Drurys open three-part project in San Antonio

Mayor Jay Knudtson recently visited San Antonio for the grand opening of the Drury Plaza Hotel on the Riverwalk.

The San Antonio Riverwalk is one of the most successful waterfront properties in the country, attracting nearly 6 million tourists a year, according to Dennis Vollink, president of Drury Southwest.

"The mayor visited the Riverwalk to see what possibilities there could be for the waterfront and development of Cape," Vollink said. "Jay got very excited about the level of work being done by a Cape company."

The three-year project had three parts. The Drurys bought the 24-story Alamo Bank building, which dates to 1929, and transformed it into a 360-room hotel. They revamped the Aztec Theatre, turning it into an Iwerks large-screen entertainment center. Then they extended 700 feet of the walkway out front, making the Riverwalk one continuous loop so visitors could walk the entire stretch without having to double back.

The Riverwalk extension was the most complicated part, even though it only took Drury's Cape Girardeau and Columbia construction crews nine days to install the entire structure. The carpenters, laborers and brick masons worked in shifts 24 hours a day because they had to complete the task during the time frame when the city drains the Riverwalk for its annual cleaning.

Vollink said it was one of the most complicated engineering projects in the country. It was a $3 million project that the Drurys donated to San Antonio for the city to maintain.

In reference to Cape Girardeau's riverwalk, Vollink said first the city must make it a destination, then investments will follow.

"There's a lot of stuff happening in downtown Cape," he said. "There's a lot more potential to continue to make it more of a destination location."

• Speaking of destination locations, Harold Griffiths and Steven Boggs recently purchased the old Russell Hotel on East Commercial Street in Charleston, Mo. They are investing $3 million for renovations into the building, which dates to 1918. The hotel is going to have rooms, a restaurant, a bar, a dance club, an ice-cream parlor, a full spa and a video rental place.

The Russell Hotel once had a soda fountain, and that's going to be replaced with the ice-cream parlor. There was a bar that closed in the 1950s and the new owners are going to stick with the mid-20th century theme. Everything is scheduled to be open by the end of July, Griffiths said, except for the night club and the rooms. The night club is supposed to open at the end of the year and rooms won't open until mid-2008.

Griffiths and Boggs also purchased the old McCutchen Theatre down the street from the hotel. Griffiths said they are going to bring it back to its former glory and turn it into a retro theater, showing movies from the 1930s to the 1960s along with some live shows. The project doesn't have a date yet.

Griffiths and Boggs originally came to Southeast Missouri from California in December 2005. They own Westeria Place, an outlet with a gift store, a video rental store and a salon, on South Main Street in Charleston.

• Which reminds me -- I spoke to Will Otto, one of the owners of Club Moxy, the dance club with a 1920s theme that has been undergoing reconstruction on Main Street in Cape Girardeau since March. Otto told me it's coming along and should be open sometime in June.
• X-treme Coatings, a powder coating company that puts industrial finishes on anything metal, from car frames to lawn mowers, is opening this week on 2970 E. Outer Road off Nash Road in Scott City.

Owner Jeff Grim said he knows manufacturers and hobbyists in the area who have had to send their parts to St. Louis or Memphis, Tenn., so he decided to open up the business in Southeast Missouri.

"The transition to powder coated products has slowly made its way into the market due to its durability and the fact that it is environmentally friendly," said Grimm's wife, Autumn. "There are no chemicals used in the powder coating process as opposed to a traditional liquid paint."

Tim Krakowiak is the business editor at the Southeast Missourian. Contact him at 301 Broadway, Cape Girardeau, Mo., 63702-0699, tkrakowiak@semissourian.com or (573) 335-6611, extension 137