New hotel has an artist’s touch

Changing exhibits touted as its distinguishing feature

Museum Hotel in Bentonville
Museum Hotel in Bentonville

Correction: Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art opened Nov. 11, 2011, and has had 686,305 visitors as of Feb. 1. The museum’s opening and the visitor count were incorrectly reported in this article.

At 10 a.m. Monday, the 21c Museum Hotel will open in a bid to capitalize on the thousands of visitors to the nearby Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art and the city’s growing art scene.

“Bentonville has a small town feel but a metropolitan flair,” said Emmanuel Gardinier, the hotel’s general manager. “You can stroll downtown and bump into someone from the other side of the planet.”

Born in France, Gardinier has held top spots in the hotel business in Europe, the Caribbean, Little Palm Island, Fla., and Charleston, S.C.

He said the city’s growing interest in art and the eclectic mix of people who live in Bentonville because it is homebase for Wal-Mart Stores Inc. are a perfect match for the specialty hotel line, which also has operations in Kentucky and Ohio, and plans for further expansion.

The $30 million, four-story hotel has 104 rooms, including the one-bedroom 21cSuite with a terrace that overlooks downtown. Located just north of the city’s square, on Northeast A Street, the hotel features 12,000 square feet of art exhibition and event space. It has space for contemporary art exhibitions and an outdoor sculpture garden.

Gardinier said art is the defining element of 21c hotels, which keeps them fresh as compared with standard hotels.

“It’s an ever-changing environment,” he said.

The new Bentonville hotel features 25 green, waist-high penguin sculptures that lurk all around the property. All 21c Museum Hotels display the creatures, each in a distinctive color and made by Italian artists.

The hotel is owned by 21c Museum Hotels, founded by Laura Lee Brown and Steve Wilson, philanthropists and art patrons from Kentucky; a Walton family partnership; and the nonprofit Bentonville Revitalization Inc., which promotes community development in downtown Bentonville, according to its Form 990 filed with the Internal Revenue Service.

In May, Startle, an online arm of Forbes magazine - which includes its travelguide - ranked the 21c hotel in Louisville, Ky., third in its list of 10 great hotels for art lovers. The hotel also made Travel + Leisure magazine’s Gold List for 2012 and was voted the No. 1 hotel in the South in the Conde Nast Traveler's Readers’ Choice Awards for 2012.

Wilson, chief executive officer of 21c Museum Hotels, said the idea for the boutique hotels came after a visit to the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, Spain.

“I was impressed with the impact art could have on economic development,” he said.

Wilson said he’s convinced that Crystal Bridges will continue to be a major tourist draw.

“It will get more and more interest. The whole state has a lot to offer,” he said.

The average hotel occupancy rate for 2012 for Bentonville was 49.8 percent, up nearly 3 percent when compared with 2011, according to statistics from the American Hotel and Lodging Association. The average daily room rate in the city was $76.05, a nearly 10 percent increase compared with 2011.Total revenue for the city’s hotels was $26.2 million for 2012, up 6.8 percent compared with 2011.

The state’s average occupancy rate for 2012 was 50.5 percent, up 3.1 percent, and the average daily room rate was $71.36, up 2 percent when compared with the year before. Total revenue was $635.7 million for the state in 2012, up 5 percent compared with 2011.

VIBRANT DOWNTOWNS

The Bentonville operation is the third for 21c Museum Hotels. Its flagship property in Louisville, Ky., opened in 2006, and the company opened a 156-room museum hotel in Cincinnati in November. It plans to develop a total of 15 properties over the next five years.

The Arkansas hotel will have a staff of 125, which is expected to grow over time. Room rates start at about $150 a night, Gardinier said.

Craig Greenberg, president of 21c Hotels, said the 21c Bentonville marks the first time the company has built an entire hotel from the ground up. Other projects have involved rehabilitating existing buildings.

“We had a blank sheet of paper,” he said.

The hotel project isn’tthe only major construction around the city center.

Midtown Center, which sits just off the northwest corner of the square, will feature a Wal-Mart Neighborhood Market, along with two three-story buildings for office and retail use. The Harps grocery store and associated retail space in the center will be razed. Construction is expected to begin in June.

The city’s downtown also has new restaurants, clothing shops, art galleries and retail stores that opened to capitalize on the proximity to Crystal Bridges.

Crystal Bridges Museum, just a short walk from the hotel, had 684,305 visitors between Feb. 1 and its opening on Feb. 11, 2011, said Diane Carroll, media relations manager for the museum. General admission is free.

A SEAMLESS FIT

Daniel Hintz, executive director of Downtown Bentonville Inc. said the city’s downtown has undergone a transformation in recent years.

He said that since Downtown Bentonville took over operation of the Bentonville Farmers Market in 2008, revenue has gone from $90,000 annually to $540,000 in 2012.The city collected $92,000 in prepared-food and beverage taxes in the 1,700-acre downtown during the first 11 months of 2012 compared with $45,000 for the entire year of 2011. No major restaurant chains were included in the tally.

Hintz expects the new hotel to fit seamlessly with the downtown’s branding strategy, which focuses on art and fine food.

The public-art areas in the 21c hotel in Bentonville are open 24 hours a day, seven days a week. The exhibit features nine site-specific pieces, including Orange Tree by Cuban artist Alexandre Arrechea and A Sudden Gust of Wind in Bentonville by Serkan Ozkaya of Turkey.

The inaugural exhibits include “Hybridity: The New Frontier” and “Slater Bradley: Dead Ringer.”

Hybridity features 85 works from the 21c collection and explores the boundaries between humans and animals, scientific advances, and shifting environmental and economic conditions. The Dead Ringer exhibit looks at mythology, mortality and identity.

Alice Gray Stites is the chief curator and director of arts programing for 21c Hotels. Shesaid new exhibits will move into the hotel about every six months. Art is also ingrained in the hotels’ decor, with even the wallpaper designed by various artists.

Gray said she hopes to eventually coordinate with the Crystal Bridges Museum on some exhibitions so the hotel’s offerings and the museum’s can complement each other.

The property’s restaurant, The Hive, is run by executive chef Matthew McClure, who was born and raised in Little Rock. McClure will emphasize the culinary identity of Arkansas, using ingredients such as black walnuts, freshly milled cornmeal, and hickory-smoked hams, according to a hotel release.

The Bentonville hotel also encourages its visitors to take advantage of the city’s more than 20 miles of trails. It has bicycles available for its guests, free of charge, and will arrange for rentals for nonguests. The hotel will even have a bicycle valet, along with bicycle storage for guests and employees.

Business, Pages 65 on 02/10/2013

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