After years of planning, a proposal for a much-anticipated Lake Minnetonka hotel has been nixed.
The developer withdrew his application this week for the 58-room boutique hotel in Excelsior — initially pegged as the first hotel on the Twin Cities' busiest lake in 50 years — saying in a letter to the city that construction costs were too high to go forward.
"I think it's a loss for the city," Mayor Mark Gaylord said Friday. "It would have returned the city to its historic roots."
The hotel, a controversial project from the start, nevertheless was part of Excelsior's push to capitalize on Lake Minnetonka's popularity.
For more than 15 years, developers have dreamed of resurrecting the era of grand hotels that once dotted the lake, drawing wealthy city residents beginning in the 1880s. At the era's peak, about 40 hotels were on the lake.
By the early 1900s, however, many of them had shut down either because of slow business or fires. The last was torn down in 1964.
In recent years, attempts to build a Lake Minnetonka hotel fizzled under financial constraints. In Mound, a study concluded the city shouldn't pursue one, saying it wouldn't work economically. The city shifted to restaurants, retail and entertainment instead.
But a 92-room boutique hotel, the Landing, is going up in Wayzata and will open in 2017. It is part of a major 14-acre redevelopment project, the Promenade of Wayzata, that includes senior housing, retail, offices and condos.