Construction set to begin on AC Hotel Clayton

By: Gloria Lloyd – St. Louis Business Journal – September 15, 2022

Developers of a $50 million hotel in Clayton are approaching construction after being delayed by the pandemic.

One of the first hotels to be built in Clayton in more than 20 years, the 11-story, 207-room upscale AC Hotel will replace the former headquarters of the Clayton Police Department at 227 S. Central Ave. in downtown Clayton, next to a MetroLink station and parking garage.

The hotel is targeted to open in early 2024. A Residence Inn is finishing up construction at 8125 Forsyth Blvd. and will open first.

The development team backing the project consists of Concord Hospitality, Homebase Partners, Koplar Properties and Midas Construction. The same team previously built an AC Hotel catering to millennial travelers in the Central West End. It opened in December.

The Clayton hotel will focus on business and leisure travel with a rooftop bar and restaurant open to the public, according to a news release. The hotel will also have flexible meeting and event spaces with “spectacular views” of the St. Louis skyline, it said. The hotel will be part of the Marriott Bonvoy loyalty program.

The former police headquarters, which has been demolished, was empty since 2011, when the police agency moved it to its current location on South Brentwood Boulevard.

After HomeBase purchased the property from the city for $2.4 million, the AC Hotel was proposed in 2018 and with construction set to start construction in March 2020. But it was delayed when the pandemic shut down the hotel and travel industries, the developer said. The developer asked the city to restart construction in January.

“The AC Hotel concept for Clayton was always sound” due to the number of Fortune 500 companies located in the city, said Sam Koplar, president of Koplar Properties, in a statement. “The hotel will benefit from downtown Clayton’s walkability, its public and private businesses, many fine restaurants and Shaw Park. Its proximity to the Clayton Transit Center will make it an asset for the entire region.”

HomeBase Partners, based in Missouri and Montana, specializes in residential, Class A office, hotel and mixed-use projects in both states. Koplar Properties, based in the Central West End, is a family owned company most known for its developments in and around that neighborhood. They didn’t say how the Clayton project was financed.

First posted in Uncategorized | Thursday, September 3, 2022