Saturday, July 19, 2008
Roanoke hotels offer fresh zzz's
One hotel gets a new look and two others will be built in the Roanoke Valley.
Kyle Green | The Roanoke Times
Fadi Touma, general manager for Roanoke Plaza Hotel, looks over a newly renovated seventh-floor room. The 320-room facility is going through a major remodel and is set to become a Sheraton hotel at the end of the year.
An updated look for the director's suite is part of the Roanoke Plaza Hotel's makeover.
The Roanoke Plaza Hotel's restaurant area is newly decorated and will house a new dining spot, Shula's 347 Grill, a chain founded by former NFL coach Don Shula. It will replace the existing restaurant, Charades.
Bryce Hayter, a construction worker for Varney, works on bare drywall installation in the lobby area of the Roanoke Plaza Hotel. The remodeling project also includes the workout area, pool and exterior.
Guests can sip Starbucks coffee at the remodeled snack area in the Roanoke Plaza, which will be renamed the Sheraton Roanoke Hotel.
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Hotels often update their looks every several years to suit the shifting tastes of consumers. One Roanoke hotel is taking that concept to the extreme.
The Roanoke Plaza Hotel, formerly the Wyndham Hotel, is getting a makeover, ranging from guest room overhauls to a larger fitness center.
When the hotel lifts its veil at the end of this year, it will have a new identity, new eateries, posh decor -- and likely higher room rates.
It remains open during the renovations.
Meanwhile, two new hotels are planned in different parts of Roanoke County.
All of these projects are lining up at a time when hotel occupancy taxes and average daily room rates have risen in the Roanoke Valley since the beginning of the year.
Dave Kjolhede, executive director for the Roanoke Valley Convention & Visitors Bureau, said, however, that the rest of the year could be bumpy for the local tourism industry.
In May, the latest monthly figures available, the Roanoke Valley's hotel occupancy rate dropped about 2.5 percent, to 60.3 percent, compared with May of 2007, he said.
"You see where the trend is going," Kjolhede said, referring to a rise in gasoline prices nationwide. "I'm really concerned about the gas. ... It makes it really tough for a family to say, 'Let's go on a week's vacation.' "
"I'm kind of concerned about what the June numbers are going to look like," he added.
But plans are moving forward to transform the Roanoke Plaza Hotel into the Sheraton Roanoke Hotel and Conference Center by the end of the year. The bulk of its business is not from tourism.
Most of the hotel's customers are business travelers, said general manager Fadi Touma, though it draws some tourists and people who stay in the area for sporting events.
Since November, the hotel's owners, Stonebridge Cos. in Colorado, have initiated top-to-bottom renovations across the property, which is just off Hershberger Road and is visible from Interstate 581.
Navin Dimond, president and chief executive officer of Stonebridge, said it was time to do more than a "lipstick" renovation at the hotel, which he described as "tired and dated." Stonebridge purchased the property in 2005 for $8.2 million.
"We like to do a deep renovation," Dimond said, in a phone interview this week. "I would call this style contemporary. It's fresh. It's from today's designs of what the traveler wants to see."
He would not disclose how much money his company is investing in the renovations.
The guests rooms, including five suites, are receiving all new amenities, from dark wood furniture to curved shower rods and flat-screen televisions. About 100 are currently being redesigned, Touma said during a tour of the hotel on Friday.
New restaurants also are part of the plan.
Shula's 347 Grill will move into the hotel's lower level, taking the place of Charades, the only restaurant currently open in the hotel. This new eatery is owned by Shula's Steakhouses, a Florida-based chain founded by legendary NFL coach Don Shula.
It will serve lunch and dinner with a menu including steaks, hamburgers and seafood. Shula's restaurants often locate in hotels, and they like to open locations near office spaces, said Bill Herman, who is vice president of corporate development for the company.
"The hotel that it's in is very important," Herman said in an interview earlier this month. "We tailor to business hotels."
Roanoke will be the 31st location in the United States for Shula's 347 Grill.
Another new restaurant at the hotel will offer a breakfast buffet near the lobby. A redesigned grab-and-go area will brew Starbucks coffee and serve sandwiches and snacks.
Other additions include upgraded conference spaces, wireless Internet access, and a fitness center that's three times the size of the previous one, Touma said.
Many of the hotel's walls have been painted a light yellow. The new carpet is striped in shades of maroon, yellow and black.
But guests can expect to pay a little more once the hotel's transformation is complete. Rooms currently average less than $100 a night, Dimond said, and that rate will increase to more than $100, though he did not state the specific figure.
"It's something that's really done first class," he said. "People will pay for something that's better."
Elsewhere in the Roanoke Valley, a new Comfort Suites is planned for Plantation Road in Roanoke County.
Dharmendra Patel said he will build an approximately 80-room hotel near a retail area where Gander Mountain and Tractor Supply Co. have opened in the last few months. His goal is for the hotel to open by next summer.
Patel also owns a new Comfort Suites that opened last month on Wildwood Road in Salem.
Not too far from the Roanoke Plaza Hotel, an 86-room Candlewood Suites is planned off Thirlane Road in Roanoke County. Engineers are working on logistics for the entrance road, said local hotelier Granger Macfarlane, owner of the project, though he hinted that economic conditions may delay the development.
Still, though the Roanoke Valley's occupancy rate stands to be affected by rising fuel prices as the year goes on, there is positive news in the local hotel industry, Kjolhede said.
Occupancy tax generated by hotels in the Roanoke Valley jumped 14.6 percent to $966,000 during the first quarter of this year, compared with the first three months of 2007, he said. That's likely because the average daily room rate, which was $76.86 from January through May, rose 6 percent from $72.57 last year.
"The hotels are actually making more money," Kjolhede said.
