Don’t plan on staying at the posh, Davenport Grand Hotel between July 7 -11. It’s booked. The hotel will be at capacity when it hosts its first official group of convention attendees—1,300 sales reps from the national company Essential Oils.

And forget about getting a room Aug. 19–23, when downtown hosts the 73rd annual World Science Fiction Convention at the Spokane Convention Center. The Grand Hotel is also booked to capacity for the WorldCon. An estimated 5,000 convention goers are expected in Spokane that week.

The Lilac City beat out Orlando, Fla., and Helsinki, Finland, for the selection. WorldCon attracted 8,000 convention goers to London last year, says that organization’s website. The average hotel stay is $200 per night based on a typical room, which includes either 425 or 475 square feet of space. Suite prices range from $300 to $2,000 per night, says Matt Jensen, corporate director of sales and marketing for the Davenport Hotels.

Jensen says the hotel got off to a strong start before its first guests arrived.

“For the rest of this year, we have 20,000 rooms booked at the Davenport Grand Hotel for convention-related events alone,” he says.

Jensen also anticipates the hotel to be full for Hoopfest weekend, June 27 and 28. The hotel located at 333 W. Spokane Falls Blvd., debuted to the public this week with a soft opening.

Approximately 200 rooms still need to be finished before the end of the month, and one of the two restaurants at the hotel, Table 13, which will feature a 3,000-bottle wine cellar, won’t be ready until the end of July. However, The Grand Restaurant & Lounge and The Grand Terrace Bar will be open for service, Jensen says.

The majority of the work done at the hotel is finished. Walt Worthy, the hotel’s builder and owner together with his wife, Karen, says at the peak of construction, roughly 300 workers a day were toiling away on the project site. Worthy says his latest hotel cost him on average roughly $300,000 a day to build. Crews broke ground in October 2013.

At 200 feet tall with 17 floors, the Davenport Grand Hotel becomes Spokane’s sixth-tallest building behind the Bank of America Financial Center, 288 feet; Wells Fargo Center, 243 feet; Paulsen Medical Center, 221 feet; US Bank Building, 219 feet; and the Davenport Tower, 210 feet, according to Emporis, an international company that collects data on buildings and structures around the world. 

The $135 million, 716-room creation has also brought on 300 new, full-time workers to kick off the plush hotel’s opening. Jensen says the hotel will add 200 more new hires in the coming months.

“Until then, we’re going to use current employees from the historic Davenport, Davenport Tower, and Davenport Lusso,” Jensen says. “In time, we fully expect that demand for the Grand Hotel will be so high that we won’t have the ability to use staff from the other hotels.” In comparison, Jensen says, the three other Davenport Hotels employ a combined 600 workers.

Jensen specifically cited valet drivers, bell staff, food servers, and bartenders as occupations likely to greatly benefit from the business travelers his sales team has been actively recruiting to Spokane for conventions.

“While there will certainly be local travelers, this hotel was built to fill those extended stays for convention attendees and business travelers,” he says.

Jensen says his staff, Worthy, and hotel designers sought the expertise and advice from operators of national hotels in major metropolitan areas on how to operate and construct a hotel whose primary target market is business-class travelers and convention goers.

“We had to find new business, and I knew that I and my staff of 10 people were not going to be able to generate that kind of traffic,” Jensen says. 

Since breaking grounding at the Davenport Grand Hotel, Davenport Hotels has become members of the “Autograph Collection” of Marriott Hotels. “By plugging into a national sales program, visitors can stay at any one of the Davenport Hotels and earn rewards points,” Jensen says.

The Davenport Hotels are the only four in Washington that are part of the Autograph Collection program, says the Marriott website.

“That was huge for all of the hotels, not just the Grand,” Jensen says. “So now we’re in the same room, booking system as other Marriott hotels. It gave the Davenport Hotel chain national exposure to customers and businesses that we’ve never had before.”

As for the physical facility, the Worthys say they opted for a modern design and amenities that are more reflective of today’s business climate.

The project architect is Craig Woodard, owner and architect of Brick & Mortar Architecture & Development in Spokane. Coeur d’Alene-based Erik Hedlund Design LLC, provided interior design services.

“We heard things like, ‘Don’t bother with pools. People want to work out,’’’ Jensen says. “That’s why the Grand Hotel has a 2,800 square-foot fitness center and not a pool.”

Having a sky bridge also was a must, says Jensen.

“We learned that having the ability to have elevated walkways to protect people from the elements, regardless of the time of year, and traffic, is a huge selling point for travelers,” he says.

In a business world heavily dependent on interconnectivity, each room has no less than a dozen USB ports embedded directly into walls, eliminating the hassle of having to constantly keep track of one’s AC adapter for portable devices. The direct ports are placed near beds and desks for completing work while charging, Jensen says.

“You will not find one outlet that is placed behind a bed or a mattress,” Jensen says.

Automated blinds are controlled by wall switches, only energy-efficient LED lights are used throughout the building, and motion and heat sensors are employed to maintain consistent temperatures in rooms and ballrooms, Jensen says.

Additionally, seven-inch thick concrete walls separate each room in the hotel, which is designed to provide a quieter living environment for guests. The Grand Hotel moved away from the industry standard of placing two queen-sized beds in the majority of its rooms in favor of two king beds, Jensen says.

Nearly half the rooms in the hotel—355—will feature two king beds in 475-square-foot rooms. Meanwhile, 321 rooms, each with 425 square feet, will have a single king bed. The Grand Hotel has 40 suites, the largest being a presidential suite that has 2,000 square feet of space and connects to an adjoining 1,000 square-foot suite, Jensen says.

The hotel has a total of 63,177 square feet of meeting space, which includes an 18,000-square-foot ballroom, he says.

Jensen, a Spokane native, returned to the city 14 years ago when Worthy recruited him to his current position to lead the marketing department at the historic Davenport Hotel. He says the Davenport Grand Hotel is not stealing thunder from the three other hotels.

“We prefer not to eat our own children,” Jensen says. “Each Davenport hotel is unique and has its own niche. And the fact that we’ve already got so many rooms booked here speaks to that.”

The Visit Spokane organization issued a press release this week applauding the opening of the hotel. Keith Backsen, vice president of sales and services for the visitors’ bureau, noted that two major projects—the recently completed $55 million expansion of the Spokane Convention Center and the new Grand Hotel—have “dramatically advanced downtown Spokane and provided a lot more choice for meeting planners.”

He says, “Even before the Davenport Grand’s opening, our sales team has been making significant strides with planners.”

In total, Visit Spokane says, 1,100 hotel rooms now are connected to the convention center, counting the existing DoubleTree by Hilton Spokane City Center. The additional inventory, it said, brings the total number of guest rooms to 3,300 within eight blocks of the convention center.

“This is just the kind of close, tight, downtown convention package that meeting planners look for,” Backsen said. In all of Spokane County, there are a total of 7,200 available rooms, Visit Spokane says.