Winecoff Hotel Owner Sees New Life For Shuttered Asset

ATLANTA-Downtown brokers intimate with the owner’s plans tell GlobeSt.com that RD Management Co. of New York has taken the shuttered 91-year-old, 200-room Winecoff Hotel off the market and plans to redevelop the Peachtree Street property itself. The building will have a 130-room boutique hotel, bar, restaurant and mini conference center at one of Downtown’s key commercial sites near the old Macy’s Department store at Peachtree and Ellis streets. Brokers and local construction industry estimators tell GlobeSt.com the rebirth of the Winecoff could cost at least $15 million.

Closed since 1981, the Winecoff never regained its dominance in the local hospitality market since the Dec. 7, 1946 fire that killed owner William F. Winecoff and 118 other persons in one of the city’s deadliest hotel fires. The building was scheduled for demolition in 1983 after a developer proposed an office tower on the site at 178 Peachtree St. But that project, like others, withered.

Florida-based Kelco Management Development Inc. had planned to reopen the hotel in 2002 but backed off when the economy soured.The Steve Holtz Hotels chain in Denver also retreated from a planned $28-million renovation and restoration of the Winecoff that was scheduled to begin this June.