STARKVILLE – A boutique hotel and new home for the Ulysses S. Grant Presidential Library will anchor a planned 15-acre development between the Cotton District and Mississippi State University.
Master plans for the Crossroads District, a multi-phase project driven by MSU, show an array of planned shopping centers, restaurants, faculty housing, a new facility to house the Ulysses S. Grant Presidential Library, a parking garage and a land bridge connecting the new hotel to campus.
The first phase of the project will be Hotel Madelon, an upscale, 122-room hotel that will sit on the south side of University Drive, space MSU’s three visual arts buildings currently occupy.
Staff and assets in the visual arts building are relocating to campus, and those buildings will be demolished to make way for the hotel.
John Rush, CEO and president for the MSU Foundation, said the hotel is the first development of many aimed to bridge the gap between the city and campus.
“If you’re coming back and you’re staying at that hotel, not only can you easily walk to campus, you easily can walk into the Cotton District for shopping and dining and all the things that you want to do, plus what we’re going to build,” Rush said. “… What hotel currently gives you the opportunity to park your car and walk to everything you want to do over the course of the weekend? … There’s not one.”
Plans for the Crossroads District have been in the making for years, Rush said, and became more solid about two years ago after MSU Foundation’s for-profit arm, West Side Inc., began investing into properties west of campus across Highway 12.
The organization purchased and renovated the Hampton Inn on Spring Street and the Courtyard off of Russell Street in 2023; it also purchased the Comfort Suites off of Russell Street, which has since been renamed Russell Inn & Suites. Renovations to both were completed last year.
“What we wanted to do … is create an environment where prospective students came here, (and) their parents got excited,” Rush said. “… Where they wanted to come back and visit their kids, and their kids got excited and wanted to come to school here. … We wanted to create a destination where our alumni would come back on non ball-game weekends and spend more time in Starkville.”
Rush said plans to make Starkville a “destination” quickly evolved into the Crossroads District master plan once those properties were acquired. Only the first phase of the project has been outlined so far, though Rush hopes to see the future phases roll out over the next five years.
The 90,000 square-foot Hotel Madelon will have five floors, with a rooftop bar overlooking campus, Rush said.
The first floor will house a lobby, lounging area, creamery, full service restaurant and a private dining area for special events, with about 33% of the rooms throughout the remaining four floors being high-end suites, Rush said. An underground parking lot will also sit directly behind the hotel.
Construction of the hotel and underground parking lot will begin Oct. 1 and is set to be completed summer of 2027.
Rush said he expects the hotel to generate a significant amount of property taxes for the city, though he would not give an estimate of what that would be.
“I will tell you this, the new hotel will generate more ad valorem taxes for the city and school district than the entire block does currently,” he said.
As of now, the only properties on that block are MSU’s three visual arts buildings, Russell Inn & Suites and Renasant Bank.
Future developments
Rush said private funds will pay for the hotel and most future developments at the site, but he would not give an estimate for the expected capital investment. Rush said the foundation will seek federal dollars to help build the Grant library.
Once funding is secured, MSU will begin rolling out the remaining phases.
He said the development’s price tag outpaces any other in the city.
“We know that this project is going to be extremely expensive, and there’s so much up in the air right now with tariffs and other sorts of things, but this will easily be the most significant investment in economic development in Starkville, in our history,” Rush said. “We’ve never had a single project of this magnitude, safe to say.”
Ensuing planned phases include a land bridge that will stretch from the side of Hotel Madelon across Highway 12 onto campus, replacing the current walking bridge.
Just behind the hotel and above the underground parking lot, a multi-use plaza is planned to house multi-story buildings with restaurants and retail stores to occupy the first floors and office spaces to occupy the upper floors.
Directly across the hotel on the northside of University Drive, MSU has planned for a 700-space parking garage to sit into the area’s natural hillside, with faculty townhouses planned to sit both behind the parking garage and facing Colonel Muldrow Drive and University Drive.
A new home for MSU’s Ulysses S. Grant Presidential Library would ideally sit on the corner of Russell Street and Highway 12, Rush said.
Rush said moving the presidential library off campus would serve as a “natural gateway for tourism.”
“Mitchell Memorial (where the Grant library is now) is hard to get to,” Rush said. “This is going to make it easier, not only for Civil War buffs, but … for school groups to be able to come in, park their buses, (have) easy access and tour the grant library, but also get exposed to Mississippi State while they’re there.”
Mayor Lynn Spruill said she’s looking forward to seeing the project develop over the coming years.
“Watching that growth in the development and creating a place where people want to be is what we are all working toward, whether its faculty, staff, students, alumni, all of those generate good things for the city of Starkville and for the university, so it’s a hand-in-hand project.”
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