Hotel, Conference Center New Draw for Visitors
Published Jul 22, 2008
With 283 suites and 80,000 square feet of meeting space the $75 million Embassay Suites Murfreesboor Hotel & Conference Center will boost Rutherford County’s business profile.
Derek Frisby wasted no time. An assistant professor of history at Middle Tennessee State University, Frisby was the first to book a conference at the new Embassy Suites Murfreesboro Hotel & Conference Center.
The complex on Conference Center Drive will open in fall 2008 and the Society for Military History will attract 500 academic and non-academic historians in April 2009.
“I think this conference center is going to be huge, for the county and the university,” says Frisby, an officer in the society. “I wanted to make those connections early.”
With 283 suites, 80,000 square feet of meeting space, including a 28,800-square-foot ballroom, the $75 million hotel and conference center will boost Rutherford County’s already impressive business profile.
The development off Interstate 24 and Medical Center Parkway in the burgeoning Gateway development is the first conference center in Tennessee for Springfield, Mo.-based owner John Q. Hammons Hotels & Restaurants.
Before it opens, Embassy Suites Murfreesboro will hire and train 300 to 400 people. General Manager David Latture says the conference center’s status as “the best, nicest place in town” will draw quality applicants.
“There is a lot of growth going on,” says Latture. “I think the labor market will be good.”
Construction is on track for the fall opening and the center already has several conventions and meetings booked.
Murfreesboro invested $5.9 million for land in the Gateway and pitched in additional funds for road improvements around the project, which is adjacent to The Avenue Murfreesboro retail development. An economic impact study by market research firm Younger Associates says the hotel and its meeting space will draw more than 107,000 visitors and generate nearly $18 million in spending annually.
Bill Jones, chairman of public-private economic development partnership Destination Rutherford, says the hotel/conference center is one of the most important new developments in the county.
Hammons, who is known as an industry site-selection master, didn’t decide to invest millions in Rutherford County “just because he likes us,” Jones says. “They are getting all sorts of conference business already.”
Story by Pamela Coyle
Photo by Jeff Adkins
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