Rankin1218web

The Refuge Hotel
& Conference Center
SUSAN MARQUEZ
The once-sleepy town of Flowood is now a bustling, vibrant city
with more growth on the way.
Ground was recently broken on a 200-room hotel and
conference center complex that will include amenities not
found anywhere else in the metro area.
The project is a public/private partnership. It will be
owned by the City of Flowood, and managed by MMC Real
Estate, a New Orleans- based development company focused
on creating innovative solutions for commercial, residential,
hospitality, and mixed use properties.
There will be a destination hotel with a host of amenities
that will allow metro-area residents, along with travelers from
around the state and across the country, to enjoy. The hotel
will include a full menu of amenities including a resort-style
pool, 15-acre lake, walking paths, spa, and culinary school.
There will also be a lazy river, zip-line and a kid zone. An
event lawn will be located by the lake for outdoor events.
The $60 million complex will be called The Refuge
Hotel and Conference Center and will be the only four-star
state-of-the-art Sheraton in the area. The location, on Airport
Road, is ideal for travelers as well as local residents – only five
minutes from the Jackson- Medgar Wiley Evers International
Airport and fifteen minutes from downtown Jackson.
The development will be adjacent to The Refuge golf
course, built in the late 1990s on 200 acres on Airport Road.
The property features tee complexes and greens with fairways
that wind their way around pristine wetlands, hundred-yearold
oaks, and stands of towering pine trees. The course also
features a 15-acre AquaRange lake and an indoor teaching
facility. It has been named “the best purely public golf course
in Mississippi” by Chicago Golfer, and “the best affordable
public course in Mississippi” by Mississippi Sports Magazine.
96 • December 2018