Waterfront Hotels
The Renaissance Toledo Downtown Hotel opened in August after a 20-month, $31 million project transformed the 32-year-old building into a four-star hotel just two blocks from the convention center.
The 241-room riverfront hotel, like other Renaissance properties, focuses on local flavor and is chock full of fun, subtle touches that pay homage to Toledo’s history as the Glass City. Guests will find glass artwork in the lobby and lounge, and framed dog tags that serve as room numbers are a nod to hometown actor Jamie Farr, who played Maxwell Klinger on the television show “M.A.S.H.” The tire-tread pattern on the elevator doors is replicated from Willys Jeeps, which were made at the Toledo Complex automobile factory.
The hotel has 15,000 square feet of flexible meeting space, with 13 possible separate meeting rooms. The largest function space is the nearly 11,000-square-foot Mosaic Ballroom that can be split into six smaller spaces. The Brim House is the on-site restaurant — that even uses Toledo-made Libbey glassware — and the hotel’s rooftop bar overlooking the river was slated to open in late August.
The Park Inn by Radisson hotel connects to the convention center via skywalk but also has its own function space, the largest of which is a 5,500-square-foot ballroom. The hotel has 294 guest rooms but could soon have more if it converts offices back into sleeping rooms, Vetter said.
Plans are on the table, although shovels aren’t yet in the ground, for two new hotels that could “more than likely” add another 300 to 350 sleeping rooms connected to the convention center in the next couple of years, Vetter said.
For all the focus on the Maumee River waterfront, people shouldn’t forget that Toledo also touches the shores of Lake Erie. The 120-room lakefront Maumee Bay State Park Lodge and Conference Center is about a 30-minute drive east of Toledo. The conference center’s 7,500 square feet of event space in eight flexible rooms provides views of Lake Erie, and the 5,000-square-foot ballroom has a balcony overlooking the lake.
Groups can also take advantage of the setting to hold outdoor events, such as a barbecue or a lobster bake in the lodge’s tent area or a bonfire on the beach. The lodge also has two patios and a 2,000-person outdoor amphitheater.
“You don’t have to go to Florida for your vacation,” Vetter said.
Must-See Sites
Some of Toledo’s must-see sights also double as off-site venues for meetings and receptions. The Toledo Museum of Art covers a 36-acre campus with six buildings that house a collection of more than 30,000 pieces. In the main building, groups can use the historic 1,750-seat Peristyle concert hall, or as many as 300 reception guests can mingle in the Peristyle lobby amid marble columns, cobblestone floors and painted Greek friezes. The smaller Little Theater has auditorium seating for 160, or after-hours events can gather in Libbey Court or in the Cloister gallery, a medieval stone courtyard. Up to 350 guests can mingle among the museum’s major works of art in the Great Gallery; another contemporary art gallery can host up to 100 guests for receptions.
Across the street is one of the museum’s and the city’s claims to fame: the 74,000-square-foot Glass Pavilion that opened in 2006. To honor Toledo’s history as the Glass Capital of the World, architects designed the building with walls made of large, curving glass panels, both inside and out, resulting in a series of see-through spaces in a nearly transparent building. The GlasSalon can seat 230 people for dinner and can be used with the adjoining Crystal Corridor, the pavilion’s main passage, where reception guests can mingle beneath a Dale Chihuly chandelier. Groups can watch as artists make glass pieces at the Glass Pavilion, and several studios offer groups the chance to make their own pieces of glass art to take home with them.
At the Toledo Zoo, groups have a slew of rental options that either put them near wildlife or place them in a foreign culture. The Malawi Event Center is a large-scale, three-season space that just opened in August as part of the zoo’s Africa exhibit and can accommodate about 900 people. At the outdoor Africa Overlook, up to 250 guests can take in views that often include giraffes and zebras. The African Lodge can seat 125 for meals, up to 70 people can enjoy dinner and views into the tanks in the aquarium gallery, and groups of 50 can be seated for meals and surrounded by polar bears and seals at Arctic Encounter.
The zoo also recently added a new aerial adventure course that peaks at 80 feet above the ground and allows visitors to zip line, cross sky bridges and tackle aerial obstacles directly over wildebeest and Watusi cattle in the Africa exhibit below.
The National Museum of the Great Lakes can provide custom guided tours for groups of 15 or more and offers event rentals. Next door, groups can tour the permanently docked 1911 Col. James M. Schoonmaker freighter and have receptions on deck.
Attendees can walk outside the doors of the SeaGate Convention Centre down to the river’s edge to board the 100-passenger Sandpiper boat that’s available for public cruises and private charters May through October.
Toledo, Ohio
Location: North Central Ohio
Access: Interstates 75, 475, 90 and 280; Detroit Metropolitan Wayne County Airport; Toledo Express Airport
Major Meeting Spaces: SeaGate Convention Centre, Huntington Center
Hotel Rooms: 7,704
Offsite Venues: Toledo Museum of Art, Glass Pavilion, National Museum of the Great Lakes, Toledo Zoo
Contact Info:
Destination Toledo CVB
800-243-4667
www.dotoledo.org
