Demolition on the former Millennium Hotel in downtown Cincinnati is set to begin as soon as the week of March 22. The Port is handling that project, and President and CEO Laura Brunner says work to prepare the building for demo has already begun.
"This is going to be the time where things get worse before they get better again," Brunner said. "It's going to be hard to contain, hard to do in a very neat and orderly fashion, but we will do the very best we can."
Workers are removing asbestos floor by floor. Brunner says the Elm Street skywalk is first on the list to come down. The north tower will be deconstructed starting the first week of June, followed by the south tower a week later.
Full demolition won't be complete for at least another year.
The Millennium Hotel was widely criticized in the years leading up to its closure on Dec. 31, 2019. At one point, Mayor John Cranley publicly discouraged people from staying there, pointing to online reviews calling the hotel "horrible" and the "worst downtown hotel ever," and saying it caused people to have bad experiences in Cincinnati. The site has been vacant since December 2019. A new standalone hotel could replace the Millennium, or be connected to the Duke Convention Center next door.
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