Ten stories tall and sprawling over 15 acres, the new Embassy Suites Murfreesboro Hotel & Convention Center is difficult to miss.
At a size that dominates the landscape along Interstate 24 on the northern end of Murfreesboro, the building, which opens next month, demands that drivers take notice. At a time when the economy is slowing and gasoline prices are high, the resort-style design is a bold attempt to remake the city's convention market.
"You've got a strong regional economy, great interstate visibility, a very undervalued market, a vibrant university," said Scott Tarwater, executive vice president of development for the firm's developer, John Q. Hammons Hotels & Resorts. "Why would you want to be anywhere else?"
With a building that boasts 283 suites, an 80,000-square-foot conference center and the third-largest ballroom in the Nashville metropolitan area, Springfield, Mo.-based John Q. Hammons hopes to grab more than people's attention. It wants a piece of Nashville's convention center market.
But it is doing so with an unusual twist.
Rather than compete in downtown's crowded hotel market — or go head-to-head with Music Valley behemoth Gaylord Opryland Resort & Convention Center — Hammons has placed its $75 million inn in one of the city's outermost suburbs, betting that road warriors and conventioneers will trek outward in their quest for inexpensive accommodations and easy access to meeting space.
The hotel is a risk for Murfreesboro, which has put nearly $7 million into the project, but it relies on a tried-and-true strategy for John Q. Hammons, which takes its name from the company's founder. (Hammons was not available for an interview.)
John Q. Hammons says its aim is to build in smaller, high-growth markets that feature institutions such as state government offices, universities, airports and corporate headquarters that company executives believe will generate demand. As such, the Embassy Suites Murfreesboro is proof that the company still believes it can draw business out of the city center, if the quarters are less expensive and more convenient.
Lodging industry coolsThe hotel is opening in times that haven't been so kind to the lodging industry, which has seen bookings and revenue drop as the economy slows and fuel costs rise.
According to Smith Travel Research, a Hendersonville-based hotel industry data firm, average occupancy for convention hotels in suburban locations has fallen 4.5 percent over the last year. Revenue per available room has fallen 0.7 percent.
Embassy Suites Murfreesboro is projected to open no later than Sept. 16, and so far it has booked one meeting, the annual trade show for the Tennessee Society of Association Executives, a state organization representing the executive staff of other trade groups, such as the Masonry Institute of Tennessee and the Tennessee Trucking Association.
Company officials view that booking, which will draw about 300 people in early December, as proof that their concept will work in Murfreesboro, because it is exactly the kind of meeting the Embassy Suites was built to attract.
Before moving this year to the hotel, the TSAE trade show had floated to locations around Middle Tennessee, including Opryland, the downtown convention center and the Franklin Marriott.
"This is good for us, and it's good for the building," said Betsy Hilt, the TSAE's executive director.
Lying close to the geographic center of Tennessee, Murfreesboro is the ideal place for meetings of groups whose members live too far away to return home at night, but too close to book a flight into Nashville, project supporters say.
"It's a long drive from one end of the state to the next," said Robert Lyons, Murfreesboro's assistant city manager.
Murfreesboro has more than a rooting interest in the project. It spent $5.9 million to buy the land on which the hotel sits; the city leases that land to John Q. Hammons for a token $1,000a year. It also spent $780,000 to build the road into the hotel, a 1,000-foot spur off Medical Center Parkway.
"Our business community, the chamber of commerce membership, told us they needed a facility like this," Lyons said. "They were having to go to Nashville or Franklin for meetings."
The hotel has taken two years to build, and on a tour last month, the hotel's management showed off some of the features that they believe will give them an edge. These include a 24-hour business center, an on-site coffee shop and Internet cafe, a hotel restaurant that can seat 250 people, and a 28,800-square-foot ballroom that can seat 2,000 people.
Within the region, only Opryland's two biggest ballrooms are bigger, hotel managers say.
Off the convention center wing is the main hotel itself, which rises 118 feet around a central atrium. Every room has a suite-style layout, with a living area and bedroom.
Rooms start at $149 a night, and as with other hotels in the Embassy Suites chain, the price includes a full breakfast and evening cocktails.
"If you take the rate for a downtown Nashville, upscale hotel, add parking, breakfast, cocktails, you will come out $35 to $50 per person per day less in Murfreesboro," Tarwater said.
Whether it works will play out over the next few months. Enthusiasm for the project is high, but even Tarwater admits the hotel faces a challenging business climate and the risks associated with bringing a new strategy — even one that has worked elsewhere — to a new town.
"We would not be investing $75 million if we were not confident," Tarwater said. "We're the ones that have to pay the mortgage payments."
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