Firm picked to manage event center at mall
Tribune Chronicle
Firm picked to manage event center at mall
Sep 22, 2019
Ron Selak Jr.
Reporter
rselak@tribtoday.com
NILES — A central Ohio hospitality and hotel management firm will manage the long-awaited Eastwood Event Centre at the Eastwood Mall.
Columbus Hospitality Management was selected from an exhaustive search that included reviewing local hospitality companies and a consultant to “cast a wider net” for an operator, said Joe Bell, spokesman for mall owner Cafaro Company.
“They are doing a lot of good things out there in the center part of the state. We’re really pleased. It took a long time talking to them to make sure they were the right fit for us,” Bell said.
Columbus Hospitality will be responsible for the day-to-day operation of the event center, including event scheduling, food service and marketing. However, Bell said, Cafaro Company’s marketing arm will help with promotions.
The firm also will keep an office in the mall in the Dillard’s concourse.
Plans for the 30,000-square-foot event center are for construction to begin by the end of the year and for it to open sometime in the second half of 2020, said Anthony M. Cafaro Jr., Cafaro Company co-president.
Architectual drawings have been done for what will become a state-of-the-art event center with the latest audio and visual technology. It will host traditional social events like wedding receptions, but also conferences.
“We hope to be able to attract conferences and events from around the state and around the region so that the facility is being utilized Monday through Friday from 8 a.m. till whatever time and filling the hotel rooms with out-of-town guests. Whether it is a conference for whatever trade group and whether that space is cut up into six different spaces that can have concurrent sessions going or one large ballroom, we are going to have that flexibility. Or maybe there could be three different types of groups all going on at the same time,” Cafaro said.
rselak@tribtoday.com