The new general manager of the DoubleTree Hotel, Convention Complex and Alliant Energy PowerHouse is a newcomer to Iowa, but he’s far from a newcomer to hospitality management. Tristan Harris began his new role at Cedar Rapids’ lone downtown hotel on Dec. 13, 2021, after the retirement of the previous general manager, Jay Anderkin. And […]
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The new general manager of the DoubleTree Hotel, Convention Complex and Alliant Energy PowerHouse is a newcomer to Iowa, but he’s far from a newcomer to hospitality management.
Tristan Harris began his new role at Cedar Rapids’ lone downtown hotel on Dec. 13, 2021, after the retirement of the previous general manager, Jay Anderkin. And while he’s only been in the position a little more than a month, he’s excited about the prospects he sees for the entire complex.
“I think there’s a ton of positives,” Mr. Harris said. “There’s a great team in place. We have the best talent in the market, so that puts us in a great position to market ourselves as the only hotel in downtown Cedar Rapids. I feel we have a dual obligation to not only sell our hotel and facility, but bring people to Cedar Rapids. There’s nothing on the surface that I would change at this point. It’s continuing to hone and cultivate the positives we have.”
Having worked in the hospitality industry for nearly 22 years, you could say Mr. Harris has come up through the ranks. After graduating from Southern New Hampshire University with a degree in hotel administration in 2000, he began working as a hotel front desk clerk. After progressing through several management roles, he accepted his first general manager position with a Sheraton hotel in Portsmouth, New Hampshire. A few years later, he moved into the Hilton system at a hotel in Burlington, Vermont. After that property was sold, he became general manager of a Hilton Garden Inn in Alexandria, Virginia, the position he held just before accepting the Cedar Rapids job.
While admittedly a “New England guy,” Mr. Harris said he’s already found much to like about his new home community of Cedar Rapids.
“There’s so much great sentiment about Midwesterners – the quality of people, the quality of life,” he said. “Certainly these days, affordability plays into the life equation, and affordability is great here. I have a family, so being able to bring my family to a place where there’s good values, where we can live affordably and get ready to send them to college, those were certainly important considerations as well.”
Mr. Harris is responsible for the overall management of the 16-story, 266-room DoubleTree Hotel, Cedar Rapids’ largest, and the adjoining 471,000-square-foot convention complex and Alliant Energy PowerHouse, an arena with a capacity of 9,000. His team also works with VenuWorks, the event management firm that books events for the arena.
There’s a somewhat unique history at play here. The hotel, then known as the Crowne Plaza Five Seasons Hotel, was foreclosed upon by its primary lenders in the wake of the June 2008 flood. It was subsequently purchased in 2010 by the city of Cedar Rapids, which spent millions to remodel and upgrade the facility before signing a 10-year management agreement, with an option for 15 years, with Hilton Worldwide.
That agreement remains in place, though some city leaders have called for reconsideration of the city’s ownership of a hospitality facility, and in 2014, Moody’s Investor Service called Cedar Rapids’ ownership of the hotel and convention center a “risk” in a report downgrading the city’s bond rating from Aaa to Aa1.
For his part, Mr. Harris said he isn’t aware of any planned ownership changes.
“In terms of the relationship, it’s my understanding that it’s been a positive one between Hilton and the city,” he said. “I look to continue that and execute the mission and the expectations that the city has for the facility, and keep momentum moving in the right direction for everybody.”
It’s no secret that the COVID-19 pandemic has wreaked havoc on the hospitality industry. While Mr. Harris acknowledges the industry still has its challenges, he said he sees positive trends emerging.
“We’re continuing down the path of recovery,” he said. “We’re certainly not back to pre-pandemic levels, but we continue to march forward and see things coming back to life. There are positive signs and green shoots all over the place. Obviously, it’s not an even road – we take on the variants, we go through waves and spikes in the road to recovery, but with each passing wave, the blip gets less and less impactful. People want to travel and do business, but we need to be assured that we can do it safely. We continue to be fueled by the leisure market, but business travel is starting to return and phones are ringing. People want to book events, whether social events or corporate events. Like every level-setting event, whether it’s a financial downturn or any type of tragedy that affects the industry, it takes time to rebuild, but we are in the rebuilding process.”
Two level-setting events locally – the 2008 flood and the August 2020 derecho – brought their own impacts locally, but they weren’t all bad for the hospitality industry, Mr. Harris noted.
“Sometimes (those events) create a need in the hotel market,” he said. “The derecho created a need for work crews to be housed. They may be devastating to a local community, but sometimes for the hotel side, they can actually bring an upswing in business.”
The flood, in particular, was the impetus for long-overdue renovations, Mr. Harris pointed out. “It changed the whole complex, really,” he said. “What we have today was hatched as a result of that event.”
Event and hotel bookings are already trending upward over the past few months – three visiting Iowa Hawkeye football opponents stayed at the DoubleTree this past season, and other NCAA events have been held in Cedar Rapids, including the Division III wrestling tournament that returns to the PowerHouse in March. Weddings and associated events are also on the upswing.
For his part, Mr. Harris said he’s eager to see what the future holds.
“I’m excited to be here, to entrench myself and my family in the Cedar Rapids community, and I’m looking forward to being part of the recovery, getting our industry and our facility headed for good things,” he said. “There’s a lot of pent-up demand out there. It’s been a tough couple of years, but I really think the future is bright.”
