No city wants its convention center to debut during a global catastrophe, but it happened to Memphis. Its $230 million Renasant Convention Center debuted in 2021 amid the COVID-19 pandemic and a world of uncertainty.
The pandemic challenges met by the renovation of the former Memphis Cook Convention Center made the results an even more impressive achievement. In June 2023, the Renasant Convention Center announced that it delivered a $60 million in economic impact during the 2022-2023 fiscal year.
“All in all, the $230 million renovation of the Renasant Convention Center has done everything that we wanted to do and more” said Kevin Kane, president and CEO of Memphis Tourism. “Case in point: the property has had the best financial years in its history since we finished the renovation in 2021.”
The completed project has expanded the destination’s client base, bolstering the increased revenue.
“Memphis is very proud of this renovation,” added Dean Dennis, president and GM of Memphis Management Group, which manages Renasant Convention Center. “We are making progress on more corporate business in addition to our SMERF base. We're just really working hard on upgrading the 600-room Sheraton Downtown headquarters hotel and making sure that we can accommodate groups while in renovation with the hotel. Trying to figure that out tends to be the only gray spot that we have.”
Next up, getting more beds for the additional heads traveling to Memphis.
“Really, the only thing holding us back now is that we still kind of suffer from a challenged headquarter hotel standpoint,” Kane agreed.
Rise, Fall and Rise Again of the Two-Hotel Development
As it did for the rest of the world, Covid derailed a lot of development plans in Memphis.
“Due to Covid, [construction] went a little longer than it needed to,” Dennis said. “We had our first event in January 2021, and we got kind of throughout that year, kind of off and on and with social distancing and all those weird words we don't use anymore. We got ourselves fully opened and running in the fall; September of 2021.”
While Covid did not stop the convention center’s progress, it created chaos for the renovation of the Sheraton and a potential new-build Loews nearby.
“We had a deal for a brand-new, 500-room Loews hotel to be built across the street while our 600-room Sheraton--which is the largest hotel in our market--was renovated,” Kane said. “Had this happened, we would have had over 1,000 rooms attached to the convention center.”
But the timing of Covid essentially canceled the Loews financing deal and probably delayed any plans Sheraton had to renovate.
While the Sheraton Downtown Memphis remains open at press time, recent plans revealed at the 27th annual Lodging Industry Update, held at the Hilton Memphis in late February, are to have the Sheraton undergo an up to $200 million renovation that will take up to two years, and possibly rebrand the property. Although playing the rebranding close to the vest.
“The renovation to the hotel is also going to add up to 20,000 square feet of meeting space to the property,” Kane added. “The Sheraton is going to be sold to the city, hopefully in the next few weeks. The deal is done: the city has approval to buy it, the money to buy it and a master developer to lead the renovation.”
In lieu of a Loews, a 300-room tower is expected to be added in the future. But with the Sheraton about to be renovated and the second-largest downtown property, the 464-room Peabody Memphis, launching an $18 million renovation, full-service properties are temporarily in short supply.
[Related: 5 Rockin’ Offsite Event Venues for Groups Visiting Memphis, Tennessee]
Surprising Aftermath of the Pandemic
It’s awkward to open a state-of-the-art convention center without a state-of-the-art headquarters hotel. But it’s less of a problem when the downtown room inventory has been growing exponentially, as with the pandemic came growth in extended-stay and select-service properties in Memphis.
“We've added over 1,000 hotel rooms downtown [since 2020], Kane said. “Most of those are select service, like Hyatt Centric and Hyatt Caption and the Aloft hotel that just opened. Now we have a downtown inventory of about 4,200. We added about 1,000 rooms among six or seven hotels, some of them boutique and some select-service.”
Among the boutique properties are unique themes. These include the 103-room Big Cypress Lodge, which overlooks the Bass Pro Shops in the Memphis Pyramid; the 52-room Hotel Napoleon, the riverside 110-room Hu Memphis and 123-room Central Station Memphis have all been created from historic buildings in downtown. Elsewhere in Memphis, the 450-room Guesthouse at Graceland is the city’s third-largest property (after downtown’s 600-room Sheraton Downtown and the 464-room Peabody).
People have also had a greater appreciation for outdoor space since the pandemic, which ties in well with another adaptation made by the convention center.
“We had this huge convention center that backed up to the Mississippi River, but nobody would have ever known because it was all solid concrete,” Kane noted of the building. “We opened all those back walls up during the renovation, so now the west side of the convention center has floor-to-ceiling glass that overlooks the Mississippi River. We're right in front of the Hernando de Soto bridge, which now has LED animation at night, and that shines right through the whole center part of the building.”
One group that leveraged the view and lighting to full effect was Alpha Kappa Alpha (AKA) sorority, the first historically Black Greek letter organization for women, during its 90th South Eastern Regional Conference in March 2022.
“They were having their conference with 5,000 sorority sisters at the prefunction area, looking out through floor-to-ceiling glass, and the bridge was lit up with pink and green,” Kane said “It was just amazing.”
[Related: Reintroducing Knoxville: A Growing Southeastern Convention Destination]
Plus: The Peabody Is Getting Its Ducks in a Row
When you’re one of the oldest operating hotels in the U.S., you can afford to take the long view.
In the case of the 464-room Peabody Memphis, which opened in 1869 and is routinely considered one of the best historical hotels in the nation, the property is on the cusp of what it’s calling a 30-year “essential upgrade.”
In March, the Peabody began an $18 million upgrade of its rooms that’s expected to be completed in December.
According to Douglas V. Browne, president of Peabody Hotels & Resorts, the “room’s new look” comprises new deep mattresses, TVs, furniture and soft goods. A renovation of the Lobby Bar, which added more space, has already been completed.
The renovation is partially funded through a 5% tax sales surcharge approved by the Downtown Memphis Commission.
“They're going to do one or two floors at a time, and then that's going to go on this year with an upgrade. So, we're excited about that,” Kane said.
The flagship of Belz Enterprises’ Peabody Hotels & Resorts, the Peabody Memphis was purchased by the Belz Family in 1975, renovated and reopened in 1981. The Peabody “ducks,” a quirky facet of the hotel’s history, were once live decoys set by their owners to float in the Lobby Fountain back in the 1920s. Since the reopening, a twice-daily Duck March delights visitors, while many happy mallards have taken up residence on the Peabody roof in a miniature Peabody Hotel of their own.
