We spoke to Brian Harris, the General Manager of the Aloft Charleston who said:
"We had well over 500 guests throughout the night, who all loved the hotel. A lot of people said it reminds them of being in New York City or Miami and is a nice change from the more traditional hotels that Charleston is known for."
Green is the new black. Toting canvas bags to the grocery store, recycling, and buying free-range chicken are no longer fringe activities and no city has benefited more from this trend than Portland, Oregon, home of tree-huggers, granola, and no sales tax.
With six new and updated hip hotels, Portland is offering up even more of it's unique flavor to out-of-towners -- The Oregonian clued us in today.
Is it just us, or do Aloft hotels make anyone else reminisce about the old-school cartoon show "Animaniacs," with Pinky and the Brain on a persistent quest for world domination? The dialogue writes itself:
Brian McGuinness, vice president of Aloft: Gee Frits, what do you want to do tonight? Frits van Paasschen, CEO of Starwood: The same thing we do every night--try to take over the world.
And in spite of a few documented setbacks, Aloft gets one step closer January 1. Aloft Dulles-North, located near Washington Dulles Airport some 30 miles from our fair nation's capital, has rescheduled its November opening for one (presumably) well-timed with inauguration mania.
So we've been closely keeping tabs on all the aloft openings throughout America (and, Canada) each one opening with a decent amount of fanfare, and some opening without any at all, but the aloft Charleston Airport and Convention Center is throwing a premier party which benefits a local AIDS group.
There's tons of hotel news flying around this week and we don't have time to give each and every story the love and attention it may deserve, so you will have to settle for some news briefs -- today, we're focusing on Aloft because we've been slacking on our exhaustive, feverish coverage.
· Aloft Denver Doesn't Look So Ready: Supposedly, Aloft Denver is going to be opening on October 2nd. An HC operative sent in these snapshots of the property -- and, uh, raise your hand if you think they're gonna make it on time? [HC]
· Aloft Charlotte Delayed or Just Cautious?: Reader K. wrote in with a bit of a conundrum: he checked on availability online for the Aloft Charlotte -- which is supposed to open November 1st -- and the website says "Now accepting reservations for arrival on or after January 1, 2009." Does that mean the opening is delayed, or is S-wood just playin' it safe?
· The Brand Gets Some Pretty Damn Good Reviews: We swung by our ol' pal TA to check on guest responses to the brand as a whole -- and the majority of reviews are in the 4-5 range! Congrats, Aloft! [TripAdvisor]
We can guess what you've been thinking. It's been nearly three hours since we've posted about Aloft. Never fear! We have more opening news. The Aloft Denver Airport is coming very soon!
The date is October 2. The place is right around the corner from the Denver International Airport and the rates are... well, the rates aren't published yet.
If you look closely, you can just barely make out a bunch of furniture lined up by the front door. It almost looks like a scene from college move-in day -- and we feel like we're watching our newly-grown-up child moving into his first college dorm room... except it's Starwood's child, and they've had so many children they probably don't even get excited about them anymore.
For more photos of the completed Aloft Nashville, hop on over to the Flickr pool.
Aloha! Today, a tipster wrote in to tell us that Aloft in Plano, Texas looked like it was nearing completion. Looks like you're shooting for a November 20th opening. Cool! You go, Aloft!
With this in mind, we realize it might be time to start planning the kickass grand opening party -- and we'd like to remind you that it's pretty important to have a celebrity on the guest list. Fortunately for you, we took the liberty of coming up with a few suggestions.
