First Radisson Hotel In 1907, Edna Dickerson came to
Minneapolis, Minnesota, from
Chicago to collect a substantial inheritance. Local business leaders persuaded her to build a hotel in the city, with Dickerson investing $1.5 million in the construction of the first Radisson hotel. and constructed with "the best in every line" of paints, enamels, woodwork, and wood finishes, and named after the 17th-century French explorer, ranger, and furrier
Pierre-Esprit Radisson, cofounder of the
Hudson's Bay Company. The building was sixteen stories, making it the second-tallest building in Minneapolis at the time. The hotel opened on Wednesday, December 15, 1909, with many of the staff having been hired from large hotels on the Eastern seaboard, and being new to the city of Minneapolis. The opening was followed shortly thereafter by a
charity ball for the city being held at the hotel. In an early hotel incident the following month, six waiters from New York were fired, allegedly "because the Eastern waiters could not get accustomed to the Western ways", with three of them being thrown out "into the street before they would leave". Dickerson and her husband, attorney Simon Kruse, lived on the hotel's thirteenth floor and managed the hotel, also opening a Radisson Inn on
Christmas Lake, in the Minneapolis suburb of
Excelsior. Another owner initiated a renovation of the hotel in the late 1940s. and constructing new buildings in
Bloomington, Minnesota, and
Duluth, Minnesota. The chain had 14 locations by 1976, and 32 by 1984. The original Radisson in Minneapolis was demolished in 1982, with a new hotel being constructed in that city and beginning operations in 1987. The company's headquarters, as well as the headquarters of the owner, Radisson Hospitality, Inc., were located in
Minnetonka,
Minnesota, a suburb of
Minneapolis, the city where the first Radisson Hotel was built. In the 1990s, American-Russian businessman Paul Tatum was murdered after a series of disagreements over the Radisson Hotel in Moscow.
Recent History In 2021, Radisson agreed to split off Radisson Hotel Group Americas as a separate organization with complete operational independence. At the time, Radisson Hotel Group was operated by
Jinjiang International, a state-owned Chinese firm headquartered in
Shanghai. Radisson Hotel Group Americas relocated its headquarters from
Minnetonka to
St. Louis Park in early 2022. The company reshuffled its c-suite, adding several industry veterans. The same year, CEO Jim Alderman stepped down and was succeeded by Tom Buoy, the recently appointed chief commercial officer, as interim chief executive. Radisson Hotel Group Americas partnered with Lockwood Development partners and Commonwealth Hotels to acquire and redevelop nine hotels with Veteran Services USA. On June 13, 2022, the Radisson Hotel Group agreed to sell Radisson Hotels Americas – consisting of the Radisson franchise agreements, operations and intellectual property in the United States, Canada, Latin America and the Caribbean – to
Choice Hotels for $675 million. Choice Hotel International’s acquisition of RHGA nearly doubled its footprint in the upscale hotel segment. ==Brands==