AND SO WE MEET AGAIN: Boston Park Plaza’s Upscale Event Spaces
The hotel industry has undoubtedly been through a tough year. But signs of life have definitely returned. For the Boston Park Plaza Hotel, one of those signals has been the nearly booked-solid use of their event spaces.
Before the pandemic, the hotel had converted a former restaurant on the street level into an event space they now call “Avenue 34.” Fit out by Structure Tone, the space now serves as a flexible event area with airwall partitions, new upscale restrooms, and an updated façade to highlight the upscale space. The space was a hit, which gave the hotel an idea for a similar vacant area—a former Hermès retail store—that they had been using as swing space for additional meetings and events.
“Avenue 34 was a huge success,” says Andrew Emden, Structure Tone senior project manager. “The hotel realized they could continue to leverage underutilized space by repurposing the Hermès store into a really cool, chic event room.”
The pandemic temporarily put the project on hold, but in March of 2021, Emden and the Structure Tone team got to work, completely gutting the former retail store, removing its MEP systems, and getting it down to bare-bone conditions. In its place, they installed spiral duct work, spotlight lighting, and modern, black-and-gray, open-concept layout that gives an industrial edge to a storied institution.
But working in a 100-year-old building certainly has its challenges, says Emden. ”There are so many layers of other renovations and build-outs that came before,” he says, “You always find surprises.”
To get ahead of those challenges, Emden and his team did weeks of due diligence, working with the design team to redesign duct work and map out how to install all the new infrastructure, despite low ceiling heights and spotty existing building plans.
The team was inspired throughout the job, however, by the increasing uptick in guests and interest the hotel was getting in its event spaces as society returned to life.
“The space was booked weeks before it was even completed,” says Emden. “To take a space that sat vacant for years in a 100-year-old building and see it transformed into this beautiful event space for the hotel, it’s a really good feeling.” Structure Tone vice president Mike Simonelli agrees. “We’re very proud of the long-term relationship Structure Tone has with Sunstone and Boston Park Plaza. Since completing this meeting room, we have now renovated approximately 90% of this iconic property.”