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Two Marriott hotels to open in downtown Louisville April 14 |
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LOUISVILLE, KY (February 16, 2008) - Two connected downtown hotels with a total of 333 rooms are expected to open April 14.
The nine-story SpringHill Suites and the six-floor Fairfield Inn & Suites are both Marriott franchises. The hotels are in the block bounded by Jefferson, First, Liberty and Brook streets. The SpringHill is new construction, while a large part of the Fairfield is a renovation of the old Inn at Jewish Hospital.
The site will also have a three-level garage with 222 parking spaces.
Michael Howerton, Marriott's vice president for the Louisville market, said the location of the hotels is a major asset. The site is close to both the Kentucky International Convention Center and the medical complex.
Jim Wood, president of the Louisville Convention & Visitors Bureau, predicted that the two new hotels, which will share marketing with the nearby flagship Marriott Louisville Downtown, "will do extremely well and have fairly good occupancy. The Marriott brand is very strong."
The partners in the new hotels are White Lodging Services Corp. of Merrillville, Ind.; REI Investments of Carmel, Ind.; and Louisville investors Steve Poe, Nolen Allen, Mike Ehrler and Clyde Ensor. The partners bought the 1.9-acre block in 2006 from a Jewish Hospital & St. Mary's HealthCare subsidiary.
White Lodging and the local investors were also partners in the Marriott Louisville Downtown. They sold it two years ago to RLJ Development and, in turn, plowed proceeds from the sale back into developing the two new hotels, Howerton said.
White Lodging, a major franchisee for the Marriott chain, will manage the two new hotels. It also operates the Marriott Louisville Downtown and owns 127 hotels nationwide.
Howerton will oversee the two new hotels, along with five other Marriott properties in Jefferson County -- the 616-room Marriott Louisville Downtown, the Residence Inn near Slugger Field and three suburban Marriott-franchised sites.
Robert Gigliotti will be the general manager of both the SpringHill Suites and Fairfield Inn. The two hotels will have rooms available for Kentucky Derby weekend.
The SpringHill location will have 198 suites with rates of $149 to $179 a night. The Fairfield Inn & Suites will have 115 regular rooms and 15 suites. Its rates will be a bit lower than those of SpringHill. The major construction, which started a year ago, is finished, with work now concentrating on the interiors and installing equipment and furniture, Howerton said.
The Fairfield and SpringHill properties are connected by an internal hallway and share 2,200 square feet of meeting space, an outdoor terrace, an indoor pool, an exercise room and business-services center. The two properties will share a staff of about 70.
Howerton said he expects the two new hotels to have an average room occupancy of about 65 percent, or similar to the rate for the Marriott Louisville Downtown.
Gigliotti said the two new hotels will cater to convention traffic, the business traveler and visitors to the nearby medical center.
Howerton said the Marriott Downtown's sales personnel will market the two new hotels. "We will have three hotels with nearly 1,000 rooms within a block," he said.
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