OPINION|
A reader recently asked me why Q Hotel & Suites, 1117 E. St. Louis St., closed a few years ago.
That typically would be an Answer Man column, unless you don't include your name when you email me your question. I asked for a name but did not hear back.
The hotel is owned by Atrium Hospitality in Georgia. Spokesperson Sheri Smith said via email that this is why it closed:
“The Q Hotel & Suites closed during the COVID pandemic after a drastic reduction in travel demand,” Smith wrote. “During this period, the inside of the hotel experienced significant damage as a result of a burst pipe due to a winter freeze. Hotel ownership has been working to finalize an insurance settlement to undertake related repairs.”
The four-story, 188-room hotel opened in 2005 as a Holiday Inn Express.
But there is an alternative reason in some circles. Two people said on a Springfield Reddit thread two years ago that the building was unstable. They stated that the ground beneath the building was settling.
I reached out via Reddit, and one of them responded. I know her name, but she did not want it revealed.
Luggage carts would roll down hallways
She wrote:
“I worked at the hotel when it was a Holiday Inn Express. I did not work there when it changed to the Q. I can give you some information, but this is not anything officially confirmed by JQH Hotels before the bankruptcy, or Atrium Hospitality, the current owners. I would like to remain anonymous if you chose to print any of the information I give you.
“When I started working there in 2013, there were about 20 rooms that were permanently out of order and no one would tell me why. I would find out later that those rooms had the walls opened up in attempts to stabilize the building, but they ran out of money to complete the project, so the rooms remained closed indefinitely.
“The building was built on land that was apparently uneven and unstable, some saying it was built on a sinkhole, thus causing the building to shift. If you took a luggage cart up to the top floor and let go of it, it would roll down the hallway by itself, showing how the building was sloping.
“In November of 2014 they closed the Holiday Inn Express temporarily to try and fix all the problems with the building. They moved all the staff to other hotels also owned by JQH. I was moved to the University Plaza. They said the hotel would reopen in February, but that didn't happen, it ended up reopening in June.
“I went back to work there when they reopened. The previous 20 out-of-order rooms had been restored, but the building still didn't sit right. That slope was definitely still there. In October, I was offered a better job back at University Plaza and I decided to take it after being passed over for a promotion at the Holiday Inn Express.
“I was still privy to information regarding the Holiday Inn Express as it was a sister property and I would go over there from time to time to assist if they were short staffed. Once Atrium Hospitality took over, you could definitely tell they didn't want to spend any more money on that property and when InterContinental Hotels Group came to do their inspection, they wanted the property updated to meet their brand standards, and Atrium declined because they refused to spend more money, so they changed to an independent hotel, the Q Hotel and Suites.
“When I worked there when it was a Holiday Inn Express, I would estimate that 80 percent of the guests that stayed there were IHG Rewards Members, so when they dropped the brand and went independent, they lost a lot of business.
“And then, of course, COVID-19 happened, which hit the entire hospitality industry hard. I left the hotel business in March of 2019, so I got out in the nick of time.”
After I received the above information, I went back to Smith, spokeswoman for Atrium Hospitality and asked if the instability of the structure had anything to do with its closure. She did not respond.
Maps indicate hotel is not on a sinkhole
City of Springfield spokeswoman Cora Scott said that according to city maps, the hotel is not on a sinkhole.
Let me add here, as Steve Pokin the Answer Man, across the street from Q Hotel & Suites and east of Hammons Field, there once was a landfill that was deep enough, when filled with water, to once cover a stolen car.
Actually, this landfill caught fire. It started on New Year's Day 1973, and burned for a month. I wrote about it in March 2021 while I worked at the Springfield News-Leader.
Scott also checked for me and found no city Building Development Services records that would indicate a structural problem with the hotel.
MSU leased it in 2020 during COVID
I personally never heard any creaking or saw any runaway carts when I stayed at the Holiday Inn with my wife and son years ago. This would have been in 2008, before we moved to Springfield. My son had graduated high school and had enrolled at Drury University.
After Holiday Inn, it became a Hammons property.
Today, Atrium Hospitality lists the hotel as one of its properties on the company's website. The link has really great photos of the place, although it overlooks the fact the hotel hasn't been open in years.
As far as I can tell, the hotel was still open in 2019, but it had closed by August 2020. That's when Missouri State University leased it for 45 days so students under COVID-19 quarantine protocols could temporarily live there.
This is Pokin Around column No. 145.
