New lighting tested for Marquette Hotel exterior

Business Today

While the environmental cleanup of the former Marquette Hotel in Cape Girardeau still awaits delayed state approvals, new owners Prost Builders already want to see how the historic building will look from the outside when it reopens at the end of 2003.

Representatives of a Columbia, Mo., electrical and engineering design company were in Cape Girardeau on Jan. 8 testing accent lighting they propose to mount on the building's exterior.

Some of the 100- to 175-watt lamps would be hidden on a ledge 25 feet above the sidewalk. Other lighting would illuminate the Marquette's two garden towers.

"A lot of times we do this on a computer, but with an older building we like to see it," said Robert Ray, a department manager for Project Solutions.

Lighting will not be installed until the renovation is closer to completion.

Bill Whitlow, the project manager for Prost Builders, said the environmental cleanup can begin two weeks after the state approvals are received. Those approvals were applied for in April and were expected to be in by the end of 2002. The original target date for occupancy, this summer, has been moved back.

Prost Builders bought the Marquette last August for $350,000. The previous owners, the Bullock family, once lived in the hotel and ran a piano sales business on the ground floor. But the Marquette's increasing deterioration led the city of Cape Girardeau to threaten tearing it down.

Prost made the purchase after being awarded a 10-year, $2.39 million contract for state office space, primarily on the basis of the building's historic stature.

The cost of the renovation is approximately $6 million.