This brand-new luxury tower is the city’s highest-end hotel and the first JW Marriott in the Midwest, joining 38 other locations in destinations including Cancun, Fiji and Rio de Janeiro.
The $100 million, 24-story hotel, known locally as the JW, is helping turn Grand Rapids into a national destination for business meetings and conventions. The elegant and sophisticated wayfinding system that we developed directs hotel guests and businesspeople to the JW’s 340 guest rooms, 20,000 square feet of conference space, the 1,000-seat International Ballroom and the hotel’s signature restaurant, six.one.six.
Befitting the JW’s international clientele, conference room identification signs bear the name of Grand Rapids sister cities in Japan, Poland, Italy and Ghana.Many of the wayfinding system’s high-level elements use a decorative glass overlay for their faces. Others use aluminum faces and perforated side panels for a contemporary, high-tech feel.
Four freestanding electronic kiosks guide event attendees through the hotel and to their destinations using the identities of the organizations that have booked the conference rooms and ballrooms. Nine wall-mounted monitors outside the conference rooms list the day’s events along with upcoming sessions and display the menus at nearby restaurants. Hotel staff update the networked kiosks and monitors remotely as events change.
