Looks like Main Street Garden's watchful guardian, the Statler Hilton, may be back on track for a revival.
We love the place -- and featured it in our Shells of the City piece -- and are excited about recent reports (like this one in the DMN) about a joint venture with the City of Dallas to revitalize the empty icon. But Dallas Observer's Robert Wilonsky seems to think we should hold our horses a little bit; the owners of the building aren't as far along with feasibility studies as the City thinks.
In fact, this particular project has been a long time coming...and never really amounted to much more than a paper "facade" to hide the bare interior from new visitors to the Main Street Garden. The building is currently owned by overseas investors, who, at our last report, wanted to get the Statler off their books. They started planning for a rehab of the building back in the '90s, and now, decades later, may be on that track again.
"There has been a shift in responsibility over [the Statler] that has come with what we view as very positive conceptual ideas with what they would do," Dallas Mayor Tom Leppert told the DMN
Let's hope this venture doesn't delay in reviving the building-- but let's also make sure the citizens of Dallas don't own two hotels.
