After a successful stint hosting the Super Bowl last year and thanks to an abundance of sporting venues, meeting spaces and hotels, downtown Indianapolis, Indiana, has received a fair amount of positive press as a destination for a variety of special events and leisure activities. So it’s not easy to stand apart in this increasingly crowded hotel market, but The Alexander, a Dolce Hotel — which opened in late January as part of downtown Indy’s 14-acre (5.7-hectare) CityWay development — is attempting to do so with a combination of prominent F&B outlets, “green” initiatives and original art.
The 209-room hotel, developed by Indianapolis-based Buckingham Companies and designed by architectural firm Gensler, is the first hotel in Indiana to be certified by both the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) program and the International Association of Conference Centers (IACC). Its public spaces feature more than 50 artworks — including 14 site-specific commissions — selected by representatives from the Indianapolis Museum of Art, and its three F&B venues include a striking second-floor lounge, Plat 99, designed by artist Jorge Pardo.
HOTELS sat down with General Manager Michael Moros recently to discuss the reasons behind The Alexander’s unique approach and the hotel’s performance thus far.
HOTELS: What was the vision for the hotel?
Michael Moros: We wanted to establish in this southeast quadrant of downtown a place where you could work, live and play. We determined that we needed to go after the creative class. The creative class is the Millennials. It’s people that are working at Eli Lilly and Rolls-Royce (which both have offices near the hotel). They’re very creative — they’re engineers, they’re doctors. There are a lot of very creative individuals in the market.
So what is important to them? We felt that aside from art, which is obviously huge, it’s technology, comfort, a place where they feel they have all the amenities of being at home. We also felt sustainability was huge, so the LEED certification was extremely important as well.
HOTELS: What has been your reaction to the finished product now that the property is open?
Moros: There are so many things, but I love the clean lines about it, the contemporary feel. Obviously the art is second to none. What they did here is design it so it was curated specifically for the space. It makes me so happy to watch guests come in, even if they’re not staying here, and tour the place and say, “Gosh, I need to have my daughter’s wedding here.” Or, “We need to have our anniversary here.” Or, “Let’s just get away for a weekend and stay here.” It has so much to see, and there’s such a comfort of hospitality here with the staff.
HOTELS: You were talking about the creative class. How would you further define the target guest for the hotel?
Moros: It’s predominantly the business traveler, but there are three different segments that we look at closely. There’s the business traveler — they’re on the road many nights a year, and they want that environment where they can find some comfort but also be productive away from home and have some fun, be part of the community.
Then we’ve got what we would call the one-hotel opportunities — conferences that are specific to our hotel. We didn’t want to build a hotel where everyone was wearing a name badge and going to the convention center. It wasn’t our set. We are focused on one-hotel opportunities, where we could go from arrival experience to departure experience and meet all their needs in-between.
Then the last one is the leisure traveler. Indianapolis is within a day’s drive for so many people. We wanted to be available for those leisure travelers that could come in on a Thursday night or a Friday and experience downtown with the Cultural Trail, the many different sports venues and within the hotel, the food and beverage and art.
HOTELS: Because of the design-centric nature of the space and some of its other features, do you expect your demographic to skew a bit younger?
Moros: I would say so. Based on our first 30 days of data, I would say it is.
We have a lot of international travelers too between Eli Lilly and Rolls-Royce, from Europe and Asia, and we’ve designed our breakfast menus to have some of their favorites, added international electrical ports in guestrooms, to be just their home away from home.
HOTELS: I know F&B is an important point of difference for all Dolce hotels, but how and why is it a differentiator at this hotel in particular?
Moros: Dolce’s Thoughtful Food for Thoughtful Minds is huge for us. A lot of people think of a hotel, and then they add food as an amenity. Food was thought out throughout the entire space here, whether it’s the local snacks in your room from local artisanal vendors or the food in our banquet space or our Market Table dining room, those items include a lot of local and regional ingredients. From there, we take a look at special diets, like gluten- or lactose-free. So we thought, how can we meet the needs of the traveler without making them feel awkward? They can find what they need on our Market Table or in our banquet space with our Nourishment Hubs, which is huge. We took it all into consideration, and we gathered the chefs together and said, let’s think differently about food — not massive portions in chafing dishes, but a more residential and restaurant feel in everything we do.
HOTELS: Why were the LEED certification and all the hotel’s green features seen as critical elements?
Moros: The creative class requires it. They do it at home. They maintain a recycling or reuse program. And all meeting planners require it now. Every RFP that we get, they want to know, besides recycling or compact fluorescents, what else are you doing? So it’s great to let them know that we reuse tubes of shampoo and conditioner and send those off to third-world countries. We have a cistern that collects all the rainwater, and we reuse it in our irrigation. Our maintenance room is about 95% efficient when it comes to heating and cooling, so you think of the energy costs we’re saving. It’s a great approach, and people want to hear about it.
HOTELS: Although the hotel has only been open about a month, what can you share about its performance so far?
Moros: We intentionally started with a soft opening, and we have found it to be very successful. Our weekend business has been amazing, with locals wanting to check it out. We did excellently in our first year of preopening in bookings, and we met our goals. But with all the press that we’ve gotten, the great news is that the local businesses are very interested in having their meetings here as well. I would say we’ll exceed our expectations for our first year open.