Almost two decades after the building closed, downtown Dallas' landmark Statler Hotel is back in business Tuesday with its first guests.

Developers spent three years and $230 million saving the Commerce Street building, which has been turned into a luxury Hilton Curio hotel, apartments and restaurants.

"We are proud to open the doors of the Statler, 60 years after Conrad Hilton brought it to downtown Dallas," said Evan Danziger, general manager of the 159-room hotel.

"We celebrate the beginning of a new era for the hotel. Everyone is proud to be a part of the project."

Danziger said the first overnight guests are having a group meeting in the hotel on opening day.

He said the hotel has been modernized with "just a hint of 1950s nostalgia."

"We have combined timeless midcentury design with the latest advances in technology and luxury," Danziger said.

One of Dallas' grandest midcentury buildings, the 19-story hotel that once entertained movie stars and presidents had fallen on hard times when in closed in 2001.

1 / 3The Statler Hotel reopens almost 17 years after the building closed.(Steve Brown / Staff) 2 / 3One of the rooms in the Statler Hotel in downtown Dallas.(Vernon Bryant / Staff Photographer) 3 / 3A second-floor balcony gives a view of the lobby at the Statler Hotel.(Steve Brown / Staff)

After sitting empty for years, there was a push to knock the building down to enlarge the park across the street. The property made preservationists' list of the most endangered landmarks in Dallas.

In 2014, Farmers Branch-based Centurion American Development Group bought the Statler and —backed with almost $50 million in financial incentives from the city — began the renovation.

Along with the hotel rooms, more than 200 apartments were built on the upper floors. The apartments, which opened a few months ago, are already about half leased.

"We did what we were supposed to do — we delivered on promises we made to the city of Dallas," said Centurion American CEO Mehrdad Moayedi.

Moayedi said construction on the project will finish up in the next couple of weeks. And Centurion American has just broken ground on a more than 800-space parking garage, retail and residential building next door.

The Dallas Morning News plans to relocate its offices into the adjoining former Dallas Public Library later this year.

"We had many skilled developers look at this project and say no way," said Dallas City Council member Philip Kingston. "This is a project that had to be done.

"If we had torn down the Statler, it would have been an architectural and historic loss to the city of Dallas."

Only through very creative uses of public finance was the project done, Kingston said. Some of those financing methods and costs of the project have drawn scrutiny from federal officials and resulted in legal action.

"When you try to do something good, you will in fact encounter haters," Kingston said. "I'm thankful for Centurion American sticking to it."

Kingston said completion of the hotel continues redevelopment of the blocks surrounding downtown's Main Street Garden park.

"You are looking at an area that when I moved to Dallas was the deadest urban space in Texas," he said. "Now it is one of the most vibrant."

The Statler Hotel is the biggest downtown Dallas redevelopment to date and one of the last large buildings in the central business district to be renovated.

"It's the largest in terms of square footage, the number of venues and the dollars spent," said architect Jerry Merriman, whose firm designed the redo. "It's great to stand here and finally see it finished."