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Comfort Suites opens on Cherry Tree Lane

MARIETTA – With the snip of a ribbon, Marietta’s newest hotel opened Thursday.

The amenity-laden Comfort Suites on Cherry Tree Lane will add 102 suites to Marietta’s overnight hospitality market, which is consistently at capacity, said Comfort Suites General Manager Dan Van Dyke.

“They’re full all the time,” Van Dyke said of the other hotels and motels in the area. “We’ll get referrals from all the other hotels because they’re sold out.”

The Comfort Suites did a soft opening last week and has been accepting guests since Jan. 31.

Some of those guests have come as referrals from Comfort Suites’ adjacent sister property, Fairfield Inn and Suites.

Joe Aldridge, 66, of New Port Richey, Fla., was checking out of the Comfort Suites Thursday morning. He and his family had booked a room at the Fairfield while visiting family this week but decided to switch to the Comfort Suites when they saw the newer hotel nearby.

“I thought it was great, and the people were really good to us,” he said. “It’s the best of the hotels up here without a doubt.”

A lot of early guests have been walk-ins, said Alan Hardway, vice president of MPH Hotels Inc., which owns both Comfort Suites and Fairfield Inn and Suites.

Comfort Suites marked the company’s 16th hotel property, he said.

“We’re excited to bring lots of (business) to Marietta. As we all know, it’s a great time to be opening hotels in Marietta,” said Hardway at Thursday’s ribbon-cutting ceremony.

The burgeoning hotel industry is good for the city for a variety of reasons, said Marietta Mayor Joe Matthews.

“It’s going to bring people to town,” he said.

The hotel will add to the city’s ever-growing hotel bed tax, said Matthews.

An all-suites hotel is a new prototype for MPH Hotels and one that will be well-suited to long-term and corporate travelers, said Van Dyke.

Each room has a 42-inch TV, microwave, refrigerator and pull-out sofa bed. The hotel offers an indoor pool, a fitness center, hot breakfast every morning, high-speed Internet and computers and printers in the lobby.

The hotel will offer weekly, monthly and long-term rates, said Hardway.

Hardway and Van Dyke declined to comment on overnight rates.

“They can always be changing,” said Van Dyke.

The hotel is pet-friendly, accepting pets of all sizes for a fee of $25 a night, said Van Dyke.

In the future, MPH will be working with the site landowner to develop more business in the surrounding area along Pike Street, said Hardway.

A couple of steak house style restaurants and an IHOP have tentatively expressed interest, he said.

“Once they see our occupancy rise, their interest will rise as well,” said Hardway.

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