If the Future of Flight ever needs to borrow a cup of sugar, it can go next door to ask the neighbors.
Having the recently opened Hilton Garden Inn adjacent to the aviation center will benefit both, developer Tom Arnot said this fall. “I think it adds strength to their project. It certainly adds strength to ours.”
The 102-room hotel – formally known as the Hilton Garden Inn Seattle North/Everett, even though it’s in Mukilteo – opened in October.
Local tourism experts expect it to prosper. Aside from being across the parking lot from a destination tourist attraction, the new hotel is also the closest high-end lodging to the Boeing Co.’s massive Everett factory complex, making it a convenient home base for business travelers.
The Hilton has already been booked solid on several nights, Future of Flight marketing director Sandy Ward said.
According to the Hilton Hotels Web site, the new hotel features a restaurant and bar, an exercise room and an indoor pool. The hotel has 2,400 square feet of meeting space, which comes equipped with wired and wireless Internet connections.
The guest rooms also have the same Internet connections, plus in-room faxes and printing capability, speakerphones and work desks, plus a refrigerator, microwave, coffee maker and 26-inch high-definition television.
The hotel also provides the catering services for events at the Future of Flight, which already has hosted a number of Boeing-related parties and the recent Everett Area Chamber of Commerce annual awards gala.
The Hilton Garden Inn, along with the remodeled Holiday Inn, are part of a new wave of high-end, full-service hotels in Everett, said Dan Mitzel, a Mount Vernon developer involved with the Holiday Inn project.
Previously, only a few large hotels, all south of Everett, fit that category.
“The bar has been raised, and the Snohomish County traveler expects a better room,” he said. “As rooms get better, that helps pull in business.”
Herald writer Eric Fetters contributed to this report.
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