Lawrenceville opens new hotel near town square

747. So you want to check out what's new in downtown Lawrenceville, then all you need to do is check in. The Lawrence Hotel is just the latest addition near the town's historic square, featuring 120 guest rooms and suites and a pair of new dining concepts as well. So good news, Paul Milliken is live in Lawrenceville this morning. This is a really big deal for the community, Paul. Good morning to you. Happy Friday. It is, yeah, a long time coming. Happy Friday to you. And Elise, you know I love a hotel, right? I'm like a kid when I'm in a hotel. I want to run around. I want to explore. I want to jump on the bed and I'm doing it all this morning at the Lawrence. So welcome to the Lawrence Hotel. This place is years in the making and like you said it is a really big deal for this community. It's really the first full-service boutique upscale hotel in the downtown area. For a long time people that wanted to stay in a place like this had to go to a nearby community and that is not the case anymore. And let me set the scene where we are because the location is great. So I'm standing at the corner of Krogan and Chestnut Street. We are one block away from the Lawrenceville Square, which is just right down there. That beautiful courthouse is right in the center. And we're right behind the Lawrenceville Performing Arts Complex. And of course, that's where Aurora Theater is headquartered. The post office is right across the street. So we're right kind of in the middle of all the action in Lawrenceville. And that's the whole point, that this is going to be a walkable kind of thing. You can stay here at the Lawrence. You can walk down to the restaurants and attractions here in Lawrenceville and stay in the community. So again, a big, beautiful new building here, which was kind of put on pause by COVID as a lot of things were, but now it's done. It's got more than a hundred rooms and suites in there. As you said, there are two dining concepts, including the Bellfire, which is right up front. So Bellfire here kind of includes the patio area. We're told it's a fusion cuisine. And by the way, Bell Fire. The name comes from the bell tower and the fire station, both historic here in Lawrenceville. The other dining concept is named after the old town mule of Lawrenceville from the early 1900s. That is my favorite factoid of this entire place. There was a town mule that everyone knew about in the early 1900s. Now the legacy lives on because of the Lawrence Hotel. So we'll talk about that a little bit more later too. So we've got a busy morning this morning in the eight o'clock hour. We're going to take you inside. We're going to show you around the ground floor a little bit here in the nine o'clock hour. We're going into one of the rooms. I'm hoping it's a nice suite. Cause like I said, I want to jump on the bed, maybe put on a robe, do my hotel thing. And then in the 10 o'clock hour, it's time to show off BellFire. We're going to be with the executive chef doing a little cooking and eating this morning. And I am certainly ready for breakfast so again it's a big deal for the community as we head uh into a busy holiday season you know that the Christmas market happens in Lawrenceville now and it happens like right in the backyard of this hotel so another great destination as we go into the holidays come spend a night here do your christmas shopping easy peasy yeah you know what and that downtown is so nice it's just a happening spot it is super nice it really is yeah it really is great great old courthouse in the middle restaurant shops. Yeah. I don't know if we're going to be able to pull you out of there at the end of this. We'll have to see. No, I'm living here. That's the Paul Hotel. The Paul Hotel. We'll see you soon, Paul. Thank you.