LAKE WALES — Seeking to revive grandeur from nearly a century ago, Lake Wales officials took an action they hope will propel the city’s downtown into a glorious future.
The Lake Wales City Commission, acting as the Community Redevelopment Agency Board, voted 5-0 on June 2 to approve an agreement with a developer intended to resuscitate the long-dormant Walesbilt Hotel.
Under the interim agreement, the Lake Wales CRA will pay up to $2 million to Restoration St. Louis for a series of pre-construction steps. If all goes as expected, in six to eight months, the Missouri company will begin the physical rehabilitation of the deteriorated Walesbilt Hotel, long a conspicuous blight on the city’s downtown.
After the vote, Lake Wales Mayor Jack Hilligoss said he was seeking a word other than “excited,” which other members had used, to capture his feelings.
“I wish I could find a better word than that, but I will tell you that a city either believes in itself or it doesn’t,” Hilligoss said. “That hotel has been really, in my opinion, for the whole time that I’ve been here, kind of a statement about what we believe, what we’re doing. And what we have done (with the vote) is a statement about what we believe about Lake Wales. It’s worth the investment.”
Amrit Gill, president and CEO of Restoration St. Louis, and Amy Gill, the company’s executive vice president, spoke during the meeting. They offered examples of historic architectural projects the company has completed in St. Louis, as well as two cities in Iowa, and declared their enthusiasm for rehabilitating the Walesbilt Hotel.
Amrit Gill had previous said that the restored hotel would likely become part of the Marriott Autograph Collection. During the June 2 meeting, he told the CRA Board that Marriott officials are equally sanguine about the project.
Restoration St. Louis has renovated 467 historic buildings, Gill said.
“One of the things that I would like to remind everybody is that these historic buildings are the repositories of the stories of a very young nation,” said Gill, an immigrant from India.
He added: “When we lose a building like that, we lose the stories that reside in those historic structures.”
Milestone in long process
The Walesbilt Hotel, a 10-story structure at 5 W. Park Ave., opened in 1926, with partial ownership by prominent Hollywood actors. It changed names and uses over the decades, but by the 1990s it had declined into disuse, its glamour long faded.
The Lake Wales CRA filed suit in 2022 to recover ownership from a developer, leading to a settlement in 2025, as the city paid $450,000 and gained titled to the property.
The CRA then sought applications from developers before the board chose Restoration St. Louis in October over another finalist. Slaton began negotiating with the company’s leaders on an agreement, a process complicated by the firm’s practice of seeking federal tax credits to help defray projects’ costs.
With the agreement, the Lake Wales CRA pledges to contribute a maximum of $17.5 million toward the project, which has a projected total cost of $43 million.
Keith Thompson, the CRA Board chair, praised Lake Wales City Manager James Slaton for toiling to reach an agreement with Restoration St. Louis — even as he ribbed him for missing his self-stated goal of signing a contract by Dec. 15.
“I will not make that mistake again,” Slaton said. “I will not be proclaiming dates.”
The agreement gives Restoration St. Louis up to eight months to complete preconstruction tasks, including the selection of an architect, design development and the forging of construction plans.
To qualify for federal tax credits, the company must submit plans to the National Park Service, which approves renovations for any public areas of the building, Gill said. He expects to begin that process around month four of pre-construction.
The entire project will take about 20 months, meaning the hotel could be open by 2028, Gill said.
‘Going to have excitement’
CRA Board member Daniel Williams, a pastor, related that he mentioned the Walesbilt Hotel during a recent Bible study session, and out of 47 congregants, only two “could remember the hotel being a hotel.”
Terry Miller, the newest member of the CRA Board, said she expects the restored hotel to spark a renaissance for Lake Wales’ entire downtown. She recalled a recent conversation in which someone questioned who would actually visit the Walesbilt Hotel.
“Do you want to know who’s going to fill this?” Miller said. “Every class reunion that we have from 100 years of Lake Wales High School, or however many years of Lake Wales High School. We’re going to have weddings, and we’re going to have excitement, and we’re going to have things downtown. That’s who’s coming to this hotel. We are going to have such a list of people who cannot wait to rent rooms in this hotel and have parties.”
Amy Gill told the CRA Board that one of her company’s projects in Davenport, Iowa, sparked an increase in downtown residency from 400 to more than 4,000.
Amid the nearly gleeful comments, CRA Board member Carol Gillespie struck notes of caution. Gillespie quizzed Slaton on details of the contract, asking whether Lake Wales had merely agreed to agree with the developer.
Though she joined the unanimous vote, which prompted applause from the audience in the City Commission chamber, Gillespie advanced against celebrating too soon.
“I don’t think we should be saying, ‘OK, well, the hotel is a done deal,’” Gillespie said. “It’s not. There’s a lot more negotiation that has to take place before we have a finished contract with Restoration St. Louis, and everything has to go according to our hopes, and I know that we’re all hoping that it’s going to go smoothly, and I’m hoping certainly that it’s going to go smoothly, but there is a lot more work to do.”
After the meeting, Amrit Gill was asked why the company would want to take on a project so far from home in such a small city.
“Because very seldom in one’s life is one given an opportunity to help a community realize its full potential,” he said. “We’ve been blessed that we’ve been given that opportunity several times, but most people don’t even get that opportunity once. And here it’s pretty obvious that with that building fully developed in a way that really benefits the community, this community can realize its full potential.”
Restoration St. Louis, which has also completed projects in two Iowa cities, Davenport and Sioux City, rarely stops with a single project in an area, Gill said. He said it’s “absolutely” possible that the company will invest further in Lake Wales.
“We’ve now got the framework to do a very successful project here that I think will really strengthen and enhance this community,” Gill said, “and if it hasn’t already brought the community together, bring it even closer together and set the table for several hundred million dollars of development in the downtown area, which is an investment in this community that really will pay off in the long term.”
Gary White can be reached at gary.white@theledger.com or 863-802-7518. Follow on X @garywhite13.
This article originally appeared on The Ledger: Lake Wales celebrates deal to restore long-dormant Walesbilt Hotel
Reporting by Gary White, Lakeland Ledger / The Ledger
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