St. James Hotel closes for 'several months' for switch in management

The St. James Hotel in downtown Selma is closed – for now.

Owner Jim Lewis said the renovated historic hotel on Water Avenue fronting the Alabama River is under new management again and going through a reboot. 

“The hotel is temporarily closed, providing an opportunity for new management to do a product refresh and retraining, basically a re-branding to try to reset and move forward,” Lewis said. 

The hotel is no longer a Hilton property.

Lewis also said the shutdown will be “several months” but reiterated it is not permanent, and a more accurate reopening date may be known by the end of March. 

“We don’t like that this has had to occur, but it was a necessary move with the change in management and with some of the things we understand have gone on from an operations perspective,” Lewis said.

A team of employees has been retained by the new management, and they are not hiring for now, but he added, “I know that they will be posting new positions here shortly.”

Lewis said he understands how important the St. James Hotel is to Selma. 

“This it's necessarily great news for anybody, but we really are as determined as we have been to see this thing through,” Lewis said.