Choice of views. Hotel guests to have choice of premium riverview rooms or lesser townview or bluffview rooms. So too the tenants of 30 apartments. This view shows the grand entrance on Center Street with the Levee Park and Mississippi river in the background. The grand entrance faces the historic freighthouse, which would become a restaurant and event venue.
Port Authority OKs six-month planning extension
WININA, Minn. – The waiting ended finally for architectural sketches of a proposed five-story hotel-apartment building at Levee Park. Developers unveiled the sketches to the Winona Port Authority. Authority
ry board members liked what they saw. They voted to grant developers anther six months to refine their plans – or the Authority might solicit other plans for the property. Port Authority approval is essential to create that tax breaks that are central for the multi-million dollar project to viable. The development of the site, called 60 Main, has been delayed time and again at the developers’ request and then further delayed by a shakeup of the participating development companies. The latest development group involves a new configuration of entities:
> Rivers Hospitality, owned by hotelier Mike Rivers whose properties include hotels at the Highway 61 and Mankato junction on the Far East End.
> Winona Real Estate Fund, a Northfield-based partnerhship involving hotelier and financier Brett Reese.
> Wieser Brothers, a LaCrescent construction firm. Construction
> Driftless Development, a limited liability Minnesota entity created in 2021 company with involving Peter Shortridge, a veteran at restoring and repurposing historic downtown buildings.
Earlier: City reclaiming blighted railyard at Levee Park
Earlier: A hotel on the Winona Levee? Still yakking
Earlier: Port to would-be hoteliers: Stop dallying
Adjacent event center
The hotel would be on a city-owned parking lot behind the Winona 7 Cinema and a former sawmill railyard on the river. A Union Pacific industrial rail spur remains between the site and Levee Park, although, perhaps in wishful thinking, the new hotel sketches blot out the the remaining single-track spur, where morning switching occurs weekdays. The plan also turns the old railroad freighthouse across Center Street from the hotel into a restaurant and event space. Most recently the freighthouse was home to Jefferson bar and grill and before that to the Zach’s on the Tracks upscale steakhouse. The freighthouse now is home to the Island City brewpub at the far end. As hotel plan currently stands, there would be 101 surface parking stalls for guests and 31 covered parking spaces for apartment tenants.