After a challenging year, The Westin Memphis Beale Street is poised for a new chapter, beginning with a $5 million design refresh.

Located a block south of Beale and directly across the street from FedExForum, The Westin is ready to welcome back travelers, as well as locals in need of event space.

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Striving for “contemporary elegance,” the design refresh includes matching shades of blue carpeting in guestrooms and public spaces, as well as textured wallpaper and contemporary art.

The redesign, which started in 2016, includes all guestrooms, as well as the lobby, exercise facility and 9,000 square feet of meeting space.

“I think our hotel looks really upscale,” said Westin general manager Kim Murray, “which is what our customers have come to expect. Our clientele enjoys staying here, and that also has a lot to do with our staff.”

At the height of the lockdowns last spring, The Westin had furloughed most of its employees and was only booking rooms on three floors. The lack of Grizzlies games and the limited occupancy of most Beale Street establishments hurt the Downtown hotel, as the hospitality sector became one of the greatest industry causalities of the pandemic.

But things are starting to look up. This time last year, The Westin had 35 employees. Now, they have 78 workers. For Murray, increasing worker pay was an important step in bringing life back to the hotel.

“We decided to kind of be the leader in the market by raising our wages, so we could keep good staff,” Murray said. “Right now, (some of the larger hotels) only have two or three people working for them, but we currently have 13 or 14 housekeepers alone.”

Some employees at The Westin have seen as much as a 50% increase in pay, Murray said.

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Guests are starting to return in decent numbers, and customers are starting to request the newly designed event spaces. 

“People are starting back, but they’re starting back smaller,” Murray said. “I feel like it just depends on how the Delta variant goes. We have a big group coming for the week for 723 room nights, which is going to be our biggest (since the pandemic).”

The refresh, which also includes remodeling of the lobby and the adjoining Starbucks, was completed in stages, first conceived in 2016 when The Westin was purchased from Starwood Hotels. 

Today, the hotel is co-owned and operated by Wellengood Partners in Nashville. 

Throughout the multi-year redesign, Wellengood has replaced all of the furniture and appliances in each of its 203 rooms. 

One of the hotel’s more unique amenities includes the option of renting a Gibson guitar, an amplifier and a pair of headphones, so guests can “rock out.”

“While we are continually updating and putting capital into The Westin, we are proud of the work done by Wellengood Partners to complete this beautiful design refresh,” Wellengood CEO Glenn Malone said in a statement. “We look forward to welcoming guests for an experience equally contemporary, entertaining and Memphis-centric.”