Hyatt Place is latest Racetrack Road destination
The Hyatt Place hotel, with 155 rooms, is open next to The Meadows Racetrack & Casino.
Guests may get fired up about the patio lounge at the Hyatt Place hotel.
Washington County’s entertainment destination officially added a destination Friday.
The Hyatt Place hotel, with 155 rooms, was launched shortly before noon by a ceremonial ribbon-cutting out front and a champagne toast on the pedestrian bridge that is but one link to The Meadows Racetrack & Casino. Hyatt Place opened April 30, so this was more of a display of the fruits of 17 months of labor.
“I see a very dynamic and trendy operation that has all the energy of the casino and racing,” said Gabriel Perez, general manager of the Racetrack Road facility, a hotel industry veteran experiencing Hyatt and Western Pennsylvania for the first time. He left a job in the Hamptons on Long Island.
State, county and municipal officials also were on hand along with representatives of Hyatt, FFC Capital Corp. and Crescent Hotels & Resorts, which operates the new North Strabane Township hotel. Design Builders of Ohio, headquartered in Steubenville, handled the construction.
FFC Capital, based in Pittsburgh, broke ground on the first Hyatt in the county in December 2013, on four acres fronting the casino and track.
“We pledge to be a good neighbor,” said Fred Branovan, FFC’s president and chief operating officer. “We want to live up to the high standards of The Meadows Racetrack & Casino.
“We built this in 18 months. We wanted to do it faster, but we’ll blame Hyatt. They wouldn’t let us open without windows and doors.”
The hotel’s features include: the enclosed skywalk connecting the hotel and casino; the stylish Parlay Lounge and stylishly comfortable patio lounge off of it, replete with fire pit; complimentary Wi-Fi access throughout; a 42-inch HDTV in the guest rooms; about 1,800 square feet of meeting space; 24-hour gym; and an indoor pool. Each guest room will have a 42-inch HDTV.
Sean Sullivan, vice president and general manager of the casino, likewise plans to be a good neighbor.
“I’m absolutely pleased with this,” he said, standing on the hotel side of the walkway. “On top of that, it’s a Hyatt. This is a high bar for the area.”
To accommodate casino and racetrack guests, Sullivan said The Meadows rented the equivalent of 5,000 room nights at the Hyatt over the first year. “We think we could be encouraged to commit to more,” he said.
Sullivan has been at his entertainment destination for six years and has been involved with, or witnessed, a development boom along Racetrack Road – a bounty that will continue with the Street at the Meadows project nearby.
A few days ago, he saw a photo that put the scope of that metamorphosis in perspective.
“I was looking at this picture of Racetrack Road, before Tanger Outlets was built, before the casino,” he said. “It was desolate.”
Not anymore, especially on the area above the Adios statue.