Detroit Riverside Hotel

The Detroit Riverside Hotel, formerly the Hotel Pontchartrain, is an upscale high-rise hotel in downtown Detroit, Michigan.

It is located across the street from Cobo Center and from 150 West Jefferson, as well as neighbouring Hotel Fort Shelby to the south. The building was constructed in 1965 to a height of 25 floors (75 metres, or 245 feet). It contains 367 rooms, and is used as a hotel, restaurant, and fitness center. The Pontchartrain was designed in the modern architectural style employing angular bay windows in its design, which provides every room with views of the Detroit Riverfront.

The hotel is built on the same exact site as Fort Pontchartrain (for which it was originally named), Detroit's first permanent European settlement, built in 1701, which later became known as Fort Detroit.

In 1985 the hotel was purchased by Crescent Hotel Group, a subsidiary of Lincoln Savings & Loan for $19.5 million. Lincoln S&L Chairman Charles Keating soon thereafter arranged to buy the hotel outright from the company and set up the Hotel Ponchartrain LP, controlled by Keating, his family, and executive contacts, to hold it. The sale was financed by a series of ethically questionable loans from Lincoln and its subsidiaries and totaled $38 million. This arrangement was later cited by Sen. Donald W. Riegle (D-MI) as his basis for considering Keating a constituent during his involvement in the Keating Five scandal.

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