Downtown hotel to feature condos, conference center

Monday 9 February 2015 | 1 comments

A 16-story hotel has been proposed on Center Street at Shattuck Avenue.  Image: JRDV Urban InternationalThe developer of the proposed 16-story hotel on Center Street and Shattuck Avenue in downtown Berkeley has nixed the idea of having office space in the building, but will instead include a conference center and condominiums, along with hotel rooms.

Jim Didion of Center Street Partners LLC is also bringing in the Pyramid Hotel Group as a financial backer for the project at 2129 Shattuck Ave., according to a recent press release. Pyramid, which currently runs the Berkeley Marina Hotel (officially known as Doubletree by Hilton Berkeley Marina) and formerly operated the Claremont Hotel, will work with Center Street Partners through the entitlement process and to develop the hotel. Didion will stay on as managing partner, according to the press release.


Pyramid is one of the largest independent hotel operators in the country with a “long and successful history in hotel development, financing, and operation and has a particular expertise in developing, renovating, and operating University related projects,” according to the press release. Pyramid has developed hotel projects at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, the University of North Carolina, Virginia Tech, Duke, Dartmouth, Florida, MIT and Harvard.

While UC Berkeley has no direct connection with the hotel, the university community is expected to use the facilities.

The hotel would replace the 1970s-era one-story Bank of America building and parking lot on Center and Shattuck and, if approved, transform one of the most visible corners in downtown Berkeley.
Taking away some hotel rooms and adding condominiums at the top of the building will create a more tapered design, according to Matthew Taecker, the principal planner and community liaison for the project. In the new design, the tower will be moved forward closer toward the corner as well, he said. Although no renderings of the current design have been made public yet, Taecker said he thought Berkeley residents would be pleased.

“It really improved the design,” he said. “It’s going to be a more esthetically pleasing tower.”
The developer also decided to add a conference center in lieu of office space, said Taecker. Many of those who saw the first incarnation of the hotel had asked for conference rooms, which are in short supply in Berkeley. There will be a restaurant at the ground level as well, said Taecker.
Didion and Rick Kelleher, the CEO of the Pyramid Hotel Group, will be in town in early February to preview the design to city officials, the Berkeley Architectural Heritage Association, Visit Berkeley and members of Downtown Berkeley Association, among others, said Taecker. They are looking for early feedback.

There will be a public hearing on the new design at the end of February, said Taecker.
“We understand this is only going to be the beginning of the conversation,” he said.
The original design was to include 300 hotel rooms on 12 stories, along with ground-floor commercial space, including a restaurant or bar, and three floors of office space. Eighty parking spaces are planned at an underground level. Developers said they plan to pay to use another 120 spaces in the city-owned garage — slated for demolition and reconstruction — on Center Street across Shattuck to the west.

Taecker declined to specify the number of hotel rooms in the new design, and said Didion and Kelleher would reveal that in February. The new design will still require a zoning variance, though, because the more tapered tower will be wider than 120 feet across, said Taecker. The old design was 220 feet wide in some parts.

Hotels add art, whimsy to upgrade conference centers

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Hotel conference centers are getting major makeovers to become spaces for both work and play.
Hotels across the country are spending millions of dollars to attract conferences by upgrading their meeting spaces. The rooms are no longer tucked away in dark underground corridors. Instead, they're appealing spaces often located on higher-level floors or even outdoors.

"There's definitely a shift in style," says Jayna Cooke, CEO of EVENTup, an online venue marketplace. She says meeting spaces are "wider, have taller ceilings, much more light and windows, and they're not stuck in basements and closed in."
Some examples:

The Mandarin Oriental, Las Vegas, has introduced a new meeting and event venue known as The Gallery. The 1,900-square-foot loft-style space has a 16-foot ceiling, frosted floor-to-ceiling windows and a painted cement floor. It can be used for meetings, seated dinners or cocktail receptions.

Pullman Hotels and Resorts, part of the Accor hotel brand, has created the Business Playground by Pullman concept. The conference table is actually a poker table that encourages people to place their hands or elbows on it for easier conversations. Canopy Break is a space that promotes informal discussions before meetings. The whole area has free wireless Internet, a large HD LED screen, and a mini-tablet to automate everything in the room.

