One thing is for certain: When it’s complete next summer, the 100-room boutique hotel that broke ground last week will bring rich people to the Downtown Mall. Developed by Lee Danielson and Halsey Minor, it’s planned as a five-star luxury hotel complete with eclectic decorating and the kind of attention to detail that only money can buy. The question still remains, however, what those fat-walleted visitors will mean for the Mall.
 Mayor Dave Norris, Halsey Minor and Lee Danielson ceremonially “break ground” (that is, shovel a staged sand pile) on the Landmark Hotel on the Downtown Mall. |
Minor, a local who made his fortune in the dot-com boom on the West Coast and now splits time between there and here, suggests it could mean higher-end chain retail for Downtown. “We’ve been approached by people like Apple, Anthropologie and others,” Minor says. “I think we’re going to be catalysts for a whole other tier to come.”
While Minor celebrates how far the Mall has come since he was a UVA student in the 1980s, he notes the empty retail buildings on E. Main Street, such as the former A&N space.
“To me, it’s such a symbol that we’re really not done down here,” Minor says. “There’s way too much property that’s for lease.”
Part of what Minor and Danielson think will bring wealthy clientele to their Landmark Hotel is attention to design. “It’s an all-star cast of people,” says Minor. Specifically, Minor says that outlandish Brooklyn artist Duke Riley will create a 19’x24′ mosaic to greet arriving guests, and that artist Walton Ford has been commissioned for a work. Top end interior designer Michael Smith will handle the decorative touches.
Says Minor: “It’s going to be like nothing people have ever seen.”
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