Dallas Convention Center Omni Hotel

photo by Rusty Scruby

The new Omni Hotel at the Dallas Convention Center opened this month to much local fanfare. Back in May 2009 we had a city election to approve the City of Dallas building and owning a hotel attached to the convention center.  At the time I was opposed to the City of Dallas owning a hotel.  It seemed to me that there were plenty of large hotels owned by major hoteliers in and near downtown Dallas.  But the majority of voting citizens chose to own a hotel and construction began soon afterwards.  I have since changed my opinion for several reasons.  First, we just experienced the longest and hottest summer on record.  It does make since for visitors to our city to be able to go from their hotel rooms directly to the convention center without ever having to step outside, especially during extremely hellishly hot summers.  I hope that next summer the Mary Kay conventioneers and Texas Teachers who both gather in August every year at the convention center appreciate this new treasure.  Secondly, I absolutely love the rainbow of color that moves horizontally around the outside face of the building.  It adds so much color to the downtown skyline as well as help fill in the gap between Reunion Tower and the more clustered skyscrapers along Commerce, Main and Elm streets.  Reunion Tower is being refitted with new more colorful lights that will debut early in 2012. And finally, I am super impressed that the hotel project chose to include artworks created by more than 150 local artists, one of whom I interviewed for this blog in August of this year. I raise my glass and toast to much success for both Omni Hotel and the City of Dallas on this new venture.