MEETINGS MEAN BUSINESS FOR WISCONSIN
Bricks and Mortar Improvements – Now It’s Time to Fill Those Spaces
More to Wisconsin Tourism than Vacations
Wisconsin’s tourism industry, long known for its vacation offerings, has done its part to diversify, building the meetings & conventions segment of its business into a significant economic force. Top-notch facilities, good value and wholesome destination are all working in Wisconsin’s favor, which means company leaders should rightly be applauded for choosing to keep their meetings here. Imagine how many more employees a company could include in productive face-to-face meetings simply by choosing Wisconsin.
New Square Footage and Extreme Makeovers
Here’s an alphabetical snapshot of meeting facilities that are newly built or newly renovated in just the last five years.
Eau Claire Area
The Plaza Hotel and Suites put $1 million into an upgrade of its property, with continued upgrades to sleeping rooms and conference space on the docket. The Metropolis Hotel, which opened in 2007, was designed with business travelers in mind and offers high-tech function spaces.
Elkhart Lake
The expansion at The Osthoff Resort added 96 sleeping rooms and a 10,000 square foot conference center.
Fox Cities
Neenah’s downtown Holiday Inn Neenah Riverwalk finished a first round of hotel upgrades with additional renovations scheduled. Completed upgrades include banquet and meeting spaces providing an additional 13,000 square feet. The Radisson Paper Valley Hotel in Appleton is the only hotel in Wisconsin to employ four certified meeting professionals.
Green Bay
Area Tundra Lodge opened its new 10,500 square foot conference center in 2008. The two-story center can be broken down into 16 different combinations and also features two executive boardrooms. Full-service banquet facilities are available here. Hotel Sierra in downtown Green Bay underwent a $6.6 million refresh; it is attached to the 43,000 square foot KI Convention Center.
Kohler
The newly renovated Inn on Woodlake in Kohler remodeled its banquet and conference facility on the lower level, giving the community another unique setting for meetings and team building experiences.
La Crosse
There has been considerable investment in infrastructure in 2009-2010 alone. The La Crosse Center has totally refurbished the North Exhibition Hall and upgraded the Grand Ballroom. The La Crosse Radisson Hotel, connected via sky walk to the La Crosse Center, has completely refurbished all its guest rooms and an upgrade of the hotel’s public areas will be completed in 2010. The new 92-room La Crosse Candlewood Suites in the historic downtown district is set to open in May.
Lake Geneva
Area Four major resorts in Walworth County – Grand Geneva and The Lodge at Geneva Ridge, both in Lake Geneva, The Abbey in Fontana, and Lake Lawn in Delavan – have invested millions of dollars in renovations over the past three years. The four resorts alone have a combined 150,000 square feet of space. Lake Lawn Resort specifically underwent a $4.1 million renovation of meeting and public spaces and can now accommodate groups of up to 500.
Madison
The 226-room Crowne Plaza Madison completed a $5.5 million renovation last year which added 10,300 square feet of new meeting space. Built in 1871, the 219-room Best Western Inn on the Park Capitol Square in Madison recently wrapped up a renovation of guest rooms which now feature re-created 1870s-style furniture. Inn on the Park has flexible corporate and event space and 15 multi-use conference rooms. Some 17 new hotel properties have opened in the market, adding 1,900 new rooms and over 38,000 square feet of additional meeting rooms and conference space. Newest is the 151-room Hyatt Place Madison/Downtown now under construction and set to open this spring. The Hyatt Place Madison features 2,500 square feet of meeting space. Madison continues to attract developer attention, with two significant downtown hotel projects under consideration to enhance options available to convention attendees.
