Proposal calls for Days Inn hotel to be replaced by new 16-story development
DMC's Heart of the City sub-district may have landed its first big project.
The owner of the Days Inn property in downtown Rochester is working with Wisconsin-based Hammes Company on a proposal to demolish the existing structure and replace it with a 16-story, mixed-use development.
Preliminary plans call for 8,000-10,000 square feet of street-level retail, three stories of parking, 200 hotel rooms and 120 contemporary apartments with "high-end amenities." The new building, projected to include a total of 392,750 square feet of space, would be constructed on the site of the hotel and the street-level parking lots immediately north of the existing structure.
The project site is located across the street from Mayo Clinic’s Methodist Hospital and in close proximity to Mayo's recently-opened Jacobson Building, a state-of-the-art proton beam cancer treatment facility. The site is currently home to the 71-room Days Inn hotel and Pannekoeken Restaurant.
The building has been identified in Rochester's draft Heritage Preservation Ordinance as a potential landmark. However, according to Hammes, the building is "obsolete and cannot accommodate a modern, state of the art hotel."
"An assessment of the building’s structure and its mechanical and electrical systems concludes that is not feasible to renovate the existing building," states the proposal from Hammes.
A final design has not yet been drawn up and the project still needs to go through the city's approval process. A timeline for the project has not been released.
The DMC development plan describes Heart of the City as "a cross-roads where Mayo Clinic, commercial, hospitality, retail and residential meet.” It was outlined by planners as a top priority in the first five years of DMC.
A community task force meets regularly to discuss planning for Heart of the City, which encompasses the area in and around Peace Plaza. In August, a team of consultants were selected to design public spaces for the sub-district.
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(Cover graphic: Hammes Company)
