Meeting Complex Makes Rutherford A Conference Call
Published Jun 12, 2009
The Embassy Suites Hotel & Conference Center includes 283 guest suites and more than 43,000 square feet of meeting space.
Becky Vealey hears the word “convenience” a lot.
As director of sales for the new Embassy Suites Hotel & Conference Center, she hears from event planners who like the Murfreesboro spot because it is just off Interstate 24, adjacent to The Avenue Murfreesboro, a bustling retail development, and free of traffic and parking hassles found in large cities.
The $70 million development opened in September 2008 and in March 2009 hosted a conference of Global Fire Ministries. April 2009 brought 300 military historians from across the United States. The Sons of Confederate Veterans is eying the conference center for its 2012 gathering.
“It is an ideal location. It is dead center in the middle of the state,” says Mona Herring, vice president of the Rutherford County Convention & Visitors Bureau.
The complex has a 28,000 square-foot ballroom and 43,000 square feet of meeting space. Younger Associates estimates the hotel and its meeting space will draw more than 107,000 visitors and generate nearly $18 million in spending each year.
A conference for school guidance counselors sponsored by the Tennessee Department of Education used all the meeting space for breakout and general sessions.
Before the venue opened, the largest available meeting space in Rutherford County could accommodate only 400 people, Herring says. The Embassy can hold several thousand.
The Tennessee Society of Association Executives hosted its annual trade show at the Embassy Suites in December, and members were impressed, says Becky Shilt, executive director. Free parking and easy access to The Avenue Murfreesboro shops make the conference site even more attractive, she says.
“It is absolutely beautiful, with gorgeous artwork and furnishings,” Shilt says. “They really did a fabulous job getting it together.”
Story by Pamela Coyle
Photo by J. Kyle Keener
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