Lobby Sets New Hotel Apart

Tru By Hilton Opens North Of Lexington

Members of the Chamber of Commerce Serving Lexington, Buena Vista, and Rockbridge County, along with local government officials, gathered Monday morning for the official opening of the newest hotel in the area, Tru by Hilton.

The hotel is located on Hotel Way just north of Lexington next to Chick-fil-A.

It’s been a long road toward opening for the Tru Hotel, with construction breaking ground in late 2022, and numerous delays caused by errors in equipment shipping. It welcomed its first guests and opened for business last Thursday.

At the ribbon-cutting ceremony, members of the Gandhi family, which owns the hotel, were all smiles. After

photo) the applause and photos subsided, hotel employees, chamber members, and interested members of the public gathered inside the bright, colorful lobby.

Joël Roy addressed the public and explained that the lobby, known as The Hive, sets Tru apart from other hotel chains. Roy is the group sales director for the Lexington Hotel Group, which operates several hotels and motels in the area, including the Country Inn & Suites, Quality Inn & Suites, and the Comfort Inn in Raphine.

“With other hotels,” he said, “their goal is to get you checked in as quickly as possible,” which is why their lobbies are little more than a nice space to pass through. When entering Tru, on the other hand, guests are greeted by an open space filled with tables, comfortable seating areas, a market and a serving area.

There are four concepts Tru keeps in mind when designing a Hive, Roy said: eating, playing, working and socializing. They take the “playing” aspect seriously, too: There is a large shelf near the door packed with board games that any groups of guests are welcome to play. As for working, the corner of the lobby features multiple cozy nooks designed for private seating.

A quick tour followed, highlighting other areas of the hotel: the outdoor patio and fire pit, the exercise room, the indoor heated pool, and a few of the 101 rooms that make up the hotel accommodations. Accessibility and sustainability were priorities in all aspects of design, from the location of the exit signs in the hallways, to the recyclable shampoo and soap containers in the rooms’ showers.

But for Roy, it all comes back to The Hive. “Having been in the hotel business for 25 years, I can say that this concept has never quite been the focus before,” he said. “The lobby is called The Hive for a very good reason: it will be busy, exciting, and full of people.”

THE GENERAL MANAGER of the new Tru hotel in Lexington, Michelle Fiorvante, answers questions from community members. The large, circular check-in desk in the lobby also doubles as a market for snacks, drinks and supplies. (Scotty Dransfield