The Radisson Blu Warwick Hotel in Philadelphia is in the middle of redesigning 17,000 square feet of meeting and event space. The hotel has an Experience Meetings program with new healthy menu options or Brain Food, free Internet and a Meetings App for planners to request room changes. The space will also include a Brain Box, a separate break room that the hotel says will have features to promote creativity, such as fidget toys to help meeting attendees deal with stress.

The new B Resort and Spa in Orlando has eight interior rooms for outside-the-box meetings, in addition to its 25,000 square feet of traditional conference facilities. One room is a theater that seats about 30 people, another is a library with an electric fireplace and cozy chairs, and yet another is a studio that can be used for yoga or other activities.

"We noticed that groups were incorporating interactive, fun and non-corporate activities into their meeting format and didn't want to spend their entire day in the boardroom," says Mary Hutchcraft, director of sales and marketing at B Resort and Spa. "We created these unique, customizable spaces to meet the demand of these groups."

Many of the hotels are also trying to design their conference centers to blend in with the destinations.
For instance, the Onmi Nashville Hotel is connected to the Country Music Hall of Fame on three levels and has a pedestrian pathway between the two structures.

Meeting spaces at the Alexander Hotel in Indianapolis showcase art curated by the Indianapolis Museum of Art. The rooms are named after local neighborhoods. The wallpaper is a grid of Indianapolis streets. And the conference space has a communal area for attendees to try locally sourced food and drink.

Designers say they are responding to a demand from meeting planners for more cool and dynamic spaces.

For good reason. Business travel spending is expected to increase 6.2% to $310.2 billion this year, according to the Global Business Travel Association. Last year, it reached a record $292.2 billion.
Chris McDonough, senior design director at The Gettys Group, which is renovating the conference center at The Renaissance Chicago Downtown hotel, says planners want to blend social and functional space.

He and his team are creating transition spaces with views of the Chicago River that can be used for smaller meetings or as a pre-function area for a larger event. And to avoid having a typical drab arrival area, they are creating what they call an "artistic arrival" to evoke the feel of an art gallery rather than a hallway. They've commissioned fine art sculptures for the space.
"As meetings and conferences become more social, the spaces that contain them are changing as well," he says.

Vipingo Ridge launches Sh171 mn conference facility

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The facility has seven unique venues for conference, meeting and banqueting with four indoor venues which are fully air-conditioned, Wi-Fi enabled, and well equipped with world class conferencing equipment. Photo/ COURTESYKILIFI, Kenya, Feb 2 – Vipingo Ridge, a secured golf estate in Kilifi County has opened a new Sh171 million shillings state of the art conference facility as it bids to tap into Kenya’s increasing demand for high-end meeting and conferencing facilities.

Vipingo Ridge Ltd Chairman Alastair Cavanagh called upon stakeholders and the Government – especially the County government to offer its support by utilising the world class facility. The conference centre enjoys stunning views both inland and out to sea with ample lawn space for marquees, outside functions, and team building exercises.

“The conference centre has been fitted with state of the art IT systems with computer controlled lighting and temperature systems. There is a large central control room with plenty of space for translators to operate during multinational conferences,” added Cavanagh.

The facility has seven unique venues for conference, meeting and banqueting with four indoor venues which are fully air-conditioned, Wi-Fi enabled, and well equipped with world class conferencing equipment. The indoor venues have been designed with panoramic views of the woodland interior and complemented with breakout areas set among the outdoor landscaped garden.

The increasingly growing profile of Kenya as a premier business and tourism destination in the region has occasioned an increased demand for quality accommodation, fine dining and conference facilities. Vipingo Ridge is keen on tapping into this sustained growth in the sector.

Besides serving the business, conferencing and tourism sectors, the investment has also created job opportunities for locals and thus contributes significantly to the country’s overall economic growth.
Vipingo Ridge Ltd was incepted in 2005. Its investment value to date is approximately Sh3.3 billion by the establishment and additional Sh2.2 billion by property owners building their private houses within the development.