Aug. 17–Forget all the ghost stories. The dead spot in downtown Santa Fe has come back to life.
The old St. Vincent Hospital is reincarnated as a Drury Plaza Hotel. Its 5-acre grounds at 228 E. Palace Ave. have the feel of a campus and offer sweeping mountain and city views that put Santa Fe on the list of destinations travelers hope to visit.
About 70 percent of the new hotel’s 182 guest rooms were open late last week. Construction crews were still busy, as the Drury Plaza prepared to host a weekend conference whose speakers included Ruth Bader Ginsburg, an associate justice of the U.S. Supreme Court.
Tauseen Malik, general manager of the hotel, said landing the Women’s International Study Center’s symposium with Ginsburg was a coup.
“It’s a great start for us,” he said in an interview.
Malik predicts that the Drury Plaza will be good for Santa Fe’s tourism industry, adding guest rooms and conference space that will enable the city to compete for events that otherwise could be ceded to rivals such as Scottsdale, Ariz., and Palm Springs, Calif.
The Drury Plaza has 17,000 square feet of meeting space, Malik said. Suites and other accommodations are spacious, including oversized areas for exercise and breakfast. A rooftop pool and bar are among other amenities.
So far, the hotel has hired about 50 people, Malik said. They were chosen from a pool of 500 applicants, proving that it’s still an employer’s market in New Mexico more than five years after the national recession began.
Employment at the hotel will double in the fall when it opens its restaurant, Malik said.
This whirl of activity is a decided change for a section that was long dormant. Drury bought the property in 2007, only to see development of the hotel slowed because of the economy.
Most talk about the old St. Vincent, which had a morgue in the basement, revolved around ghost stories. The hotel should put those to rest.
The Drury Plaza is the first hotel to open in downtown Santa Fe in almost 20 years. Drury already has blueprints for an encore.
Marian Hall, a former nursing home built in 1910 that sits on the 5-acre site, could become a high-end hotel in a later phase of developing the property, Malik said.
A family-owned company that started in Missouri, Drury now has more than 130 hotels in 22 states. The Santa Fe hotel is its third in New Mexico.
Malik said the company’s brand is so strong that many travelers plan vacations along routes in which they can stay in Drury hotels.
Enthusiasm for the new hotel in Santa Fe is not universal.
Christina Genuario-Gill, general manager of nearby Inn on the Alameda, said year-round occupancy rates for Santa Fe hotels are about 60 percent. Adding another 182 rooms could depress the number, she said.
But Genuario-Gill said any negative effect on Inn on the Alameda would be negligible. Its guests are mostly older than 50, “more the cultural traveler than the business traveler,” she said.
Even so, knowing the Drury Plaza was coming was part of the reason Inn on the Alameda opened a restaurant that operates from 5 to 10 p.m. It also added a courtesy shuttle that carries guests to attractions within a three-mile radius of the inn.
Malik, though, said the quality and drawing power of the Drury brand will help the rest of the hospitality industry by bringing more visitors to town.
“I see it as a win-win for Santa Fe,” he said.
Drury owns a share of Cathedral Park, the part abutting the hotel’s campus, Malik said. Once filled with young people and the pungent odor of marijuana, it now is cleaner and greener.
“Cathedral Park had been a nuisance, not just for us but for everybody,” Malik said.
Now he sees it as a pleasant diversion for families and guests.
More of Drury’s influence is forthcoming. Space on the hotel campus is available for a retail shop and gallery. And the pedestrian promenade on the hotel property will link Cathedral Park to Canyon Road, a section known for its galleries and restaurants.
Contact Milan Simonich at 986-3080 or msimonich@sfnewmexican.com. Follow his Ringside Seat column and blog at santafenewmexican.com.
