BENTONVILLE — Creators of a boutique hotel intended to revitalize downtown areas and display modern art will team with the Walton family and a nonprofit organization to bring a $28 million hotel and art gallery to downtown Bentonville, the partners announced Tuesday.
The 130-room 21c Museum Hotel, scheduled to open in 2012, will be built on A Street north of the downtown Square and a few blocks south of the site of the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, which is under construction on a 100 wooded acres, said Steve Wilson.
Wilson and his wife, Laura Lee Brown, self-described philanthropists and arts patrons, designed and opened the original 21c Museum Hotel in Louisville, Ky., in 2006 in a vacant building in a historic part of the city.
“It takes real commitment to revitalize a downtown and revive a city,” Wilson said at a news conference to announce the development.
The couple never intended to expand beyond the Louisville location, he said. They were inspired by the surprising success of the hotel and the potential for synergy with nearby Crystal Bridges.
The museum, funded by Alice Walton - daughter ofWal-Mart Stores, Inc. founder Sam Walton - and the Walton Family Foundation will display a comprehensive collection of coveted American art spanning from colonial to modern eras. It was originally announced to open in spring 2009 but now has no public construction timeline after site issues delayed completion.
Don Bacigalupi, director of Crystal Bridges, has declined to give details of costs, calling it “a gift to the community.” Form 990s, required federal financial reports for nonprofit organizations, show the museum acquired $247 million in artwork from 2005 to 2008. The 2008 form, the most recent data available, reports about $66 million of construction in progress, exceeding Walton’s $50 million public estimates.
Investors in the Bentonville hotel project include members of the Walton family and Bentonville Revitalization Inc., a nonprofit organization that purchases and resells vacant properties near downtown, according to its Form 990.
The Bentonville hotel will echo the Louisville site, incorporating a free public gallery space that features a permanent collection of modern art and rotating exhibits, Wilsonsaid. It also will include a restaurant serving locally grown food.
The Louisville collection, which will be shared with the Bentonville hotel’s gallery, includes 40 signature orange plastic penguins, part of an art installation from its first show.
One night’s stay will run about $190, Wilson said.
Preliminary plans call for a five-story building.
The Louisville hotel was voted No. 1 in the United States and No. 6 in the world in the 2009 Conde Nast Traveler reader’s choice awards.
Jim Wood, CEO of the Greater Louisville Convention and Visitors Bureau, said the decision by Wilson and Brown to locate in the city’s 150-year-old historic district sparked rebuilding efforts inneighboring buildings and a growth of tourism.
“It really is an experience, a draw and attraction all on its own,” he said. “Other businesses around it are now going through the same transformation.”
Regional economists agree that Northwest Arkansas has more hotel rooms than it currently needs.
Statistics by Smith Travel Research showed hotel room occupancy fell 4.4 percent to 50.6 percent in the UnitedStates in 2009.
Guests filled 45 of every 100 hotel rooms on an average night in Benton and Washington counties, the statistics said. The cost of a one-night stay fell from $82 in 2008 to $75 in 2009.
The two counties swelled from 67 hotels in 2003 to 100 by the end of 2009.
Wilson is confident that Crystal Bridges will help the region’s hospitality industry fill rooms and raise weekend occupancy rates in its traditionally business-oriented market.
“Crystal Bridges will be a major tourist attraction, way more than most local people realize,” he said.
Bentonville Mayor Bob McCaslin heralded the hotel, saying it “will begin an economic boom in our community and change the landscape of Bentonville forever.”
“I have said and I’ll continue to say that the greatest impact in the shortest period of time will be Crystal Bridges and the things that come with it,” he said.
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Front Section, Pages 1 on 06/09/2010