12 New Green Venues for Meetings and Events in 2019

The 253-room Montage Resort & Spa in Laguna Beach, California, finished a property-wide renovation in March. The revamp had sustainability in mind, with new eco-friendly plush robes and locally sourced linens, plus a PressReader app that reduces paper waste by giving guests access to thousands of newspapers and magazines. The resort has also begun working with local farmers to build an on-site garden that will provide ingredients for its food and beverage outlets; guests will also be able to host dinners in the garden or take educational, family-friendly workshops. Also in the works: an individual herb garden beside each poolside cabana, where bartenders can find fresh ingredients for cocktails.

The unique Flophouze Hotel in Round Top, Texas, is built entirely from recycled shipping containers. Each of the six rooms features repurposed materials, such as lumber from a distillery in Kentucky, windows from a school in Philadelphia, and countertops from a bowling alley in Texas. The rooms, which sleep as many as four people, each come with its own hammock and fire pit. The hotel, open since March 2018, is operated by the company Recycling the Past—which also operates the adjacent 12,000-square-foot, eco-friendly Round Top Ballroom; for events, it seats 150 or holds 250 for receptions.

American restaurant Erizo opened in Portland, Oregon, in February, and offers sustainably sourced seafood; in fact, the restaurant's chefs have their own commercial fishing licenses and either catch the fish themselves or purchase directly from local fisherman. The venue has a 20-course tasting menu that changes every week; items range from hand-dived shellfish to seasonal finfish and caviar service. The venue seats 20 or holds 35 for receptions, and it has hickory walls, cork floors, and touches of blue to evoke the ocean. The eatery's decorative plants come from local farms.

Open since December, Punch Bowl Social is a new 25,000-square-foot restaurant, bar, and entertainment venue in Arlington, Virginia. The three-story space holds as many as 1,000 people total, or smaller areas—like private karaoke rooms, a sit-down dining area and bar, two patios, and a bocce ball court—can be rented for groups. Other options in the colorful, vintage circus-inspired space include bowling, ping-pong, vintage arcade games, and more. The bar serves mostly local beer, and dining tables are made from salvaged pine trees that had been killed by the mountain pine beetle in Colorado. Another fun, eco-friendly touch: On the patio is a stationary bike that generates alternative energy to charge cell phones. The Arlington location is the company's 16th venue around the country.

Open since April 2018, the 18th Room in New York calls itself an “eco-friendly speakeasy.” Operated by hospitality veteran Dave Oz, the space has a zero-waste bar program; bartenders use as much of an ingredient as they can and share bar ingredients with the kitchen. The Art Deco-inspired space is filled with 1920s-style art, dark green banquettes, and tropical plants; it holds 80 for receptions or seats 45 in the main room and nine at the bar.

The Moscone Center in San Francisco completed a $551 million expansion to its North and South buildings in January; it now boasts 504,914 square feet of contiguous space including a new 49,776-square-foot ballroom and 82 meeting rooms. Post-renovation, the convention center—which uses 100-percent greenhouse gas-free energy—now creates fewer carbon emissions per delegate than any major convention center in North America. The expanded facilities feature the largest rooftop solar array in the city, and zero-waste stations are placed in all of the venue’s public spaces. Moscone Center’s exclusive catering partner, Savor, uses 100-percent compostable serviceware and donates all unused food.

The Portola Hotel & Spa—the first LEED-certified hotel in Monterey, California—launched a new Reduced Waste Conferences program in January. For meetings as large as 900 attendees, the hotel will partner with planners to discuss ways to implant green practices, such as using environmentally friendly vendors, organic and sustainable catering, post-event composting, biodegradable conference materials, and more. The 379-room hotel has 60,000 square feet of flexible meeting space with the adjacent Monterey Conference Center, and over 60,000 square feet of outdoor space. There is also the Jacks Monterey restaurant and a 6,000-square-foot day spa.

Located on the fourth floor of the new Hudson Yards development in New York, the latest location of Belcampo Meat Co. opened in March. Owner Anya Fernald, who also has six locations in the Bay Area and Los Angeles, is committed to sustainable, organic meat; all proteins are sourced directly from her own 20,000-acre farm with humanely raised cows, chickens, and other animals. The New York location is both a full-service, 90-seat restaurant and a casual butcher shop; it has farmhouse kitchen-inspired decor with whitewashed wood paneling, distressed leather bar chairs, and hand-painted murals depicting farm animals.

Luxury hotel Conrad Washington, D.C., from Hilton, opened in March as the flagship hotel for downtown development CityCenterDC. The hotel is targeting LEED Gold certification with a number of sustainability-focused initiatives, including 9,740 square feet of vegetation covering the roof and terraces, plus stormwater management, access to alternative forms of transportation, and smart energy consumption estimated to save 1.96 million kilowatt hours of energy each year. The hotel boasts numerous spaces for meetings and events with two pillarless ballrooms, three meeting rooms, and two boardrooms. The 7,626-square-foot Grand Ballroom is divisible into four spaces and seats 850 for theater-style events or holds 760 for receptions. There is also a restaurant from chefs Bryan and Michael Voltaggio, plus a 1,980-square-foot rooftop event space with city and monument views.

The Miami Beach Convention Center completed a three-year, $620 million renovation in December. The long-anticipated project has Silver LEED certification and is most recognizable for its new exterior, which resembles an ocean wave made with 500 aluminum and glass fins. The center has 263,000 new square feet of space, bringing its total to 1.43 million square feet. Highlights include a new 60,000-square-foot grand ballroom plus a 20,000-square-foot ballroom with a glass rooftop. The new design has a number of green initiatives, including rain harvesting for cooling towers, reduced-flow water fixtures, and high-efficiency LED lighting. Overall, the redesign reduced energy consumption by 20 percent.

In February, the Hilton Chicago purchased a $20,000 refrigerated microgreen grower, which will ensure fresh ingredients for the hotel's food and beverage offerings year-round, including the 75-seat 720 South Bar & Grill. The new addition adds to the hotel's focus on sustainable catering; the property has its own 100-planter rooftop garden and beehive, and also partners with Windy City Harvest to help teenagers from low-income communities learn urban agriculture. The 1,544-room hotel has 234,000 square feet of event space, including the International Ballroom, which seats 2,400 theater style, plus a large meeting center with five individual meeting rooms.

The Courtyard Lancaster in Pennsylvania became Marriott's first completely solar-supplied hotel in the country in October, after the completion of a 135,200-square-foot, 2,700-panel solar array that generates all of the property's electrical power. Due to its size, the array is located on the roof of a nearby warehouse; guests can observe the solar power produced on a real-time meter in the lobby. The 133-room hotel has a 500-square-foot meeting room, which seats 40 theater style or 30 banquet style, or holds 30 for receptions. The property also has a fitness center, an indoor pool, and a bistro.