New hotel on target for 2006 opening
Embassy Suites downtown has7 floors built so far
Friday, September 23, 2005
Thursday's tour of the Embassy Suites hotel downtown was more dust and noise than food and lodging. But Wanda Gaddis was excited nonetheless.
Local officials and media donned hard hats and boarded a construction elevator to see parts of what will become the 10-story Embassy Suites tower. It was the first time Gaddis, sales director for the hotel, had seen the property up close.
"It's going to be a complement to the properties that are already here," said Gaddis, who moved to Huntsville recently from Montgomery after working for the Embassy Suites hotel there.
An opening date hasn't yet been determined, but it will be sometime next fall, she said.
Seven floors of the structure have been built, said Mike Skelton of Flintco Construction, the general contractor for the project.
An enclosed, climate-controlled skybridge will connect the hotel to the Von Braun Center South Hall from the second floor, Skelton said. The hotel will have 295 suites, including a presidential suite on the top floor. It will also have meeting rooms, an indoor swimming pool, a day spa and a restaurant, which has yet to be named.
The price of standard rooms will range from $119 to $139 per night, Gaddis said. The room charge includes access to Embassy Suites' popular breakfast buffet and managers reception.
Judy Ryals, president and chief executive officer of the Huntsville-Madison County Convention & Visitors Bureau, said her office is already including the hotel is some of its bid proposals for big meetings that could come to Huntsville.
The Holiday Inn Select, which sits across Monroe Street from the Embassy Suites, has 276 rooms.
"The thing we keep selling is, we have double the number of rooms downtown," Ryals said. "That at least gets the planner talking to us."
© 2005 The Huntsville Times
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