The Hyatt Regency Jacksonville Riverfront will remain closed until Oct. 30 after the ground floor was extensively damaged Sept. 11 when the St. Johns River overflowed its banks Downtown during Hurricane Irma.
The largest hotel in Northeast Florida – 951 guest rooms and 30 ballrooms and meeting rooms – will be out of business for seven weeks, including during Florida-Georgia weekend Oct. 27-29, when thousands of college football fans will visit Jacksonville for the annual game at EverBank Field.
It’s not the ideal scenario to lose nearly 1,000 hotel rooms within walking distance of the stadium during what is historically the best weekend of the year for the hospitality business.
But unlike Irma, it won’t be a disaster, said Paul Astleford, president and CEO of Visit Jacksonville, the convention and visitors bureau for Jacksonville and the Beaches.
“The good thing is that we have 18,000 hotel rooms just in Duval County,” he said.
Visitors who would have stayed at the Hyatt will book rooms in hotels outside of Downtown, he said.
“It will be a very good weekend for the suburban hotels. A lot of them will be packed,” Astleford said.
The aftermath of the storm already has boosted business at the Ramada Jacksonville Hotel and Conference Center in Mandarin. General Manager Fred Pozin said many rooms are occupied by disaster recovery workers who came to Jacksonville after Irma and by residents who had to find temporary housing after their homes were damaged by floodwaters.
“I hate to see the Hyatt have to go through this,” said Pozin, a former member of the Duval County Tourist Development Council, “But the hotel represents only about 5 percent of the inventory.”
He said Florida-Georgia business will be better than usual this year at suburban properties, even as far as Clay, Nassau and St. Johns counties.
“We may run out of rooms,” Pozin said. “That could push business up and down I-95.”
As for impact closer to the stadium, Janice Lowe, general manager of the Jacksonville Landing, said she doesn’t expect to see a drop in business during Florida-Georgia weekend.
The festival atmosphere on Friday evening before the game on Saturday and immediately after the game is equaled only by New Year’s Eve and the annual TaxSlayer Bowl game, even if fewer people will be staying Downtown, she said.
“The people who plan on coming here will still come here. We’ll be ready for them at the Landing,” Lowe said. “Uber and the cab companies better be ready.”
The Hyatt isn’t completely shut down for repairs. The hotel issued a statement Monday that said “we expect to resume limited hotel and food and beverage operations.”
Meetings are being scheduled beginning this week in the former Daniel Building portion of the hotel west of the main building. Guests are being advised to enter through the parking garage, walk into the main building through the skybridge above Newnan Street, and then take an elevator to the third floor, where they will be directed to the meeting rooms.
Guests with questions regarding reservations are advised to contact Hyatt’s Global Reservations Center at (800) 323-7249.
“We are confident when the lobby reopens it will emerge better than ever and at the center of our amazing downtown,” said General Manager Luis Aloma in the statement.
Morton’s The Steakhouse, which leases space on the ground floor at the Hyatt, also is closed during the repair process. The company’s spokeswoman in Houston did not return an email or phone call for comment.
