Dec. 25--There's not much left of the old Bel Air East, a 38-year-old downtown hotel known for years for its Trader Vic's and Miss Hulling's Open Hearth restaurants. 

Behind the fenced site at Fourth Street and Washington Avenue, construction crews are demolishing interior walls and are removing pre-cuts concrete and metal panels from the exterior. Even balconies on the 16-story tower overlooking the Gateway Arch and the riverfront are being eliminated. But not the views. 

"We are extending all the walls out to enclose the balconies, so the hotel rooms will be bigger," said architect Louis Chiodini, president of Chiodini Associates. 

On the outside, he said, large, arched windows will be added around the base and at the top. Stuccolike and limestonelike materials will replace the more contemporary concrete and metal. 

"We wanted to give it a more transitional style and blend it with the historic character of downtown," Chiodini said. 

What's in the works is an extensive $15-million renovation of the old hotel -- most recently a Ramada Inn -- into the 190-room Hampton Inn Hotel at the Arch. 

When the work is finished in early 2003, the new owners say, downtown will have essentially a brand-new hotel. 

"This will be an almost complete demolition and rebuild, except for the support columns and the exterior frame itself," said Bob King, director of sales and marketing at Raymond Management Co. of Madison, Wis. 

Raymond Management, a 20-year-old company that has developed mostly Hampton Inn properties in Midwestern cities in recent years, bought the hotel in July, ending a quest that began more than two years ago. At that point, King said, Raymond owned four Hampton Inns in Missouri: Columbia, Kansas City, Lee's Summit and St. Charles. 

But the company wanted to expand, and it wanted to own a premiere hotel in downtown St. Louis. 

Nearly two years ago, King said, a real estate broker in Wisconsin, working with another one in Columbia, learned that the Ramada Inn was for sale. The location was good, near America's Center and the Trans World Dome, Laclede's Landing, the riverfront and the Arch. But the building itself wasn't exactny what Raymond had in mind. 

"It was," King said, "in need of rehabilitation. . . . And that's why we took so long to scrutinize it. We had to figure out if it could be made into something of better quality, something that would meet Hampton Inn's, Hilton's and Raymond Management's standards." 

Hampton Inns are part of the Hilton hotel group. 

In some respects, Raymond's decision to proceed with the project is a departure from its past. 

The company was formed in 1978 to build Country Kitchen restaurants. In 1980, it bought out the Country Kitchen owners in Wisconsin and later expanded the number of restaurants to more than 60 from 40. In 1994, it sold Country Kitchen and focused on developing Hampton Inn properties and other hotels. Today, Raymond owns and operates 13 Hampton Inns and three Super 8 Motels in five states. 

But none of the other hotels, King said, involved such extensive rebuilding. 

The hotel in St. Louis also will have more features than a typical Hampton Inn, including a full-service restaurant and bar, a business center and 7,000 square feet of meeting rooms and extra-large rooms, with as much as 390 square feet. 

As at other Hampton Inns, rates will be moderate, what King calls "value oriented." 

King said Raymond expects the revamped hotel to attract a wide variety of people, from tourists and convention-goers to sports fans and others attending events downtown. 

He said his company is not concerned about competing with other new hotels coming on line downtown. 

"We will add variety and provide another choice for people -- a Hilton product," he said. 

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(c) 2001, St. Louis Post-Dispatch. Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News. CD, HLT,