Courtesy cMoe
Convention hotels on city’s edge
Two other convention hotels are four miles from town on U.S. Hwy. 41 near the regional airport.
The 200-room Holiday Inn Evansville Airport, formerly a Radisson, is so close to the airport that rooms on the backside have runway views.
Its 7,872-square-foot Royale Ballroom is Evansville’s largest. After a recent renovation, the atrium lobby functions as one large living space with a bar tucked into one corner and the pool in another.
Between the two is a large sunken area used so often for dinners and receptions that it is devoid of furnishings.
The 198-room Clarion Inn and Conference Center also has an atrium, the hotel fad of the 1980s. Its Tropical Pavilion, almost 6,400 square feet, is in the center of the property and is adjoined by a 3,072-square-foot ballroom that can be divided into quarters. A number of the hotel’s smaller meeting rooms are along a mezzanine above the lobby, which is adjacent to the first floor’s 5,000-square-foot Grand Isle Ballroom.
Both hotels offer free breakfasts as well as free parking. Complimentary parking is a feature at all of Evansville’s hotels, a big selling point with religious groups and nonprofits.
Historic buildings repurposed
Downtown, several of Evansville’s solid citizens — its historic buildings — have new missions as special-event spaces.
Until a year ago, the Old Post Office was a handsome limestone and sandstone building stuffed with offices. Then, Bashar Hamami signed a long-term lease for the building and began rethinking its use. As he wandered its first floor, he realized that the high ceilings and broad, arched windows that spelled high heating bills for office tenants would make an entirely different impression on meeting planners.
“What made it inefficient as offices makes it beautiful as events space,” said Hamami.
Workers removed divider walls, uncovering ornate structural pillars and other architectural features in the process. The result is a 350-person ballroom with an adjoining anteroom that can be used for buffets or bars.
In the year since the Old Post Office Event Center opened, more than 12,000 people have attended events there. A reception at the center is part of Evansville’s bid package for the 2013 Governor’s Arts Awards.
Evansville’s most noteworthy historic building is the original Vanderburgh County Courthouse of Neo-Baroque design, highly decorated with goddesses, cherubs, eagles and other figures sculpted from Indiana limestone. Portions of the late-1800s building can be booked for special events.
The local bar association raised more than $300,000 to restore the Superior Courtroom, which can be used for small lectures and presentations. At the opposite end of a long marble-lined hallway are two event rooms, near mirror images of one another with 35-foot ceilings and wooden floors. Each accommodates about 150 people at round tables. A catering kitchen adjoins one of the rooms.
Perhaps the brightest spot among historic buildings is cMoe (Children’s Museum of Evansville). It opened six years ago in Evansville’s former public library. Gone are the stacks and the shushing librarians; now walls are painted pink, green, yellow and orange, and children climb into oversize noses, touch giant intestines, play bongo drums and study a Toyota auto motor.
Yet, cMoe is more than a place for the pint-sized to play. The scale is comfortable for grown-ups as well.
”Everything has been designed for parents and children,” said Abigail Adler, marketing and development coordinator. “Big people have to sit down and do this, too”
