Meeting News - January 7, 2008 - (Page 34)

Destination Insider: North Carolina Edited by Rayna Katz rayna.katz@nielsen.com Raleigh is Making Capital Gains that Will Debut Later This Year The city’s massive upgrades are a new convention center, HQ hotel, arts and culture venues, and shops and eateries Nearly $3 billion in developments will remake Raleigh’s skyline and streetscape in the next few years. The linchpin of the change, the spanking new 510,000-sf Raleigh Convention Center, is 77 percent complete and on schedule for its September grand opening. to the new 400-room Marriott City Center. Also opening in September, that hotel will have 15,000 sf of meeting space. “Projects like the new Raleigh Convention Center and adjoining Marriott City Center headquarters hotel, combined with renovations to current properties throughout Wake County, enhance the world-class product currently here,” said Denny Edwards, president and CEO of the Greater Raleigh Convention & Visitors Bureau. “With these developments comes a renaissance of the surrounding area, with new restaurants, retail, and off-site venue options that will appeal to meeting planners.” Already home to 20 free museums—many offering unique venues for events—Raleigh this year will see the addition of a new contemporary art museum in the downtown warehouse district and the debut of an expanded North Carolina Museum of Art. The state museum will nearly double in size; it will house an impressive collection of 22 bronze statues by Auguste Rodin in its new galleries. Meanwhile, the Raleigh-Durham International Airport is enjoying a $600-million expansion that will triple the size of the existing facility. Phase one, a new terminal with 17 gates, will be ﬁnished this year. Phase two, due in 2010, will involve the spruce-up of existing terminals. The airport currently offers more than 500 daily ﬂights to 47 different destinations, many on lowfare carriers. Elsewhere around Raleigh, a new Arnold Palmer golf course is to be built on North Carolina State University’s downtown campus this year. Winery Uncorks House To Become Event Venue Beginning this spring, just northwest of WinstonSalem, meeting planners can arrange for their attendees to enjoy off-site events at the Westbend Vineyards winery. Located in Yadkin Valley—home to more than 20 wineries—and one of the closest wineries to Winston-Salem, Westbend is in the midst of converting a historic 19th-century home on its grounds into a meeting and event venue. The Joel Benjamin Hauser House at Westbend Vineyards has two downstairs rooms and a foyer suitable for pre-event functions in the old building, according to Josh Butler, who oversees special events and outside sales for the winery. A banquet room has been added to the back of the building, allowing the facility to host 175 people theater-style and 70 for banquets. A commercial-grade kitchen is also in the house. A covered deck overlooking the vineyard wraps around the banquet room, providing additional function space and expanding banquet seating to 115. All told, the house provides 5,000 sf of function space.“We’ve used old timbers as exposed beams in the addition, to help it blend in with the older part of the house,” Butler said. “Outside, we’re going to use period siding to preserve the look of the house as much as possible.” Construction is under way on the house’s porch, which will be upgraded and made to look as though it was built in 1850. www.meetingnews.com The new Raleigh Convention Center The city demolished its old convention facility, opening Fayetteville Street—where the building sat—to vehicle trafﬁc for the ﬁrst time since the late 1970s and livening up the street scene in the process. The new convention center, with its dramatic wall of windows and 9,000-sf “shimmer wall,” a giant LED display, will be connected, via walkway, Lynx Connects Charlotte Meeting planners can get their group participants between the convention center and Charlotte smoothly via the new Lynx Blue Line. An environmentally friendly electric light rail system, Lynx debuted in November, running through the heart of the city. (The name is not short for anything but it is meant to emphasize connectivity and the city’s feline ﬁxation; note the Carolina Panthers NFL team, the Bobcats of the NBA, and its bus system, known as the Charlotte Area Transit System, or Cats). Stops transfer visitors easily between the Charlotte Convention Center; the Westin and other convention center hotels; the Epicentre retail and restaurant complex, which debuted last month and 34 MeetingNews January 7, 2008 has stores opening all year long; the Charlotte Bobcats Arena; and the city’s dining and entertainment district. Trains run daily between 5 a.m. and 1 a.m. and cost $1.30 for a single ride or $4 for unlimited all-day rides. Stops along the Lynx system have lighted stations with covered waiting areas and wheelchair-accessible platforms and are decorated with new works of public art. The line extends nearly 10 miles into Charlotte’s southern suburbs, with a total of 15 stations along the way. Visitors can choose to ride either the state-of-theart light rail or, for the same fare, the historic Charlotte Trolley. The trolley uses the same tracks as Lynx but makes more stops in the city’s South End arts district. http://www.meetingnews.com

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