The restaurant is something to talk about, too. District, An American Kitchen and Wine Bar, will be laser focused on American wine; comfort food with a twist; local, farm-sourced produce; and art. The hotel managed to lure an impressive roster of talent from The Phoenician to execute food concepts, including Executive Chef Frank Belosic, Director of Food and Beverage Brady Lamar and Chef de Cuisine Nathan Crouser.
To reach out to the community, Sheraton will participate in Downtown Phoenix’s First Fridays art walk. The dining room will feature rotating work from local artists, and anyone can drop in to have a look.
It’s a nod to one crucial idea: To be successful, the hotel must appeal to travelers and locals alike. And so the Sheraton Downtown is devising ways to be all things to all people, like converting a buffet table for convention guests in the morning into a posh communal table for diners at night.
“We’re creating a destination restaurant separate from the hotel,” Spivak says on a private tour through the building. “We wanted something that would speak to the local community, tie into the Downtown art experience and give people a reason to enjoy Downtown when they’re not utilizing the facilities of the hotel.”
Light fixtures give every room a modern flare. So does the carpet (it may be too modern for some) with animal prints and stripes zigzagging and swirling their way through every corridor. Elevators climb through the center of the hotel, leading guests to hammered copper murals that reflect Arizona’s mountains with the state’s favorite metal.
Rooms are a study in comfort, with Sweet Sleeper beds, leather headboards and cactus photography. Perched on the top floor, the governor’s suite offers panoramic views of the Valley – on a clear day, you can see all the way out to University of Phoenix Stadium in Glendale. Look down, and you can see the top of The Arizona Republic building.
The Sheraton was built on an impossibly small parking lot, wedged between the Republic and a parking garage. For that reason, the outdoor swimming pool and deck is long and narrow, with fountains constantly running to block out road noise. This won’t immediately be a place to relax; plans for an indoor spa adjacent to the pool and fitness center are on hold indefinitely for budget reasons.
The Sheraton is a big step in Downtown Phoenix’s evolution, says Kevin Kamenzind, senior vice president of sales and marketing for the Greater Phoenix Convention and Visitors Bureau. He came to Phoenix from San Diego last year and says the city is “mirroring a smaller scale Gaslamp District.”
The Sheraton, along with the expanding convention center across the street, is pole-vaulting Phoenix into a first-tier destination for large groups. “They know our golf, but in terms of Downtown, we’re completely unknown, and that’s the exciting thing about being in Phoenix with all this development,” Kamenzind says.
He predicts the Sheraton will have a ripple effect, luring more people, hotels, stores and restaurants. In the end, residents benefit from sales tax and bed tax dollars, not to mention a fun place to hang out.
In the meantime, Sheraton managers are ramping up staff at their Arizona Center recruitment office. Eventually, the hotel will employ 1,000 people. As opening day nears, they will work around the clock to dust every stair step, fluff every pillow and crease every towel. By opening day, 375,000 room nights will already be booked, up 19 percent from expectations.