentable, classy place. If I'm going to do it, I'm going to do it right."

The total budget for the Riverview project, including the purchase of the hotel, was $45 million, according to Bronner.

TAG Architects in Mobile was hired by RSA to design the new top for the Riverview. "The intent is to give the building a new image," said Robert Krchak, a partner at TAG. "We're trying to make it complimentary to the RSA tower without copying it."

TAG will also design the modernization of the elevators, which are more than 20 years old, according to Blount, and the new mechanical, electrical and plumbing systems. RSA plans to seek bids from contractors to build the motor court and renovate the guest rooms and public spaces such as the ballrooms, restaurant and bar, according to Blount. A second local architectural firm will be hired to design some of the interior work, he said.

"We're going to spend a tremen dous amount of money on the sleeping rooms," Blount said. "We're going to gut them, and we're going to make the bathrooms larger and put in all new energy efficient fixtures, new tile and new vanities. In the rooms we'll put in new carpet, furnishings, drapes and wall coverings."

The hotel will remain open while the work is being done, and the staff will try to minimize any effect it will have on guests, according to Jeff Mayers, general manager of the Riverview. "The last thing you want to do is create customer service issues. We want to take good care of our guests."

The interior renovations will include adding a concierge's floor to provide breakfast and other guest services, according to Mayers. There will also be an upscale president's suite and governor's suite. The outdoor plaza will be redone to make it more functional for events.

Mayers is employed by RSA-affiliate Point Clear Hotels & Resorts, which operates the hotel.

While the Riverview and the Battle House will both have Renaissance flags, the Battle House is expected to command higher room rates, in part because of amenities such as a spa and its larger rooms and baths, according to Bronner. "This allows both convention hotels to have two price breaks for the same product."

In the downtown business area, the daily lease rates are in the $80s to low $90s, according to the Mobile Bay Convention & Visitors Bureau.

The Riverview has always been dubbed a convention hotel by the hotel industry because it has a covered walkway across Water Street which connects it to the Arthur R. Outlaw Mobile Convention Center.

Renovating the Riverview and the addition of the Battle House Hotel will help bring more conventions to Mobile, said Kashi Misra, manager of the Radisson Admiral Semmes Hotel on Government Street.

"Now you like to come downtown, but in a few years, you're going to love to come downtown," Misra said. "We will have some quality goods."

Misra said the owners of the 170-room hotel budgeted $6 million for renovations that started in 2001 and will be complete this fall. The rooms, restaurant, lounge and public areas will have all been updated, he said.

The Radisson owners intend to build as many as 200 additional rooms in the future on land behind the hotel they plan to buy from Mobile County.

RSA will continue to study potential investment projects in Mobile, according to Bronner.

" I see a tremendous potential" in Mobile, Bronner said. "And I see a group, whether it's the city council or county commissioners, and a mayor, that understands that pieces to a puzzle come one at a time. When you put it together, you then have the ability to enhance that by getting other parties interested. When that happens, you have a successful program."

RSA also financed the $20 million Alabama Cruise Terminal at Mobile Landing, which is the current home port for Carnival Cruise Lines' Holiday. Alabama Real Estate Holdings, another RSA affiliate, owns and operates the terminal.

Bienville Square downtown is the next thing Bronner would like to see the city redo.

"If you can revitalize it, and especially if you get lucky and bring more (cruise) ships in, it could be as neat as New Orleans," he said. "The whole area would be dynamite."

[Roughly top center in the Mobile Landing aerial rendering, this hotel is the building at the left end of the pedestrian walkway that crosses over the highway near the river. The big white building on the river, to the right of the walkway, is the convention center.]

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Hey, that's pretty nice looking stuff. I've always thought Mobile deserved more recognition--not for its skyline so much as just for the fact that it's a nice place. I make it a point to stop there whenever I'm heading east or west on I-10. Any plans for some downtown housing a la Charlotte, Tampa, Jacksonville, Orlando, Fort Lauderdale, and so forth? Mobile could be the real engine in Alabama.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Any plans for some downtown housing a la Charlotte, Tampa, Jacksonville, Orlando, Fort Lauderdale, and so forth?

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

In addition to the waterfront condos (200 units) pictured above, below are a few downtown residential projects in the works or recently completed. There are some more that I don't have pictures of yet.

Old Dauphin St mattress factory conversion to 24 condos:

412dauphin_old.jpg

412Dauphin2.jpg

Small Dauphin St warehouse conversion to 5 condos:

TheWarehouse.jpg

thewarehouse2.jpg

Former Convent of Mercy, now St. Francis Place condos (completed):

753st_francis_st.jpg

753st_francis_st2.jpg

Edited by ExpatBaman
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  • 1 month later...

I love Mobile. I always noticed that there werent too many residential options downtown, or on the water, I am glad that this may be changing soon. It is a beautiful downtown, with excellent potential, I hope that it can get a good insurge of proffessionals with the addition of the RSA Tower. It is a city that has always interested me because it is smaller, but does have that big feel with alot of amenities, and it seems like its potential could explode into a city in the national spotlight at any second.

I dont see why Baldwin County isnt part of the metro any longer when it is so close....oh well I guess its all just numbers.

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  • 3 weeks later...

The downtown Mardis Gras Park project is moving ahead with the award of a bid for demolition of the 1950s county courthouse on the site. Demolition will begin in 2005, and the park may take up to five years to complete.

Mobile Register article:

http://www.al.com/news/mobileregister/inde...2990.xml&coll=3

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