As the opening date for the Renaissance Hotel approaches, officials are generally confident the facility will take shape in time. General Manager Peter Dunn says the target date for opening is Sept. 29, but that an early October date is also possible because construction must finish first. “It’s a Marriott requirement,” Dunn says.
A media tour of the hotel on Tuesday revealed crews working diligently to assemble fixtures and appliances, furnish rooms, and cover walls and floors. The lobby and ballroom, built from scratch, remain busy work zones. Progress is most evident in individual rooms, where wallpaper, beds and appliances reflect the hotel’s mission of integrating local color.
Each hallway will feature red-and-white carpeting depicting crab traps and magnolias. Swamp-scene wallpaper and local artwork cover walls, and room cabinets have been crafted from cypress wood. Each bathroom features alligator-skin vinyl trim and, along one wall, a stylized list of Cajun definitions. Meeting rooms share names with bayous and rivers. The restaurant, Tallulah, will serve Louisiana cuisine.
Ted Terrell, vice president of development for Wampold Companies, says, “It’s hard to believe we’re six weeks away. But consider what it looked like a year ago.” The abandoned Jimmy Swaggart Ministries dorm project, halted in 1989, remained skeletal until 2010.
The dorm structure, developer Mike Wampold says, “really lent itself to a great hotel.” Finding an efficient plan was the biggest challenge, he says, but on the third try, “we knew what we wanted to be and how to get there.” For a slideshow of the work going on at the hotel, click here. —Ian McGibboney