Milwaukee
Recent renovations to Milwaukee’s convention hotels include $12 million at the Hilton Milwaukee City Center and $18 million for a complete facelift of the Hyatt Regency Milwaukee. Added to the mix of downtown hotels, including the legendary Pfister Hotel, is the boutique Iron Horse Hotel which opened in 2008 and the $27 million Aloft Hotel which opened in 2009. Art deco Hotel Metro was the first hotel to receive Wisconsin’s Travel Green certification, followed by the chic InterContinental Milwaukee. New in 2008 the Crowne Plaza Milwaukee-Wauwatosa features 7,000 square feet of meeting space. Three new hotels have been added to the airport area, along with major renovations to the Crowne Plaza Milwaukee Airport, Ramada Plaza Airport, and Best Western Milwaukee Airport. Unique meeting venues include the $75 million Harley-Davidson Museum opened in 2008, featuring over 16,000 square feet of event space, along with Potawatomi Bingo Casino, which opened a $240 million expansion including the 9,000 square-foot Woodland Dreams ballroom. Further west in Delafield is The Delafield Hotel which opened in 2006 and features more than 5,500 square feet of space in three different venues and professional planners to coordinate events.
Oshkosh
The Oshkosh Convention Center went through a $2.8 million renovation in 2008 and now features state-of-the-art audio/visual and a remarkable view of the Fox River. It offers 18,500 square feet of flexible space and is connected to the City Center Hotel. Opened in 2008, The Waters is a recently restored meeting and event facility located along the shores of Lake Winnebago.
Stevens Point
The Frank Lloyd Wright-inspired Holiday Inn Hotel & Convention Center opened five years ago with 35,000 square feet of meeting & convention space and banquet capabilities for up to 2,000 people.
Washington County
Opened in 2008, the $2 million Washington County Fair Park Ziegler Family Exposition Center has 25,000 square feet of dividable exhibit floor space and can be set up for a connected walkway to the Pavilion building – a 42,000 square foot multi-purpose complex. Both buildings have professional sound systems and wireless access, and parking is free.
Waukesha and Pewaukee
The Clarke Hotel, a boutique luxury hotel in downtown Waukesha, opened at the end of 2008 with 22 individually designed guestrooms, a 1,750 square foot ballroom and three smaller, private meeting rooms in the lower level. The Executive Learning Center at the Country Springs Hotel is tailored to training and education sessions with four separate learning suites, tables with TI data ports, a digital document camera and wall-to-wall whiteboards.
Wausau
Wausau’s Fairfield Inn & Suites opened in 2006, featuring a total of 4,500 square feet of meeting space.
Wisconsin Dells
During the past five years the Wisconsin Dells area has seen the addition of nearly 167,000 square feet of meeting and event space. The Wilderness Resort added 31,471 square feet of event space to its Glacier Canyon Lodge conference center in 2008. Chula Vista Resort added 25,000 square feet of event space in 2006, a 90,000 square foot multi-purpose facility that can hold 450 exhibit booths in 2007, and an additional 20,000 square feet of event space in 2008.
Unexpected Small Meeting Venues
Not to be overlooked are the unexpected venues that serve as off-site board rooms for highly productive C-level meetings and creativity-boosting spaces for team-building exercises. These and others are covered at thinkwisconsin.com.
On the Water
Wisconsin’s flagship schooner the S/V Denis Sullivan at Pier Wisconsin in Milwaukee can be booked for leadership and team building packages through Discovery World. In Wisconsin Dells, groups can board a boat at Dells Boat Tours for transport to Cold Water Canyon, a historic stone pavilion set up for small meetings. Private charters are available on the La Crosse Queen and the Julia Belle Swain, both docked on the Mississippi River in La Crosse. With a fleet of eight vessels, the Lake Geneva Cruise Line can accommodate up to 200.
Boats, Planes and Trains
The Roof Deck at the Wisconsin Maritime Museum offers a view of Lake Michigan and downtown Manitowoc, with a guided tour of the USS Cobia after the meeting a good add-on. At the EAA AirVenture Museum in Oshkosh, a number of spaces are available for rental on the aviation campus, from the museum galleries that can host up to 3,000 people for a shareholder’s meeting to the Fergus Chapel, suited to smaller gatherings. The National Railroad Museum in Green Bay can accommodate groups up to 400 alongside its full-size train cars and artifacts.
