Originally Posted by
PHLbuddy
4) Location. Downtown (close to the bridge accident). Some shopping areas reported nearby, but I did not have time. A colleague took the train to the mall of America and reported a 15 minute ride there, with a longer ride back.
Point of clarification. The Westin and the MOA are on polar opposites of the Hiawatha line. It's about 35 minutes each way. It's a nice east ride however.
Originally Posted by
fly co to see the yanks
i agree that the retail prices on spg.com are a bit high for the area BUT....
given the comments from other posters, i wonder how many people are actually paying those rates. NTSB gets a government rate, i would assume. plus, if the hotel has a lot of meetings, those people would also get a special rate on the rooms. and, there are probably quite a few people staying on other random corporate rates (in attempt to take the business from the former Le Meridien?).
Meridien is now Graves 601. Still a top notch hotel. (They even inspect the rooms with a blacklight ^) The Westin is in a really good area. There are a number of banks, brokerage and insurance companies in that area. All of them have high value employees that expect to stay in a high end hotel. From what I've seen Westin is getting the business by being competitive with meeting space.
Graves 601 is in a bit of a hurt because of petty crime issues revolving around aggressive pan handling and hoodlums in the area.