Square feet & more: update on the state's major convention centers, hotel and meeting facilities.

Southern Indian.

Closed as a hotel since 1932, West Baden Springs Hotel, West Baden, reopened ahead of schedule in May, featuring 246 luxury guestrooms and suites, a fitness center, Sinclair's fine dining restaurant, Ballard's for drinks in the atrium, a natatorium with indoor pool and 12-room spa, five retail shops and restored meeting space. The hotel's domed atrium has been called the Eighth Wonder of the World, because it was the largest dome in the world until the Houston Astrodome was built in the mid-'60s. It is 100 feet wide and 200 feet tall.

West Baden Springs Hotel is part of the French Lick Resort Casino development, a $382 million historic restoration and casino development project. The French Lick facilities opened last year and regular shuttles run between the properties. Meeting and convention bookings for both facilities are handled through one department. French Lick offers 443 meeting rooms, eight eateries, more than 140,000 square feet of meeting space, stables, spa, health club and many other amenities. The casino is open 24/7.

The most stunning space at West Baden Springs Hotel is the domed atrium. Indiana Historic Landmarks Foundation hosted a black-tie gala in June, celebrating the grand opening and honoring Bill and Gayle Cook for their restoration efforts of the National Historic Landmark. More than 1,000 were in attendance under the dome. To reserve the atrium the hotel requires that all 120 rooms opening out to the atrium be booked by the group. Forty of those rooms have balconies. Five other meeting rooms are available accommodating from 20 to 120. "We are very pleased with the group business at the West Baden Springs Hotel," says Richard Pauley, director of sales. "Once the final product was unveiled, bookings picked up dramatically Many of the large corporations in the region have booked or are looking to book West Baden for board of directors meetings and retreats."

Work continues on the Pete Dye 18-hole championship course at West Baden, scheduled to open next year. This spring the Donald Ross Course at French Lick opened for its first full season. Formerly called the Hill Course, it officially reopened last September after a $4.6 million restoration. The nine-hole Tom Bendelow Course, formerly the Valley Course and adjacent to the French Lick Springs Hotel, opened this summer.

Upgrades were completed earlier this year at the Executive Inn Evansville downtown. The lobby, the 30,000 square feet of meeting areas and other public spaces were completely remodeled with marble flooring, mood lighting and new wall decor and woodwork design, as well high-speed wireless Internet. The guestroom upgrades are in the works, with nearly half the 470 rooms complete.

Casino Aztar Hotel has been open since 1996 across from Casino Aztar on the Ohio River, with 250 guestrooms and 20,000-square-feet of meeting facilities. Last fall "The District at Casino Aztar," or simply The District, began to materialize with the opening of Jillian's and Ri-Ra Irish Pub. And just a couple days before the New Year the 100-room Le Merigot opened, the first boutique hotel in Evansville. It features upscale amenities and offers five suites on the top floor with views of the Ohio River. The $40 million investment in The District has revitalized the riverfront area.

Northern Indiana, A $10 million complete renovation is under way at the Radisson Hotel at Star Plaza of Merrillville, with guestrooms and public spaces completed this year, and its 67,000 square feet of meeting space in 2008. The transformation includes a new reception lobby and a separate welcome hub off the Starbucks lobby for group check-ins and relaxation. The hotel's Khaki Bar will be converted into the Atrium Bar and Lounge. Semiprivate cabanas in the atrium area will feature flat-screen TVs, sofas and wireless Internet capability. All of the 347 guestrooms and suites will receive a complete makeover, including Sleep Number beds and upgraded bathrooms with granite countertops. The Garden Restaurant is now the Star Cafe, celebrating the heritage of the 3,400-seat Star Plaza Theatre, connected to the hotel complex.

In Porter County, Country Inn and Suites by Carlson, a new hotel in Portage, offers meeting space for up to 10 in its executive boardroom, and 40 in an additional meeting room where high-speed Internet access and audiovisual aids are available.

Duneland Falls Banquet Center & Meeting Center offers easy access to Chicagoland with its location near Interstate 94, the toll road, and State Road 149 in Portage. It has 22,000 square feet of flexible space, which can accommodate from 40 to 1,000.

