Tom Bailey

USA TODAY NETWORK – Tennessee

The historic Central Station building will soon become a hotel like none other, says the grandson of the man who revolutionized the hotel industry 65 years ago.

Interior demolition is to start within two months and construction be finished by summer 2018 on Central Station Hotel in Downtown's South Main District.

The hotel will have a lobby, bar, ballroom, guest rooms, restaurant and retail, all stamped with the rich character of a 103-year-old train station.

But the redevelopment will feature a still-secret sauce – something "experiential'' – being cooked up by McLean Wilson and the same think tank he worked with for seven years to create the Crosstown Concourse "vertical urban village'' redevelopment four miles away.

Those men – Wilson, his Concourse co-leader Todd Richardson and Crosstown Art's Chris Miner – don't so much develop buildings as ideas.

"We want this to be an extremely special experience,'' Wilson said of what will formally be called Central Station Hotel, Curio Collection by Hilton.

The 39-year-old grandson of the late Holiday Inn founder, Kemmons Wilson, is one of the third-generation principals of Kemmons Wilson Companies.

He joined with developers Henry Turley and Archie Willis in a $55 million redevelopment of Memphis Area Transit Authority's Central Station.

Turley and Willis have built apartments on the former rail yard. Malco Theatres will convert the adjacent Powerhouse building into a multi-screen theater. And Wilson will:

– Convert the apartment tower into 124 hotel rooms offering large windows and sweeping views;

– Renovate the ballroom with improved acoustics and new paint;

– Convert the station's waiting area into a large bar that aspires to be the "living room'' for the South Main Historic District;

– Transform the existing Amtrak lobby and ticketing space into the hotel lobby;

– Create a new, state-of-the-art Amtrak lobby a few feet away where Memphis Police once had a substation;

– Change ground-floor meeting areas and offices along South Main and G.E. Patterson into a 3,500-square-foot restaurant and 6,000 square feet of retail that will likely include a coffee shop;

– And make the outside train platform – between the train tracks and lobbies – a better first impression for travelers by replacing much of the concrete with landscaping and a patio.

If those comprise the project's cake, Wilson is not ready to reveal the icing.

"There's a lot to come,'' he said. "There's something I probably can't be forthcoming with... But you can have the same expectations of self-discovery and unique experiences here in this hotel similar to what you experience at Crosstown Concourse.''

Crosstown Concourse will formally open in August. The aspiration for the multi-use, 1.5-million-square-foot building is for art to be a catalyst in having all the tenants engaging with each other and building a sense of community than simply co-existing.

In tackling the Central Station Hotel project, Wilson said he, Richardson and Miner as well as project consultant Tony Bologna sought the answers to three questions:

How would someone walking into Central Station Hotel know they are in Memphis? How would they know they are on South Main? And how would they know they are at Central Station Hotel?

"And so we needed to solve for those elements, and it took us a while for us to know some of the answers to those questions.''

More broadly, many of the big hotel brands like Hilton have started boutique-hotel lines like Curio in responding to those travelers who seek more of an authentic, neighborhood experience rather than what a big hotel brand might prescribe, Wilson said.

"And that is to allow the developer to curate an experience,'' he said. "... What is exciting about this building and its conversion to a hotel is being part of the South Main story and being able to leverage that and allow for the people visiting here to walk out the front door and go to the Arcade for breakfast and to have the experience at Earnestine & Hazel's and walk a block to the (National) Civil Rights Museum or to meander through the farmer's market or have a meal at Central BBQ.''

Central Station Hotel will seek to represent "aspects of Memphis in totality,'' Wilson said. "Take music for instance. There's obviously Graceland and Beale Street and the wonderful, many things in Memphis that showcase the history of music.

"But I don't know that there's really a place that showcases everything from the old to the new and everything in between,'' Wilson said. "That's one small piece of making sure that the Memphis story just isn't about Beale Street Music and Graceland music. It's about a lot of the influence of a lot of different musicians and people working in the music industry.''

Asked what he thought his grandfather would think of the Central Station Hotel project, Wilson responded, "I think he would be thrilled because he loved Memphis. I think he would say this is really complicated and 'Aren't there easier ways to have a hotel asset on South Main?' But I think ultimately he would be very proud of just the commitment and dedication to the city and making it a better place for all of us.''

It wasn't until he was a sophomore at the University of Virginia when Wilson fully grasped the role Kemmons Wilson played in business.

"I had a class. It was a leadership class,'' McLean said. "My grandfather was Chapter 7.''