by Amy Limbert
Staff Writer
Downtown is beginning to feel like home for Wendy Priesand.
And that’s a good thing — the concept of “home” has been a little precarious for Priesand lately. The new director of sales and marketing for the Omni, Priesand and her husband recently relocated to Jacksonville after Hurricane Katrina demolished their house and workplaces, bringing an end to home in Biloxi, Miss.
The couple resides in Berkman Plaza now. All of their belongings that were able to be salvaged are in a 10-by-10-foot storage facility in Mississippi. Most of the furniture in the Priesand’s new home is new.
“It’s just stuff,” Priesand said of losing it all. “It was very overwhelming for a short period of time, but then you pull yourself up and realize you have family and other opportunities.”
The road to Jacksonville from Biloxi had a few stops. The Priesands, whose house was a mere 1,000 yards from the ocean, weathered the storm at a friend’s house five miles inland. The next day, after surveying the devastation at their home, the Priesands moved in with their daughter in Tallahassee where they stayed for about six weeks.
The decision to relocate to Jacksonville came fairly easily, Priesand said. The couple raised their three daughters in the area, living on Amelia Island for 12 years before moving to Biloxi. In fact, the Omni isn’t new to Priesand, either. She served as the hotel’s business travel sales manager and senior sales manager from 1994-98.
Priesand started her new job at the Omni Oct. 24, and she says she came in at a busy time. The Florida-Georgia football game brought a packed hotel and the Omni also is setting its budgets for next year. Priesand’s main responsibility is to oversee sales and catering functions, as well as marketing efforts.
“It was just meant to be,” Priesand said of landing the job at the Omni. “I was so lucky to find employment so quickly.”
Back in Biloxi, Priesand had been the assistant director of sales at the Beau Rivage Resort and Casino, a 1,740-room resort that suffered $150 million worth of damage. She said the resort will be closed until January 2007. Because of the massive beach erosion caused by the hurricane, the Priesands now own beachfront property in Biloxi. They’re still waiting for the insurance to be sorted out, but they’ve decided to either sell the property to a developer or build another house and sell it — Jacksonville is home now.
Priesand says she loves walking to work and discovering all the changes downtown from when she worked here in the 1990s.
The Omni has undergone some changes as well, namely a $5 million room renovation that was completed in April. But Priesand says that what most pleases her about coming back to work there is what hasn’t changed: the people.
“What’s most exciting for me is to see that many associates who were here then are still here now,” she said.
Despite the upheaval in her life — both personal and professional — Priesand said the Omni staff has helped her adjust quickly.
“We have a very experienced sales team here,” she said. “They’ve been very welcoming.”
And she says she knows Biloxi will rebound, too.
“They will rebuild and in five years it will be a beautiful place,” she said.