Look inside Memphis' renovated convention center
Dark corridors, low-ceiling rooms replaced by windows where exterior bricks once were, upscale restrooms, smaller conference rooms with higher ceilings, more escalators, and friendlier access from the garage.
Tens of thousands of Memphians have streamed through the Memphis Cook Convention Center for events and conferences since the block-long building at 255 North Main opened nearly 50 years ago.
Now, the final stages of a $200 million renovation have updated the conference hall, recently renamed the Renasant Convention Center, to make it appear open and spacious.
Workers will finish in January. When they do, those who might remember navigating the original dark corridors and low-ceiling rooms of the cavernous building will find wide windows where exterior bricks once were, upscale restrooms, finer sound-proof fabrics and veneers on walls, more meeting rooms with higher ceilings, more escalators, quicker-loading truck-trailer elevators, and a more appealing entryway from the 1,000-vehicle parking garage.
Here’s a look at a few of the highlights intended to modernize the conference hall for conventions coming from outside Memphis and make it more friendly for the business meetings and conferences planned regularly by organizations in the city as diverse as Autozone, Ducks Unlimited, Fedex, National Cotton Council, St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital and the University of Tennessee Health Science Center.
Walking — or parking — in Memphis
Park in the three-level garage and new speakers placed on the ceiling will pipe in the sound of Memphis-made music for pedestrians as they make their way to the new glass doorways that lead to the corridor connecting to the conference rooms. Here’s the thing about the doorways: You can see where you are going and easily find staircases and escalators, unlike the impression left by the original solid doors and dark corridors.
Upscale restrooms
“Our goal was to make the building look hotel quality,” said Kevin Kane, chief executive of Memphis Tourism, the agency that markets and manages the Renasant center. That goal is evident in the sparkling restrooms. The original fixtures, reminiscent of what might be found in a city park, have been replaced.
White tiles gleam on the walls. Tall mirrors stand over white sinks. Bright and narrow vertical LED lights shine every 6 feet. Among the 23 restrooms in the building are more facilities for women than men.
“We have more toilets now than Fedexforum,” Kane said.
Faster loading trucks
Memphis was once home to what Kane called the largest semi-truck-trail
er elevator in North America. The old elevator lifted one trailer to the level it was needed. When work crews emptied the trailer, it was lowered to the base level, connected to a truck, pulled out of the way, and a new fully laden trailer was backed onto the elevator, lifted to the floor it was needed and emptied out.
The process was sure but slow. It could take days to install and uninstall a convention and all its fixtures. That elevator, history now, was replaced by four new loading docks situated at the exhibition-floor level. Trucks now can drive right up to the docks.
Memphis Cook could accommodate a major expo and two or three separate conferences on any given day. That number doesn't change for the Renasant. But the new docks allow the center in any given week to handle more conferences thanks to the more rapid setup and breakdown provided by the four docks.
Planning for conferences in Memphis
Modern convention planners like meeting rooms. Five hundred folks might sit in the main convention hall, then step away and separate into four meeting rooms for seminars seating 125 in each. “This is a game changer for us,” Kane said about the renovation that gutted the mezzanine and opened up a big floor graced with wood veneer walls, higher ceilings and sound-absorbing fabric to mute noises. Temporary walls fold out from storage closets and can divide the big conference room into 19 breakout rooms.
The view from I-40
The convention center not only occupies the entire block between Main and Front streets, its second floor overhangs Front and an area that, before Memphis Cook was built, overlooked the riverbank. For half a century that area's chief purpose has been to hold the concrete pillars put in place to support the weight of the convention hall overhead. Now it's been repurposed.
A multi-story conference room has been built around the pillars. Its chief feature, a balcony and glass wall, takes in a view of Mud Island, the Desoto bridge and the ramp network connecting motorists to I-40.
When drivers come off eastbound I-40 and onto the Front Street ramp, what they will first notice are the large letters on the side of the convention hall spelling Memphis and an inviting view into the building afforded by a partial wall of glass. These are the windows in the new conference room.
Ted Evanoff, business columnist of The Commercial Appeal, can be reached at evanoff@commercialappeal.com and (901) 529-2292.