When the Mankato City Council in October of this year approved $9.9 million in tax-increment financing for a hotel complex at the corner of Main Street between Riverfront Drive and Second Street, it was only the latest in municipal contributions to provide such amenities at that location.
The closed City Center Hotel sits on the site of the former Saulpaugh Hotel, but many people likely don’t know how that first hotel came to be there before the turn of the 20th century.
According to the Dec. 30, 1887, Mankato Free Press, at a meeting of the Board of Trade — presumably the precursor to a Chamber of Commerce or today’s Greater Mankato Growth — a proposition for a hotel was put forth by Thomas Saulpaugh, father of the locally better-known Clarence Saulpaugh, for construction of a hotel.
Saulpaugh said he would hand over plans for a hotel containing at least 75 rooms — “and as many more as I see fit to add” — in exchange for the essential donation of six full lots of 22 feet frontage each, making a frontage of 132 feet on Front Street from Main Street south. Such property would be 130 feet deep.
“I will commence erection of said hotel as soon as the frost is out of the ground and the weather permits, and will continue work as fast as practicable,” Saulpaugh promised. He said he would provide a bond guaranteeing he would build the hotel, if the city required.
The Free Press article goes on to say that J.A. Willard and S.F. Barney, owners of the requested property, started the process by promising to sell the property requested for $14,000, about two-thirds of the real value, and donate a 12-foot alley in question. Each also was to donate $1,500 toward the purchase. That decreased the remaining amount to be raised to $11,000.
Many details of the hotel were recounted in The Free Press story:
“The building itself is to be a four-story brick with stone trimmings and of modern architecture,” the description began. “It will very likely be raised a story in the near future. … In general plan it will almost exactly resemble the West Hotel, of Minneapolis.
One of the reasons the hotel was constructed where it was is because of proximity to the Mankato Union Depot, across what is now South Riverfront Drive. It was thought the hotel was needed to house salesmen who came to town by train and stayed here during the week as they visited customers. City fathers preferred a prestigious hotel for that.
Today, a downtown hotel is sought, in large part, to provide better handy accommodations to the Mayo Clinic Health System Event Center next door. It is thought that additional adjacent hotel space is needed to attract more conventions to the nearly 30-year-old facility.
The two-hotel complex as designed totals 252,000 square feet and features 282 guest rooms. It is to include a 10-story AC Hotel by Marriott and an adjacent four-story Element by Westin hotel. It is proposed by a collection of local developers, builders and financiers.
Taking the 126-by-130-foot dimensions of the Saulpaugh building, multiplied by four floors, equaled 65,520 square feet for his hotel. That was about 25 percent the size of the proposed hotel complex.
The Saulpaugh was remodeled several times, often as part of an ownership change, as in 1930 and 1959, but never gained a fifth floor. Parts of it were used by the nearby Mankato Commercial College for housing and a “student union” beginning in 1964, but it fell to the wrecking ball in early 1974 due to urban renewal efforts.
On May 17, 1978, ground was broken for a new Holiday Inn hotel and entertainment center on the site, according to The Free Press. The $5 million project, which included a 150-unit hotel and single-level entertainment facility (banquet rooms), was proposed by North Mankato Holiday Inn owner Douglas Anderson in partnership with Atwood Associates Inc.
The city of Mankato cooperated not only in developing a 150-stall parking garage under the hotel, but a 400-stall ramp on the other side of the Martin Building. These parking facilities were connected underground to help with general downtown parking. The ramp is known today as the Civic Center Ramp.
The article notes the cost to develop the parking facilities totaled $2 million, with $745,000 coming from tax-increment bonds and the remainder paid with federal community development funds. A July 9, 1977, article also said land on which the hotel was built was purchased by the city from the Mankato Housing and Redevelopment Authority.
Additional information for this article comes from the Blue Earth County Historical Society.
If you have a subject you think should be remembered, contact Michael Lagerquist at mlagerquist@mankatofreepress.com