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Alabama hotel, built in 1837, at center of legal battle

A company that sought to redevelop a historic hotel overlooking the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma says that city leaders broke their contract for the hotel's sale.

The Janee Hotel Corp. made the allegations in a federal lawsuit filed today in U.S. District Court.

The Illinois-based company says it offered to purchase the St. James Hotel hotel for $100,000 and commit $4.5 million to redevelop it. The company maintains that city councilors voted in August to accept the offer, but later backed out.

Phone calls to the Selma mayor's office and to the city attorney were not immediately returned Tuesday.

The hotel, built in 1837, has been billed as the only surviving riverfront antebellum hotel in the Southeast.

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