By Patrick Crowley
The Cincinnati Enquirer

FORT MITCHELL - A Northern Kentucky lodging and convention business pioneer has fallen victim of a travel industry slump and a saturated hotel market.

The 32-year-old, 485-bed Drawbridge hotel filed a Chapter 11 reorganization plan Tuesday in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Lexington. By filing Chapter 11, the Drawbridge, which has debts of about $10.5 million, will be allowed to stay in business while it works out a plan to reorganize its operations and make full and partial payoffs to creditors.

Jerry Deters, the developer and owner of the hotel at Interstate 75 and Buttermilk Pike, was not in his hotel office Wednesday and unavailable to comment. But the lawyer handling the reorganization expressed confidence.

"The Drawbridge is not going under," said Thomas Coffey, a lawyer at Cors & Bassett in Fort Wright. "Our reorganization plan is already completed ... and the Drawbridge is going to get on with the business of running a hotel."

When it opened in 1971, the Drawbridge - then known as the Round Towner Inn - was the largest hotel and convention center in Northern Kentucky. For years it was a premier location for large events. Its restaurants, particularly The Gatehouse, were considered among the finest in the region.

"As I travel across the state, I often interact with people who have stayed at the Drawbridge or attended an event there," said Steve Stevens, vice president of government affairs at the Northern Kentucky Chamber of Commerce. "It is such a recognizable and visible feature of Northern Kentucky. It is a shame that business has fallen off to this level."

As Northern Kentucky grew through the 1980s and 1990s, so did the number of hotels, mainly on the Covington riverfront, in Florence along I-75 and near the Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International Airport in Boone County. The Northern Kentucky Convention and Visitors Bureau has reported that the number of hotel rooms in the region grew from 4,200 in 1997 to more than 7,500 today.

But only about half of all rooms in the region were filled last year.

In 2002, Northern Kentucky's hotel occupancy rate was just 52.6 percent, according to Smith Travel Research of Hendersonville, Tenn.

The Northern Kentucky Convention Center, which opened five years ago in Covington, also took business from the hotel, which today operates under the Drawbridge Villager Premier Hotel name.

On Wednesday the bankruptcy court approved Drawbridge's plan to fund its $140,000 bimonthly payroll. "That means all employees will be paid," Coffey said.

E-mail pcrowley@enquirer.com