I had a chance to walk through the new Marriott today and was not surprised. The new hotel, with its gorgeous lobby, does an excellent job of meeting Stormont-Noble’s lofty standards. Raleigh can now be proud that it finally has a downtown hotel that meets national standards.

Previously the focus of critics has been the hotel’s exterior. In person, the building’s exterior is a failure on levels worse than expected. The materials, colors, and window details are vapid. It’s exterior’s role in downtown life is a embarrassment to the Livable Streets concepts prescribed in the city’s original requests. Both the dysfunctional Salisbury Street facade and its service-only Lenoir facade punish interested pedestrians. As predicted, the only ways to enter the building from sidewalks are clustered near the intersection of Fayetteville and Cabarrus Streets, creating a horrible pedestrian experience.

Inside, however, the hotel is outstanding. Dressed with white marble floors and contemporary orange, brown, and tan walls and furniture, the hotel is a welcome, first-rate newcomer to downtown Raleigh. The porte c ochere, understated registration desk, and Starbuck’s Coffee store offer a warm, doorstep for voluminous convention traffic in the future. The hotel’s lobby flows spaciously by a slightly underwhelming gift shop and formal sitting areas adorned with multiple high definition televisions into the hotel’s restaurant, Posta Tuscan Grille (preview to follow). Posta Tuscan also has a dedicated Fayetteville Street entrance, so guests having nothing to do with the convention center will have no trouble finding the restaurant.

The west half of the hotel’s ground floor is where one finds the ballrooms and meeting spaces. Unfortunately the corridor that surrounds the central ballroom is lined with a wall of Salisbury street-facing windows. There is no west facade entrance, so those in the hotel can only look out the window at pedestrians who are likely trying to find their way into the hotel. It’s a tragic flaw that could have been easily remedied by placing a small entrance at the building’s NW corner.

The hotel sits atop a multi-level parking garage. The access to the hotel coincides with the hotel’s escalators that access the underground Convention Center connector. This nice piece of design will be a major convenience for conventioneers using the underground garage. The only problem with the hotel’s downward access to the tunnel is that the walls are bare. Perhaps the final phases of decorating are yet to come, as the hotel has still not reached its official opening date.

The City of Raleigh requested, and subsized a facility that would match the impressive function and form of its new convention center. While the delivered product contributes almost nothing to its neighborhood or the city’s skyline, it will undoubtedly impress its target audience, conventioneers staying on-site. That’s a level of success we can all celebrate.

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