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A Team of Famed Peabody Ducks Take Limo
to Little Rock to Open the Refurbished
418-room The Peabody Little Rock
By Christopher Barton, The Commercial Appeal, Memphis, Tenn.
Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News 

Jan. 26--A team of famed Peabody ducks took their last walk down the red carpet to the lobby fountain in the historic Memphis hotel on Friday morning. 

The ducks then waddled out the door to a limousine bound for their new home in Little Rock, where they'll make their public debut in February at a new Peabody hotel. 

The Peabody Little Rock, a refurbished 418-room Excelsior Hotel, will have a grand opening Feb. 1, when the transferred ducks will make their first public walk down a red carpet from the elevator to the fountain. 

"We felt this was a good opportunity to expand The Peabody heritage into Arkansas and the tradition of the ducks is important," said Timothy Gonser, vice president of food and beverage for The Peabody chain and general manager of the Little Rock hotel. 

The Peabody Little Rock is the Peabody Hotel Group's third Peabody hotel, although it owns several additional franchised hotel properties under different brand names. 

The company, owned by Memphis-based Belz Enterprises, opened a second Peabody in Orlando in 1987, where the duck march to a lobby fountain also takes place daily at 11 a.m. and 5 p.m. 

Gonser, who spent 14 years at the Orlando hotel as director of food and beverage and intervening general manager, said Belz Enterprises has spent about $42 million on the Little Rock hotel project. That includes the cost of renovations -- an average of $7,000 per room for furniture, fixtures and equipment -- and a long-term lease with the state, which owns the land under the hotel. 

Belz is a 51 percent part owner of the hotel, with 49 percent owned by New Yorkbased Green Stamp America Inc. The 20-story hotel opened in 1982, and is attached to the 220,000-squarefoot Statehouse Convention Center. 

Gonser has been operating the hotel since Belz bought the property in September 2000. It has continued to operate as the Excelsior Hotel throughout renovations, with workers moving from floor to floor. 

The hotel has about 320 employees, and will reach about 360 workers when fully staffed, Gonser said. 

The hotel has some similarities to The Peabody in Memphis, which was built in 1925, such as a duck fountain in the lobby, but also has its own style, Gonser said. 

As part of the agreement with the state, Belz Enterprises agreed to keep the hotel open during renovations, although Gonser said it would likely have been more lucrative to close the hotel until it re-opened as The Peabody. 

Officials expect to unveil the new The Peabody Little Rock sign during a private grand opening Thursday. The ducks will make a private debut for dignitaries during an 11 a.m. ceremony, officials said. 

"We feel like The Peabody is raising the bar for our convention and visitors business," said Barry Travis, executive director of the Little Rock Convention and Visitors Bureau. 

The renovated hotel will likely bring additional large convention business to Little Rock, he said. That means stiffer competition between hotels within the metropolitan area, but also means more business to be shared by all hotels in the region. 

Little Rock Mayor Jim Dailey said he is looking forward to seeing the ducks during the grand opening next week. 

"This is a great day in Little Rock's downtown renaissance, and an exciting day with the moving of the ducks from Memphis to Little Rock," Dailey said. "It's also special in terms of the connection between the two Peabody cities." 

Nikita Flynn, a spokesman for the Memphis hotel, said Memphis hotel patrons don't need to worry about the transfer of the ducks. A new team, which has been kept on the roof of the hotel for two weeks in training, will begin their tour of duty this morning at 11 a.m. 

A Peabody duck is about three years old when it begins working at the hotel; and the ducks are recruited from a farm in Arkansas. A new team is trained at the hotel for about two weeks and then serves an average of three months before being returned to the wild, Flynn said. 

-----To see more of The Commercial Appeal, or to subscribe to the newspaper, go to http://www.gomemphis.com 

(c) 2002, The Commercial Appeal, Memphis, Tenn. Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News. 


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