ST. LOUIS — Downtown’s newest hotel — and art museum — is now open.
21c Museum Hotel opened Tuesday in the 95-year-old former YMCA building on Locust Street after several years of construction. The boutique hotel offers 173 rooms and over 14,000 square feet of museum exhibition space spread throughout the 10-story building. The is free and open 24 hours a day.
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“We believe old looks better in the presence of new,†said 21c COO Sarah Robbins.
21c is a Louisville-based hospitality brand that renovates historic buildings into boutique hotels and fills their lobbies with modern art, including statutes of penguins that have become the bespoke mascot of the hotel. The ºüÀêÊÓƵ location is about five blocks northeast of the city’s new soccer stadium, CityPark, and is another major investment in the Downtown West neighborhood.
The building, a Renaissance Revival structure at 1528 Locust Street, long served as a YMCA before the nonprofit moved in 2017 to a smaller location farther east in the Mercantile Exchange district.
The YMCA’s gymnasium and walking track is now exhibit space. The historic lap pool has stayed and is part of the hotel’s Locust Street Athletic and Swim Club, which will be available to the public.
The hotel also includes a new restaurant, Idol Wolf, and coffee shop, Good Press.
Russell was the general contractor. Pittsburgh-based architects Perfido Weiskopf Wagstaf + Goettel worked with interior designers from Hufft Projects of Kansas City and New York-based Bill Rooney Studio.
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Guests take in the red carpet and walls in a stairwell off the main lobby during an open house at the 21c Museum Hotel ºüÀêÊÓƵ on Tuesday, Aug. 8, 2023. The interior decoration gradually changes color as you navigate from floor to floor.
Brian D. Smith, left, and Lisa Delcour tour an art exhibit in the former gymnasium and basketball court area during an open house Tuesday, Aug. 8, 2023, at the 21c Museum Hotel St Louis. "They do an amazing job with these spaces," Smith said.