ST. LOUIS, Missouri—When occupancy plummets, many hoteliers’ reaction is to lower room rates to try and reverse the slide even though many consultants have explained repeatedly why this isn’t a sound business practice: It lowers revenue long term, and it takes a long time to restore rates to where they once were. When hoteliers lower rates across the board to boost occupancy, they devalue their property. Instead, they should hold steady on rate and emphasize the value (i.e., amenities) the hotel provides.

The St. Louis, Missouri, market has performed better than most in the top 25 when it comes to holding rates steady. The market’s average daily rate through the first three quarters of 2009 was USUS $82.44, down 6 percent compared to the first three quarters of 2008 when ADR was US $87.70.

Business and community leaders recently raised frosty mugs of Fitz’s root beer to toast the new Homewood Suites by Hilton – St. Louis Gallaria.

During the celebration, representatives of Equis Hospitality Management and Ranken Jordan, a specialty pediatric hospital in Maryland Heights, announced they had formed a partnership.

Homewood Suites, located at the intersection of Clayton Road and Brentwood Boulevard in Richmond Heights, is providing up to six free rooms every night of the year and complimentary, round-trip shuttle service for families of patients at Ranken Jordan.

If you’re playing holiday host to a full house this year, the recently built Homewood Suites by Hilton, across from the Saint Louis Galleria, is the ideal place to put up out-of-town guest.  It offers all the comfy amenities you’d expect in an all-suite hotel – spacious, clean rooms with equipped kitchens, free high-speed internet and a fitness center with a personal trainer on site.

The coolest feature of this hotel is the Suite Shop, a fully stocked gift store where locale produced St. Louis favorites- Schlafly beer, Ted Drewes frozen custar, Bissinger’s chocolates, Dad’s Scotch Oatmeal Cookies, Switzer’s licorice, Lucia’s toasted ravioli and Fitz’s root beer (the hotel sits on the grounds of Fitz’s original drive-in hamburger stand location) - are available 24 hours a day.  So when your friends and relatives stay at Homewood Suites this holiday season, you can feel confident they’ll receive a delicious fulfilling STL experience (8040 Clayton Rd., Richmond Heights. 314.863.7700).

John Steffen and Mike Mullenix are partnering on a $30 million conversion of the century-old Metropolitan Building in Grand Center into a Hyatt Place hotel and working on a plan to bring a Starwood 'aloft' brand hotel to the Arcade building downtown.

The Grand Center Hyatt Place will be the first historic rehab hotel for Chicago-based Hyatt's Hyatt Place flag, It also will be Steffen's first hotel development and Mullenix's first historic rehab project.

Steffen also is negotiating with Mullenix's Equis Hospitality Management to bring an aloft hotel to the Arcade building downtown at 810 Olive St. Mullenix said he's in discussions with Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide Inc. to open an aloft Hotel under its W Hotels division, but an agreement has not yet been reached.

Micheal Mullenix sounds and loks like aman who is exactly where he wants to be. “My job is to control uncontrollable,” he said with a smile.

After leading his two brothers in a buy-out last year of their father’s hospitality business, Dominion Hospitality, and rechristening it Equis Hospitality, Mullenix has set a goal of over 300 percent growth in the next 5 years. Backed by a new construction subsidiary, Citadel Construction run by brother Greg, new financial partners, Rockbridge capital Corp. and Syndicated Equities Corp., and a “clever vision,” Mullenix is confident of the company’s growth, just maybe not the numbers.

“We have a very aggressive goal of having 5,000 hotel rooms in five years,” he said. The company had 1200 rooms when he set the goal. “if we hit 3,000 in five years u will be delighted.”

They already have a jump on the St. Louis part of the plan. In January, Equis announced the coming contrustion of two hotels in Richmond Heights, a 243-room Westin Hotel and a 144-room Homewood Suites by Hilton, the centerpieces of an $150 million development with Sansone Group called The Fountains. That announcement followed an August 2006 announcement of the start of construction on a 104-room, $11.5 million Homewood Suites art Riverport. In March 2006, before the buyout was complete, Dominion Hospitality had opened a 188-room, $25 million Residence Inn by Marriott at I-64 and Jefferson Avenue.

Warning: If you are going to be working on the hotel-retail development across from the St. Louis Galleria, watch the length of your breaks, Big Brother is watching, Big Brother Michael Mullenix, that it.

Mullenix and younger siblings Doug and Greg are the driving forces behind Equis Hospitality Management, along with President Jerry Fischer.

Equis will start construction on the project that will include a 235-room Westin, a 144-suite Homewood Suites by Hiltons, 30,000-square-feet of retail and parking for more than 600 cars on a 74-0-acre strip of land next to the University Club in Richmond Heights.

Looming High about the suite in the Magna Bank Building at 1401 South Brentwood Boulevard, Michael Mullenix casts a glance toward the site.

Clayton-based Sansone Group is developing the retail of the project.

The Mullenix boys are the sons of Ike Mullenix, whose Mullenix Properties Inc. was the most prolific builder of apartments in the area.