While McKibbon Hotel Group, developer of the new Aloft Asheville Downtown hotel on Biltmore Avenue, has the right to construct a building with an exterior that it likes, one wonders about the firm’s sanity in placing such an architectural monstrosity in downtown Asheville.

One would expect that McKibbon would want to protect its multimillion-dollar investment by erecting a building that would please — rather than infuriate -— the people of Asheville, who are justifiably proud of their downtown’s unique look, and that it would want to preserve the beauty of the downtown, which is renowned for its drop-dead-gorgeous, eclectic, art deco-style buildings.

Indeed, Asheville is home to the largest collection of art deco buildings in the Southeast, thanks to the internationally famous architects, who were brought in to work on the Biltmore House in the 1920s. While here, they designed a number of downtown buildings in their spare time, commissioned by far-sighted property-owners with aesthetically pleasing architectural taste that McKibbon lacks.

The downtown also has arts and crafts and other handsome styles of buildings — and they don’t clash.

The Aloft hotel — with its goofy sloping front roofline, tacky neon lights and blocky, Soviet-style shape — resembles a cheap lodge in one of shabby parts of Miami. Arguably, it is the ugliest building ever placed in our downtown.

Worse, City Council on Sept. 11 agreed to proceed with the sale of the land across from the breath-taking Basilica of St. Lawrence to McKibbon to erect a 140-room hotel. Now is the time for public pressure to be exerted on McKibbon to give that hotel a stellar design.