SHEFFIELD – The Emerald River Hotel on Hatch Boulevard has been sold yet another time. A source at City Hall has informed The Quad-Cities Daily that the 200+ room facility has been purchased by DAS RED, L.L.C. The source indicates that the new owner, Alkesh R. Patel is Chairman of The Asian American Hotel Owners Association. The hotel brand is expected to be Best Western.
Originally a Holiday Inn, the hotel was built in the early 1980’s. It was located in Colbert County primarily because voters made the county legal for alcohol sales. The hotel became a popular convention venue, and vacation lodging center. There was a restaurant, a bar and lounge with music. Over the years, as Lauderdale County adopted the same legal alcohol sales ordinances that prevailed in Colbert, the Holiday Inn lost its cache’ and began an inexorable decline. This is the 3rd new owner since the Holiday Inn company pulled its name from the franchise and built a Holiday Inn Express across the river on Florence Boulevard.
Our source tells us that in 2007, the City received over $136 thousand dollars in sales taxes. Additionally, Colbert County Tourism received over $40 thousand. By 2009, the numbers had fallen $90 thousand dollars to the City, and over $23 thousand respectively. This year Sheffield City is only budgeting about $32 thousand from Emerald River. Colbert County Tourism is expecting only about $7 thousand. So, there is only one way for the hotel to go… Up.
1 comment
Burn it down…build a 1500+ seat amphitheater in it’s place….Oh, and take that dump next door down with it too….big enough area, plenty of parking, ingress/egress would be stellar…configure the stage area’s acoustics to project away from the residential area…PERFECT! Can anyone tell me that Alkesh R. Patel will do anything other than simply replace the signs?