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Largest hotel in state opens today
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Just a block from the nearly completed super-sized Phoenix Convention Center, the 1,000-room Sheraton Phoenix Downtown Hotel made its grand debut Tuesday.
It came at a time when the economy and the travel industry are sinking.
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But East Valley tourism leaders are cheering, not jeering, the new competition.
"We've been supportive of the Convention Center complex, and the Convention Center couldn't be successful without the hotel," said Robert Brinton, executive director of the Mesa Convention & Visitors Bureau. "This will allow for much bigger conventions."
The new Sheraton is now the biggest hotel in Arizona, snatching the title from the 950-room JW Marriott Desert Ridge Resort in northeast Phoenix. It features 80,000 square feet of meeting space, a fitness center, outdoor pool and sun deck, indoor-outdoor restaurant and lounge, a lobby bar and Internet cafe.
Phoenix taxpayers own the $350 million hotel, which was financed by city bonds, but it's managed by Starwood Hotels & Resorts, one of the largest hotel companies in the world and parent to dozens of other local properties, including The Phoenician.
The Convention Center, which balloons from 300,000 square feet of meeting and exhibition space to 900,000 when its $650 million redo is completed in a few months, already has a couple of January group bookings expected to attract more than 10,000 delegates each, said Doug MacKenzie, spokesman for the Greater Phoenix Convention and Visitors Bureau.
The Sheraton, the Convention Center and the new light-rail system, which is expected to start operating in late December, are a triple play for Valley tourism, MacKenzie said.
Companies and groups trying to slash expenses without cutting out meetings and travel plans should flock to the Valley, he said.
That's because airfares to Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport have not risen significantly - at least so far, MacKenzie said. Add to that downtown Phoenix's proximity to the airport, a cheap, fast convenient system to transport business travelers between the airport and the Convention Center, a self-contained downtown setting for meeting sessions and reasonably priced hotel rooms. MacKenzie said it all adds up to a good deal for value-minded meeting planners.
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