ART CREDIT

special section

Austin High-tech facilities and new hotels

The buzz about Austin has been constant over the past several years, and that extends to meetings as well. So much so that new non- stop flights and hotels are being added to the city that is already known as The Live Music Capital of the World and a place where visitors enjoy great entertainment, food, and culture. Austin boasts more than 30,000 guest

rooms citywide, with 6,500 of them con- veniently located downtown. That number will increase to more than 9,500 with new hotels set to open. The JW Marriott Austin, a 1,012-room, convention-style hotel, will offer more than 110,500 square feet of flex- ible meeting, banquet, and event space and easy access to the Austin Convention Center. Additionally, The Manchester Texas Financial Group recently announced plans to open a

$350-million city-center hotel in 2016, which will include more than 70,000 square feet of meeting space and 1,035 rooms. Both new hotels will be close to hundreds of restaurants and multiple areas of entertainment, such as Sixth Street, SoCo, and Red River districts. Not only is Austin a great place to do

business — the Texas capital has been named among CNN Money.com’s best new cities for business — but meeting attend- ees will also appreciate its afinity for tech. The LEED Gold–certified Austin Convention Center is considered one of the most techni- cally advanced convention facilities in the United States, offering free Wi-Fi through- out the center, with a proven track record of accommodating some 7,000 simultaneous Internet connections.

Music to their ears Planners and attendees alike will appreciate the LEED Gold–certified Austin Convention Center’s free Wi-Fi.

For more information: austintexas.org/meet

Boston New neighborhood and new wheels enhance a great city

Boston has long been at the forefront of hold- ing wicked successful meetings. As the city and the Massachusetts Convention Center Authority prepare for PCMA’s Convening Leaders gathering this January, two significant changes are enhancing the city’s look and feel. Known as the South Boston Waterfront,

the neighborhood around the Boston Con- vention & Exhibition Center was once a mix of industrial buildings and rail yards that served Boston’s worldwide trade in wool. Cut off from the city by an ancient, elevated highway, it was desolate and largely ignored, frequented by more longshoremen than businesspeople. But with several historic changes, the area

has blossomed. With the massive cleanup of Boston Harbor (Boston’s “Dirty Water” was once a famous presidential-election issue) and the opening of Boston’s Big Dig

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underground highway system, the South Boston Waterfront suddenly opened up. As a direct result of the access provided by the new highways and public transportation, the area is now booming, with restaurants seeing heavy trafic amid rapid construction of both ofice and residential space. Another change is happening very qui-

etly in Boston. Once rated as the least bike- friendly city in America, Boston is fast falling in love with two wheels. Thanks in large part to a long-term effort by Mayor Thomas M. Menino to make Boston a premier bike city, bike lanes have sprouted up everywhere, while Hubway (thehubway.com), one of the nation’s first bike-sharing programs, has become wildly popular and a model that other cities are following. Though the Hubway system will be shut down and disassembled during the winter,

Renewal The Boston Convention & Exhibition Center has spearheaded redevelopment in the South Boston Waterfront neighborhood.

the program’s popularity — with more than 100 stations and 1,000 bikes in Boston, Brook- line, Cambridge, and Somerville — is changing the way Bostonians and others get around.

For more information: massconvention.com

PCMA.ORG

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