Art Museums
The official icon of Wisconsin’s urban center, the Milwaukee Art Museum provides views of Lake Michigan, a grand hall, auditorium space, a boardroom suite and world-class art. The rooftop terrace and sculpture garden at the Madison Museum of Contemporary Art offer inspiring views, while the museum’s lecture hall and lobby are also for rental. The John Michael Kohler Arts Center in Sheboygan has a light-filled atrium, plus a theatre and boardroom and outside gardens for small or large functions. Several areas of the Racine Art Museum are available for rent, including the main floor and galleries, and an exterior courtyard offers an open-air setting with a view of Lake Michigan that accommodates up to 40 guests. Rahr-West Art Museum in Manitowoc is a Victorian mansion built in 1891 by Joseph Vilas and home to works by artists Georgia O’Keeffe, Pablo Picasso, Andy Warhol, Roy Lichtenstein, Salvadore Dali and Joan Miro; it can accommodate groups up to 70.
Performing Arts Venues
At the ARTSblock in Wausau, spaces range from seating for 1,200 in the Grand Theatre to smaller gathering spaces such as the B.A. & Esther Greenheck Lounge. The state-of-the-art Fox Cities Performing Arts Center in Appleton features a 2,100 seat proscenium-style theater, 4,160 square feet of flexible space, the Founders Room, and more than 10,000 square feet of lobby space. The 400,000 square foot Overture Center for the Arts in downtown Madison was designed by the internationally acclaimed architect Cesar Pelli and offers multiple performance stages and a variety of lobby spaces, halls, terraces and studios. Three dinner theaters also host meetings: The Armory in Janesville, Broadway Dinner Theatre in Wisconsin Dells, and Fanny Hill Dinner Theatre in Eau Claire.
Historic Proportions
Built in 1897 by German barn builder Ernst Clausing, Old World Wisconsin’s Clausing Barn is one of the few surviving octagonal barns and is available year round for evening functions. At Ten Chimneys, former home of Alfred Lunt and Lynn Fontanne, the Lunt-Fontanne Program Center is available for retreats and conferences. At Lambeau Field, business organizations can stage a trade show on the Atrium floor followed by a smaller gathering in a press box with views of the landmark field.
Adding Up Rooms and Square Footage
Destination – # of Lodging Rooms in Destination: – Square Feet of Meeting Space in Destination:
Milwaukee – 14,000 rooms – 260,000 sq. ft.
Greater Madison – 9,000 rooms – 500,000 sq. ft.
Wisconsin Dells – 8,000 rooms – 300,000 sq. ft.
Greater Green Bay – 4,389 rooms – 134,000 sq. ft.
Door County – 3,500 rooms – 57,500 sq. ft.
Walworth County/Lake Geneva – 3,278 rooms – 80,000 sq. ft.
Fox Cities – 3,108 rooms – 36,000 sq. ft.
Eau Claire Area – 2,200 rooms – 60,000 sq. ft.
La Crosse Area – 2,100 rooms – 100,000 sq. ft.
Brookfield – 2,033 rooms – 72,311 sq. ft.
Stevens Point – 1,450 rooms – 55,000 sq. ft.
Washington County – 1,400 rooms – 60,000 sq. ft.
Racine County – 1,300 rooms – 56,700 sq. ft.
Waukesha and Pewaukee – 1,000 rooms – 100,000 sq. ft.
Oshkosh – 950 rooms – 33,700 sq. ft.
Minocqua-Arbor Vitae-Woodruff Area – 902 rooms – 31,409 sq. ft.
Bayfield – 800 rooms – 4,650 sq. ft.
Janesville Area – 760 rooms – 2,000 sq. ft.
Fond du Lac Area – 743 rooms – 15,185 sq. ft.
Manitowoc Area – 734 rooms – 17,600 sq. ft.
Tomah Area – 660 rooms – 36,000 sq. ft.
Beloit – 642 rooms – 10,000 sq. ft.
Marshfield – 500 rooms – 13,639 sq. ft.
Wisconsin Rapids Area – 499 rooms – 18,250 sq. ft.
Ashland – 440 rooms – 21,300 sq. ft.
Elkhart Lake – 390 rooms – 10,000 sq. ft.
Oconomowoc – 385 rooms – 40,000 sq. ft.
TOTAL – 65,163 rooms – 2,125,244
