13 WTHR - Indianapolis News |Topping off ceremony at JW Marriott downtown

Topping off ceremony at JW Marriott downtown

Indianapolis - Workers have topped out the largest hotel in Indiana. The JW Marriott is changing the Indianapolis skyline, and for the first time, reporters got a view from the top.

At West and Washington Streets, it will be the largest hotel in the state and the largest JW in the world and it's halfway finished.

Tuesday afternoon, project leaders led reporters on a tour of the 34-story hotel, starting in the junior ballroom and winding through the first floor. The main public entrance will be on Maryland Street. There will be an upscale high-tech sports bar inside.

It was then up to the top - the 34th floor - with a spectacular panoramic view of downtown. The JW will actually anchor Marriott Place. The three other hotels, including the Springhill, will open in February as work continues on the JW.

The $450 million Marriott Place project made up of five hotels connected to the convention center is ahead of schedule. When finished, the JW will add 1,000 rooms to downtown. It's scheduled to open a year before the 2012 Superbowl, which explains why construction has been on the fast track.

"It's a huge orchestration to get this done and open on schedule and on time. Time is our biggest challenge," said Terry May, senior project manager.

The final topping-off makes the JW Marriott Indy's seventh tallest building.

There will be a total of 1,600 rooms when it's all complete. But it doesn't come without concern. Some wonder if Indy can fill all those rooms when hotel business is down this year 14 percent.

The city says to look past the economy of today, and what kind of opportunities the Marriott Place will create for the future.

"We're actively seeking conventions that we've never been able to pursue before, we're seeking conventions that moved away because Indianapolis had become too small, and now we have this expanded product and we can entice those conventions to come back,"said Bill Benner, Indianapolis Convention and Visitors Association. "And last but not least we wouldn't have the Super Bowl without the JW Marriott Complex."

In addition to the 2012 Super Bowl, the ICVA is now booking conventions as far out as 2021.

"We're looking years down the road. and what convention and meeting planners want, and one of the things they've told us for a long time, is we need a convention size hotel with a 1,000 rooms or more and we will now have that," Benner said.

After Tuesday's major milestone with the topping-off of the JW Marriott, those three other Marriott properties open in just a few months: February of 2010.

Those hotels are already booked up for the Men's Final Four.

At the end of the year in December 2010, the newly expanded Convention Center Opens

Finally, completion of the JW is expected ahead of schedule in February 2011, just a little over a year from now. Groundbreaking was in May 2008.