Owners of new Crossroads hotel appear to be ruthless corporate gentrifiers

A few years ago, a Chicago firm called Aparium Hotel Group bought two buildings at 2101 and 2107 Central Avenue (just east of Lulu’s in the Crossroads) with the intention of converting the properties into a 125-room boutique hotel, restaurant, and bar. The city council fast-tracked approval of the project, citing concerns that a delay on the vote could jeopardize the private financing the developers had lined up. This is, almost always, a grotesque and condescending lie. No bank or financier who stands to make a big pile of money on a project has ever abandoned that project because the local city council moved too slow. 

Nevertheless, the Aparium project, which is, of course, receiving tax breaks and other forms of taxpayer assistance, was given the go-ahead. Scheduled to open last year, it is still under construction. We’ll have to wait a little while longer for our Prohibition-themed drinks. 

Aparium has undertaken similar hotel concepts in several other cities. As its website notes, the firm “take[s] everything that makes a city great — its history, heart, and utility; its passion, tragedy, and soul — and boldly bring them together into one extraordinary piece of the cultural puzzle.”

Many citizens of Memphis seem to disagree. There, Aparium’s hotel has become a lightning rod in the city’s conversation over gentrification. 

Christopher Reyes is a well-known Memphis artist, described by Memphis businessman Yorke Lawson as the “definition of community development and stick-to-it-iveness. He’s raising two children downtown. He could have been a big artist in many larger cities. He’s given our cultural landscape credibility.”

Reyes has lived for 25 years in a downtown hotel recently purchased by Aparium. In an unusual arrangement, Reyes and his family of four reside in a small condominium attached to the building. The details are complex (though interesting if you are into this sort of thing), but Reyes’ contract with the previous owner included a clause that allowed Reyes to buy his unit at the end of his lease. He says Aparium never gave him that opportunity.

Instead, Arapium served him an eviction notice and filed a lawsuit seeking $102,000 from Reyes. The firm won its case in court this week. 

Michael Kitchen, a vice president for Aparium, was asked by reporters after the trial whether he thought it fair to require an artist-led family of four to pay $100,000 to his development company. 

“That’s for the court to decide,” Kitchen replied. “That’s not my judgement.”

Lawson, the Memphis businessman, wrote in a letter about Reyes’ eviction: “A family is unjustly put out of their home, and a terrible taste remains in the minds of anyone who ever heard about it. What Memphian in their heart wants to patronize this hotel going forward? What will Memphians say to their friends who are coming (to) town about the hotel?”

Something for those of us in Kansas City to think about, perhaps, when the doors swing open at 2107 Central.