Downtown needs more hotel rooms

To the editor:

In the summer of 2002, I left Cape Girardeau to attend graduate school in Pennsylvania. While I lived in Cape Girardeau, I worked with other students from Southeast Missouri State University to motivate the community to save the Marquette Hotel. Our efforts along with essential and major contributions from the state and Prost Builders worked. What used to be a community eyesore has undergone a wonderful transformation.

Many of us were interested in seeing the Marquette turned into a functioning hotel again. Research that I did for a feasibility study in late 2000 supported the idea that there was a lack of hotel rooms in Cape. Moreover, there was a need for rooms that were downtown rather than by the freeway. Visitors to the university, Show Me Center and various cultural events wanted to stay downtown. As far as I am aware, none of the various business investors who looked at the Marquette ever seriously considered turning it into a hotel.

If you read in the paper recently, 282 more hotel rooms will be available due to new construction. Wouldn't it have been nice if an investor in the Marquette had seen the same opportunity?

I do not intend my comments to detract from the valuable efforts of Prost Builders. Any use for the Marquette is better than none at all. Unfortunately, the new use of the Marquette is symptomatic of a lack of vision. We can't change the past, but we can learn from it.

JEREMY WELLS

Philadelphia