Parking

 The Multi Modal building at the corner of Walnut and Illinois took out a big chunk of parking the Hilton was using for its customers, making it that much harder for the hotel to attract customers.  No one renting a room at the Hilton is going to want to park in the Civic Center parking lot and walk across the busy three lane street to get to their hotel room. In today's society, people do not want to walk far from their car to where they are going.  Ideally, you are able to park your car in a location from where you can the the entrance of the facility to which you are going.

From what I hear, the owner of the Hilton has bought several of the lots adjacent to the hotel along Walnut Street with plans to raze them for parking but only one house has been pulled down and there are still For Sale signs on a couple of others.

Houses Demolished

 A second of the 3 old foursquare style houses in the 200 block of West Walnut is getting demolished this  week. From what I have heard, Hilton has purchased the row of buildings along that bstretcy of Walnut east of University and will demolish them to add additional parking for the hotel. The buildings housing Horstman's Cleaners, SI Pawn and SewALot are scheduled for demolition as well. Not sure about the Phoenix Cycle building though and removing it without doing some damage to PKs would prove difficult.

Parking Lot

 From what I have heard, Hilton has bought the property on the southeast corner of Walnut and University, planing to knock down the buildings there and expand parking. If true, this means Horstman's Cleaners, SI Pawn and Sew A Lot will have to find new locations. Also say good bye to the recently completed train mural on the side of the SI Pawn building.

Hilton Effect on Buinsess

A comment on yesterday's post has me wondering what effect the downtown Hilton has had on downtown business. Putting in the Hilton caused a couple of downtown businesses to move and converted a section of downtown parking to Hilton patron parking. Granted the lost city parking was seldom more than half filled, save on special occasions but the parking for the Hilton is usually half empty as well. The city says that eliminating paid parking had no increase on sales tax revenue, and hence sales, from the downtown area. Tax revenues generated by the Hilton are certainly larger per person, due to the hotel tax,  than are sales tax revenues from other businesses in downtown but by how much.

It would also be interesting to find out how visitors to the Hilton spend their time in Carbondale. Three reasons often cited for getting a hotel in downtown were for the convenience of parents visiting their children at SIUC , for the convenience of families with patients at Memorial Hospital and for visitors disembarking from the train, who would not need to call a cab or other transit service to get to a hotel.

Home 2 Hilton Suites Open

After about 2 years, the downtown Hilton finally held a soft open today. First guest are staying in rooms tonight. Not all of the rooms in the building are open to guests as there is still some finishing needed. Official grand opening will be announced later.

Hilton

The Hilton is slowly coming along. My guess is they will get it open sometime in late July or early August, about a year after the original projected date. Both it and Evolve will do a fine job of sticking out like sore thumbs among the much lower buildings that comprise the rest of the downtown area  From what I understand, under the new standards for downtown development, I gather neither building would be approved. However, given that the city really wants development in downtown, I would also bet that both projects would receive a waiver if they had asked for one. After all, both bring quite a few people to stay in the downtown area, Evolve for semesters at a time and the Hilton for several nights.

Downtown Hilton Opening Date

Heard over the weekend that the new downtown Hilton will miss its planned opening date of early to mid-August and will instead open its doors the week afterward the Great American Eclipse passes overhead

Eclipse Hotel Bookings

Sat in on the city's presentation/talk regarding preparations for the upcoming eclipse. On thing I find interesting is that no one has any real idea regarding how many people will show up for the event. I heard figures from 5000 to 50,000 to 100,000 tossed around. One figure I found interesting was that roughly 90% of the hotel rooms in town, excluding the new Hilton, are booked. Rooms are still available at the Holiday Inn, Days Inn and America's Best Inn. Normal occupancy rates in Carbondale during the summer are around 55% so, based on that, we should expect about a 40% bump in population during the 3 days of the eclipse festival.

Home 2 Suites By Hilton

Construction for the Home2 Hilton Suites building is moving along with the outer first floor walls up. Plans are to have it completed just in time for next year's eclipse. Going to be a tight schedule though with the eclipse taking place next August. Local hotels are almost completely booked with the very few remaining rooms asking prices of $500 per night with a 3 night minimum, meaning AirB&B will get lots of use next summer.

Hotel Construction Starts

Construction on the downtown Hilton Home2 Suites finally started this week with machines tearing up the parking lot and destruction of the two buildings remaining on the site scheduled for next month. Target date for the hotel's opening is July of next year, approximately a month before August's eclipse, which is projected to draw 20,000 to 50,000 people to the area.

Hilton Groundbreaking

Ground was broken for the new Hilton Home 2 Suites in downtown Carbondale today. When completed, the building will occupy the 200 block of West Elm, just south of PK's and stretching from Illinois Avenue to University Avenue. Members of the community have been anticipating a downtown hotel for over a decade so pretty great to see one actually coming to the area. If I might kvetch a bit though, downtown does have quite a bit of open space already, just waiting for someone to infill it with development. Instead, the developers are taking up a parking lot and pulling down two existing buildings to replace with the hotel.

Home to Hilton

The gourndbreaking for the new downtown hotel, Home to Hilton, is scheduled for next Friday, May 6th. Not sure what time though but guess I am wrong as I said they would get the new IHOP built before groundbreaking ever took place for the Hilton. Still not sure about the wisdom of building a brand new hotel targeted at those coming in to visit SIUC or Memorial Hospital next to what is widely known in Carbondale as a "dive bar". Hey, don't blame me for the name, that's how P.K.s classifies itself on Facebook.

IHOP

Looks as if work has started on the new International House of Pancakes out by University Mall. Would not be surprised to see the building substantially finished by the time ground gets broken on the downtown Hilton, though work is supposed to begin on it around May 1.

Downtown Hilton

It appears planning for the downtown Hilton still moves apace. From what I have heard, appropriate paperwork for various OKs has been filed at city hall regularly and they expect to break ground about May 1.

Downtown Hilton

Though nothing is certain until the ground is broken, dates I have heard indicate we should see construction start on the new downtown Hilton around the end of March or early April. Meanwhile, construction on the new parking lot across the street continues apace. Will certainly be interesting to see what happened when it opens, especially with the location next to PK's.

Intermodal Transport Hub Follow-up

An email I received indicates that the proposed plan for the graded area north of the Amtrak station is as a parking lot to replace the one lost when the new Hilton hotel gets built on the parking area just south of P. K.s. Later, when the city finds funding for the proposed intermodal complex, the parking area gets incorporated into it.

Downtown Hilton

According to Wednesday's Carbondale Times, plans are moving ahead slowly on the 85 room 4 to 5 story Hilton going in just south of PKs. The city sold the parking lot there to the developers for $75,000. No idea what this means for the habituates of PKs but hopefully the new owners will continue to use the space for parking until ground breaking for the facility actually takes place.

Hotel

Still wondering about the proposal to put what appears a lower end Hilton downtown next to PKs. Granted, it would be incredibly convenient for those arriving via Amtrak but the proposed area certainly does not appear large enough for both a modern hotel and parking for those who want to drive in from out of town.

Plus PKs and surrounding businesses lose convenient public parking which really fills up in the evening. Will the public be able to access the parking space for the hotel or will the hotel rely on the soon to be inconvenient parking in downtown?