Snohomish County Business Journal


YOUR COUNTY.	YOUR BUSINESS JOURNAL.

Published October 2003

Business groups already making use of center

By Kimberly Hilden
SCBJ Assistant Editor

The Everett Events Center’s Conference Center won’t open until November, but already it’s drawing interest — and business — from the surrounding community.

“We’ve just learned that we can move the opening up two days to Nov. 13, a couple days ahead of schedule,” said Jill Smith, the center’s coordinator. “In the meantime, I’m actually booking groups in the (adjacent) arena.”

Familiar face
booking space

The conference center may be new to the area, but the person lining up its events isn’t.

Jill Smith, an event planner with the Everett Area Chamber of Commerce for the past four-and-a-half years, has joined Global Spectrum as coordinator for the Everett Events Center’s Conference Center, where she is responsible for booking meeting space and working with clients to make their events a success.

It’s a job description Smith is familiar with, having worked for the Holiday Inn Hotel & Conference Center in Everett as well as DoubleTree Hotels in Seattle in catering and room sales.

But getting a state-of-the-art conference center up and running has been a learn-as-you-go experience for Smith, who holds a degree in hotel management.

Since joining Global Spectrum in August, she has found herself researching PA systems, working on a competitive room rate structure and even playing a part in selecting furniture (“There will be all kinds of nice seating areas in the foyer.”) in preparation of the Conference Center’s November opening.

“Every morning I think, ’What in the world am I going to learn today? And it is amazing at the end of the day what goes on in this office,” she said, gazing around her temporary quarters in the Frontier Bank Building on Colby Avenue. “It’s been pretty exciting, that’s for sure,” she said.

— Kimberly Hilden,
SCBJ Assistant Editor

Groups such as Everett Bone and Joint and the Integrated Rehabilitation Group, the official training and medical team for the Everett Silvertips, which hosted a reception for the local medical community Sept. 17.

Or Reid Middleton’s 50th anniversary celebration Oct. 22, which will include a reception with a hockey game to follow.

That same day, another group is holding a breakfast for 400, Smith added. “They’re actually setting up right on the concourse.”

“I think groups are willing to sort of be patient and work with us on a unique situation just to be one of the first groups in the building, and from what I hear, it’s helping out with their attendance and registration,” Smith said.

When the conference center does open, its spacious meeting facilities, state-of-the-art amenities and attentive staff will help attract business, from nonprofits planning their annual dinner auctions to companies seeking a venue for their holiday parties, she said.

Included in the facility is a ballroom with just under 12,000 square feet of space. Located on the third floor and with floor-to-ceiling windows facing the Cascades, the ballroom is capable of accommodating 800 guests for a sit-down meal or being divided into four smaller banquet/meeting rooms, Smith said.

On the floor below are three additional meeting rooms: a 697-square-foot executive boardroom, with plans for teleconferencing capabilities; a 798-square-foot conference room; and an 874-square-foot conference room. There also is a business center planned for that floor.

“That will be a real asset to our meeting clients, with copying machines and printers and fax machines and telephones,” she said.

Along with the practical amenities, the center will have aesthetic attributes as well, including “Trivergence,” a stainless-steel sculpture composed of three broken circles stacked on top of one another, with water streaming out the top opening in each circle into another opening below.

The $68,000 sculpture by artist Ulrich Pakker is scheduled to be installed on Hewitt Avenue at the main entrance of the conference center Nov. 1, said Susan DiPietro, public art supervisor for the City of Everett Cultural Commission, part of the city’s Parks and Recreation Department.

Inside, the conference center will be home to the city’s Pilchuck Glass Collection, which formerly was housed at the Monte Cristo Hotel and represents glasswork by 12 master glassblowers, including Dale Chihuly, DiPietro said.

“We will also be installing three large Guy Andersen paintings, which have been in storage waiting for a home,” she said, referring to the Northwest contemporary artist.

In addition, the city planned to put a call out to 5,000 area artists to secure five other pieces of art to be installed during the spring, she said.

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