More Woes for Hotel Pontchartrain

[raptor56]

Hundreds of visitors in town for the Baptist Convention are left without A\C and hotel support staff as the Hotel employees walkout after not getting paid.

On the day when Detroit swells with people from the National Baptist Convention and the annual Detroit fireworks, guests at the former Pontchartrain Hotel, which is now the Detroit Riverside Hotel, are checking out in the droves.

Guests are complaining that there is no air conditioning -- on the hottest day of the year in Detroit – and some guests have complained about not having fresh towels, clean sheets or in some cases, electricity...

...However, the hotel has recently fallen on hard times and most of the employees said they have not gotten paid since May.

That's why they are sitting in the lobby and refuse to work until they get their paychecks.

In the meantime, the hotel is not being serviced. Guests have said they have tried to contact the hotel manager for several days.

http://www.clickondetroit.com/news/19846582/detail.html

[crawford]

Thank you so much, State of Michigan.

How's that casino hotel requirement doing? How are those casino hotels building up the downtown lodging market?

[daddeeo]

I've heard of getting soaked but this is ridiculous.

[Lorax]

Goes to prove the service unions provide in staging walkouts when workers don't get paid.

If Rethugnicans had their way and busted this union, as they are so rapt to do, the corporate masters would have been able to force the workers to continue working without pay, and do it with impunity.

Think Walmart.

[Ray1936]

Last time the Baptist convention was in Las Vegas, the casino moguls noted: "They came into town with the ten commandments and a hundred dollar bill. They didn't break any of them."

[DetroitDad]

I just walked by the Book Cadillac corner a little while ago and there are line ups to valet at the Westin Book Cadillac and Holiday Inn.

[lilpup]

If anybody had bothered to read reviews for that place over the last 2-3 years they would have known to stay away.

[Detroitej72]

It sounds like this once top rate hotel has fallen, too bad. Hopefully a competent company will take it over and restore it to its former glory.

[irish_mafia]

Lorax, don't let bad service get in the way of promoting your pro-union goons... you are too much.

That hotel has sucked for at least a decade. Per Detroit Dad and lilpup, the Baptists should have booked at the many available downtown hotels that have a good reputation.

[Lorax]

Lorax, don't let bad service get in the way of promoting your pro-union goons... you are too much.

That hotel has sucked for at least a decade. Per Detroit Dad and lilpup, the Baptists should have booked at the many available downtown hotels that have a good reputation.

Hey, just had to throw one in for the team!

[Sec106]

Didn't the hotel undergo some multi million dollar revamp in the last few years?

[softailrider]

Didn't the hotel undergo some multi million dollar revamp in the last few years?

They sunk a lot of money in that place, hotel business in Detroit and the surrounding areas is very bad. Ponch was a dump 20 years ago, thought they made vast improvements.

[professorscott]

When my old friend Chuck Muer ran the restaurants at the Pontch, it was the premier address in Detroit. Chuck, unfortunately, had to pull out in the early 1980s because the downtown business had slipped to a fraction of what it once had been. I'd like to think if Chuck were alive today, he'd be interested in participating in the revitalization of the downtown area.

But, he would not be at the former Pontch. The place is a dump. The current owners have tried to milk what money they could out of it, without putting anything into it, and the building has to be just about 45 years old now and therefore needs work just like any other 45 year old building. No air? Not paying employees? Shit, man, that's the kiss of death.

What's going on right now with the Pontch says absolutely nothing about business conditions in downtown Detroit, and says a great deal about the current irresponsible [[and apparently broke) owners. Sad, sad thing.

[softailrider]

When my old friend Chuck Muer ran the restaurants at the Pontch, it was the premier address in Detroit. Chuck, unfortunately, had to pull out in the early 1980s because the downtown business had slipped to a fraction of what it once had been. I'd like to think if Chuck were alive today, he'd be interested in participating in the revitalization of the downtown area.

But, he would not be at the former Pontch. The place is a dump. The current owners have tried to milk what money they could out of it, without putting anything into it, and the building has to be just about 45 years old now and therefore needs work just like any other 45 year old building. No air? Not paying employees? Shit, man, that's the kiss of death.

