It might be hard to believe that Hurricane Katrina struck six years ago. To many of us, the events of 2005 seem just like yesterday. We can’t get the images of the destruction, flooding and thousands of people forced to relocate to surrounding towns due to the loss of their homes, out of our mind.
One of those iconic images is the Hyatt Regency New Orleans, that hotel with the curved façade practically ripped apart. Very few people thought that the hotel would ever reopen, but that day has finally come.
After a $275 million hotel renovation, the Hyatt Regency is back. The downtown hotel reopened earlier this week and its owners are hoping to help carve a niche in the city’s convention industry. The project management and coordination team hopes to target smaller conventions that just don’t need the space the city’s convention center has.
Though the hotel’s location remains the same, the hotel renovation really leaves very little of the original design. The hotel, originally opened in 1976, now has classy layouts, cutting edge amenities, and top-notch rooms. In fact, developers are actually staying away from the word “renovation” and referring to the multi-million dollar project as a “transformation.
The Hyatt’s reopening this week will bring the number of hotel rooms in New Orleans up to 36,000, which is still fewer than the almost 39,000 the city had prior to Katrina. But, the addition of these accommodations is sure to bolster the city’s tourism revenue.
Lance Grooms
