LAWRENCEVILLE - Construction of a long-awaited headquarters hotel at Gwinnett’s convention center moved ahead Tuesday when Gwinnett County commissioners authorized Chairman Charlotte Nash to execute a lease agreement with the Development Authority and prepare other documents to move ahead with the construction of the facility on the grounds of the Gwinnett Center.
The resolution authorizes the Development Authority to assign the lease to the Gwinnett Convention and Visitors Bureau, which currently manages the County’s Gwinnett Center property located at 6400 Sugarloaf Parkway.
“An onsite hotel at Gwinnett Center has been in the master plan for years, but now we’re able make it happen without any financial obligation for construction or hotel operations by the county, the Development Authority, or the Gwinnett Convention and Visitors Bureau,” Nash said in a press statement.
The GCVB chose a proposal by North Carolina-based Concord at Sugarloaf LLC as the best of four submitted with the best experience and financial backing to complete the project.
According to GCVB CEO Preston Williams, the project represents a $70 million investment with no public dollars involved.
“Plans call for a full-service, first-class Marriott hotel of up to 12 stories,” said Williams. The hotel will be built on a five-acre site.
“The addition of an on-site headquarters hotel will help attract conventions, trade shows, meetings, performers and audiences to spend their money in Gwinnett County – and that’s good for our local economy and for all of us who live here,” Nash said.
Gwinnett Center is home to the 50,000-square-foot Gwinnett Convention Center, the 700-seat Gwinnett Performing Arts Center, the Jaqueline Casey Hudgens Center for the Arts and the 13,000-seat Arena at Gwinnett Center.
Known as the Gwinnett Civic and Cultural Center when it opened in 1992, it was one of several SPLOST projects built with funds from a four-year sales tax approved by voters in 1988. After an expansion that added The Arena and Grand Ballroom in 2002 and 2003, the name of the facility was changed to Gwinnett Center.