The newest meeting facilities on the Valparaiso University campus are within the Christopher Center for Library and Information Resources. The center is a four-story, 115,000-square-foot building constructed as part of a $33 million project that included creation of a new campus entrance off U.S. 30 and a new parking area. It features a tiered classroom suitable for multimedia presentations that seats more than 90, a boardroom for up to 30, a large community room and several small breakout rooms. It is connected to the University Union Building, which also has several small meeting rooms.

In South Bend, Global Spectrum Management took over management of the Century Center in January "We anticipated Global Spectrum's arrival in South Bend with great excitement and we have not been disappointed," says Carolyne Wallace, director of sales and convention services, South Bend/Mishawaka Convention and Visitors Bureau. "Fresh ideas and a straightforward sales-oriented approach to marketing Century Center have already added bookings for the South Bend Convention District."

Two smaller venues located within downtown South Bend's Convention District are the Studebaker National Museum, offering a board room and its atrium for meetings and events, and the College Football Hall of Fame, which offers a unique atmosphere for meeting groups and terrific for team-building exercises with its hands-on exhibits and the Gridiron Plaza.

The buzz in Fort Wayne is about Harrison Square, a mixed-use development project planned for downtown. It will include a hotel, condos, retail, a new baseball stadium for the Fort Wayne Wizards and a parking garage. Agreement was reached last month between the city and White Lodging Services/Acquest Realty for a new 250-room full-service Courtyard by Marriott with 3,500-square-feet of meeting space. The $35 million project, which will be connected to the Grand Wayne Center across the street, has a target completion date of spring 2010.

Indiana University-Purdue University Fort Wayne broke ground in May on the IPFW Holiday Inn at the Coliseum, to be complete in the summer of 2008. The six-story, 150-room facility located near the university and the Allen County War Memorial Coliseum will include a restaurant, pool and meeting rooms and will serve as an academic laboratory for students of the IPFW Hospitality Management Program and Ivy Tech Community College-Northeast Culinary Arts Program.

Two extended-stay hotels, an 84-room Staybridge Suites and 80-room Homewood Suites, are under construction on Ellison Road in Fort Wayne, both scheduled to open early next year. Another new extended-stay facility, 83-room Candlewood Suites, opened last summer. Many of Fort Wayne's hotels recently underwent renovation including the Courtyard by Marriott Fort Wayne, Hampton Inn Southwest, Fort Wayne Marriott, Residence Inn SW, and AmeriSuites--now a Hyatt Place property

Central Indiana. "We're one year away from opening the doors and the roof on the Lucas Oil Stadium," says Bob Schultz, director of communications and public relations for the Indianapolis Convention & Visitors Association. Once that's complete, the doors of the RCA Dome will be closed, the dome deflated and the facility demolished to make room for doubling the size of the convention center, with a completion date of September 2010.

The 63,000-seat Lucas Oil Stadium, new home to the Indianapolis Colts, features a retractable roof and will also serve as convention and meeting space. It will have a dozen meeting rooms. The first planned event for the stadium is the Drum Corps International World Championships, which has committed to use the facility through 2018. The retractable dome was a deciding factor. It will also move its headquarters from outside Chicago to Indianapolis next year.

The NCAA Division I Men's Basketball Midwest Regionals are scheduled at Lucas Oil Stadium for March 2009, a rehearsal for the Men's Final Four in March 2010. Part of the stadium development includes a tunnel underground at South and Capitol streets, 25 feet below the event level, says Schultz, which will connect to the expanded convention center, traveling under the railroad tracks.

Construction begins this fall on the $325 million JW Marriott Complex in Indianapolis, developed by Whiteco Industries, Merrillville, and slated to be open in time for the Final Four in 2010. The complex will include a total of 1,568 rooms: 1,000 in the 29-story JW Marriott tower; 250 in the Courtyard by Marriott; 168 in Fairfield Inn & Suites by Marriott; and 150 rooms in the SpringHill Suites by Marriott. The JW Marriott will include 110,000 square feet of meeting and event space, with 45,000 in its ballroom, the largest in the state and the largest hotel ballroom in the Midwest. When complete, the number of hotel rooms connected by skywalk to the Indiana Convention Center will be 4,800, more than any other convention center, with a total of 7,500 within walking distance.