The King Edward Hotel _ once a towering shell of broken windows and crumbling brick _ stood as an eyesore in Mississippi's capital city for four decades, a gritty symbol of Jackson's slow decline.

After several failed bids by various developers to overhaul the historic landmark, a New Orleans-based company has gotten the renovation done. Thanks in large part to federal tax credits that flowed after Hurricane Katrina, the blighted building has been fully reworked with chandeliers and champagne-colored walls into a gleaming centerpiece of urban renewal.

HRI Properties, along with former New Orleans Saints player Deuce McAllister and Jackson developer David Watkins, have transformed the King Edward into the newly named Hilton Garden Inn-Jackson Downtown.

Gone are the drug users and others who once hid inside the long-shuttered hotel, whose beginnings trace to before the Civil War. The $90 million makeover has produced a 186-room luxury hotel and 64 high-end apartments, most already leased ahead of Thursday's grand opening.

"It will have a really good 'Oh my God factor.' You walk into that atrium and that's the first thing you're going to say," said Ben Allen, a former city councilman and president of a city improvement district called Jackson Downtown Partners.

"It's important because when Gov. Haley Barbour picks up a group of investors from Japan and brings them to the capital city to discuss investing in our state, we need to have first-class accommodations," he added.

With low-hanging chandeliers in the lobby, a domed ballroom ceiling and elegantly appointed suites, the renovated King Edward has few rivals in the city's hotel business. The apartments that rent from $700 to $1,500 monthly have hardwood floors and penthouse views of downtown Jackson. Guests who venture to the hotel rooftop for a swim in the pool can glimpse the Amtrak station tracks nearby, but soundproof windows block the whistles of trains.

"It's so exciting," said Trina McNair, who remembers the hotel as a place to avoid because of those who hid inside. Now, she calls it a blessing since she's been hired to work as a desk clerk after months of unemployment. "It was an eyesore for so long. I never dreamed I would work here."

Built in 1861, the original hotel was destroyed during the Civil War. Its current incarnation has been around since 1923. It's where legislators brokered deals not far from the state Capitol and parties and balls drew the state's upper crust. The hotel banned blacks for years, and after integration swept the South, the King Edward was shuttered in 1967.

For Jackson, that marked the grim decline of the King Edward, even though it was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1976.