What's going on right now with the Pontch says absolutely nothing about business conditions in downtown Detroit, and says a great deal about the current irresponsible [[and apparently broke) owners. Sad, sad thing.

Can't agree with you, I think it says a lot about business conditions in Detroit, when you have a 400 + room hotel and most nights of the year you have less then 30 rooms booked you're going to have problems.

[wolverine]

They sunk a lot of money in that place, hotel business in Detroit and the surrounding areas is very bad. Ponch was a dump 20 years ago, thought they made vast improvements.

How about they continue those "vast improvements" to that exterior entrance facing Jefferson with plywood all up on it for the past...how many months/years?

[MIRepublic]

They really just need to tear the Pontch down, already. It's obviously cursed. Game over.

[MIRepublic]

But, it's not just the current ownership? How many different owners has the hotel had this decade, alone? To have that many bad owners seems like something that could only happen in the movies.

[reddog289]

Tear it down, We suburbanites need more parking.

[MIRepublic]

I'm not sure what the habitual mismanangement of one hotel says about the entire "business conditions" in Detroit. However, I know what it says about the fools over the years who came to make a quick buck off of the hotel at the expense of their customers by not giving the hotel the renovation and proper maintenance it needed. When was the last time the hotel was locally-owned and/or operated?

[softailrider]

I'm not sure what the habitual mismanangement of one hotel says about the entire "business conditions" in Detroit. However, I know what it says about the fools over the years who came to make a quick buck off of the hotel at the expense of their customers by not giving the hotel the renovation and proper maintenance it needed. When was the last time the hotel was locally-owned and/or operated?

Hotel business is TERRIBLE in and around Detroit. Even new and newer properties are suffering. Obviously, if the area was thriving, hotels would be renting out more rooms on a nightly basis......right?

[Maple Leaf Rag]

No air? No problem! It'll be nice and cool be the time the NAIAS comes around. They might even have enough towels washed by then.

City saved. The end.

[MIRepublic]

Hotel business is TERRIBLE in and around Detroit. Even new and newer properties are suffering. Obviously, if the area was thriving, hotels would be renting out more rooms on a nightly basis......right?

You indicted the entire local business community, when I actually think that you made my point in painting the long-time poor hotel market in the city. Most of the other major hotels have survived in spite of one of the worst downtown hotel markets in the country for years on end. That the Pontchartrain has been a disaster is a testament not to the market, but to those that thought that because it's attached to a convention center that they could get away with treating and neglecting the place like crap and making out with some quick money.

[Lorax]

The Pontchartrain Hotel is really a super example of an accordion pleated glass curtain wall structure, and perhaps one of the largest examples of this late modernist style architecture in existence.

Those advocating for it's demolition need to realize people once advocated for demolishing old city hall, and it really happened in 1961. It wouldn't even be a bare consideration today.

Let's push for taking the Pontch back to it's original look, bring back the antiques for the lobby, the portrait of Count Pontchartrain, update the rooms, open a super restaurant on the top.

Now feel free to start sniping away at this positive notion. Come on, you can do it!

[softailrider]

You indicted the entire local business community, when I actually think that you made my point in painting the long-time poor hotel market in the city. Most of the other major hotels have survived in spite of one of the worst downtown hotel markets in the country for years on end. That the Pontchartrain has been a disaster is a testament not to the market, but to those that thought that because it's attached to a convention center that they could get away with treating and neglecting the place like crap and making out with some quick money.

The place certainly was a dump for the past 15 years or so. However, the hotel just went through a major renovation: lobby , rooms updated, new pool and exercise room and other stuff. The fact that the air went out on a 90 degree day was very unfortunate for the Baptists who booked rooms there, i'm sure they had the best of intentions, wanting to be close to Cobo. The entire hotel industry in this area is in a state of flux. Business is way down, in some areas the properties have been over built and there are too many rooms available and sitting empty night after night. There's a lot of hotel- motel owners/ investors chewing on their fingernails these days.

[Detroitej72]

When was the last time the hotel was locally-owned and/or operated?

I think it was during the Crown Plaza Pontch days, when Art Van Elslander, of Art Van Furniture fame lead a group of investors who purchased and ran it.