With the opening of Hilton Dallas Plano/Granite Park, the newest completed development in the office park, on Aug. 28, Plano unveiled a full-service hotel that accommodates the business community's need for more meeting and event space. But even after the Hilton's opening, hotel development continues to thrive in the Legacy corridor.
The hotel boasts 30,000 square feet of meeting or event space that includes two ballrooms and 11 separate rooms. The hotel also features a 24-hour business center, an on-site convenience store and a restaurant.
Joe Thompson, director of sales and marketing with the hotel, said there is a demand for a full-service hotel in Plano and before the Hilton's opening, the Marriott at Legacy Town Center was the only Plano hotel able to meet that need.
"There's just a lot of corporate travel, and there's a need for meeting [space]," Thompson said.
Four new hotels are expected to open in Plano by January 2015, several offering meeting space and locations convenient to the city's office parks.
"With Granite Park, people are seeing a need for hotels in that area," said Millerann Moya, marketing manager for Plano Convention & Visitors Bureau. "For a long time [Plano has] had hotels with meeting space, but it just wasn't enough. We have a beautiful lot at Legacy, but there needs to be more."
Moya said the four new additions include Spring Hill Suites by Marriott, which will open at 8401 Angels Drive; Cambria Suites, 7500 Parkwood Blvd. and Hampton Inn Plano East, 2813 E. President George Bush Hwy., each expected to open in December; and Staybridge Suites Plano North, expected to open January 2015 at 8355 Parkwood Blvd.
Except for the Hampton Inn, the three other hotel projects are located around the Legacy corridor. Adrian Chavez, general manager of Cambria Suites in Plano, said the Choice Hotels chain, which owns the Cambria Suites, intends to benefit from the area's business clientele.
He said the Plano location is the first Cambria Suites in Texas and is the company's first dedicated brand to the business traveler.
The hotel includes 129 rooms and will specifically cater to corporate firms through the facility's 2,500 square feet of meeting space, Chavez said.
He also said the impact of incoming companies such as Toyota and FedEx as well as the mix of current companies in Plano, are a draw for hotels as well.
"Plano is a hotbed. The [Legacy] corridor is corporate heavy. I'm pretty sure that's a huge reason why you see all these other hotels coming," Chavez said.
As Toyota prepares for its relocation, Moya said employees and their families are looking for hotel rooms as they visit Plano. The city also benefits from its location 25 minutes from Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport, Moya said. By January 2015, Plano will have 39 hotels in the city.
"Dallas/Fort Worth is the top touring market in the United States, and [Plano] feeds off of that," she said.
Sally Bane, director of economic development for the city of Plano, said that the biggest opportunity for hotels in the city is to accommodate business meetings, and in turn, these hotels bring revenue to the city by attracting travelers into Plano.
"From the outside you have hotel and motel tax coming in, you have people eating at restaurants generating sales tax," Bane said. "It's an important churn in economic development."
