Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/70980
tates access to more than 1,200 hotel rooms, 55 meeting rooms and more than 200,000 sq. ft. of convention space. Other members include the Waterside Convention Cen- ter, the Norfolk Water-side Marriott, the Sheraton Nor- folk Waterside Hotel, the Radisson Hotel Norfolk and the Waterside Festival Marketplace. The city has a total of about 5,400 gue- strooms, and several hotels are "Virginia Green Cert- ified." VIRGINIA BEACH The Virginia Aquarium & Marine Science Center or the Contempo-rary Art Center would make a memo- rable setting for a meeting or reception in Virginia Beach. For large groups, the LEED® Gold-certified Virginia Beach Convention Center offers a total of 516,000 sq. ft. of meeting, exhibit and function space, including a 31,029-sq. ft. ballroom. There are more than 3,500 committable hotel rooms within two and a half miles of the convention center. Norfolk Skyline and Waterside Convention Center The Virginia Legends Walk is paved with tributes to Ella Fitzgerald, Arthur Ashe, Booker T. Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Edgar Allen Poe and other famous Virginians. Two more places to explore local history are the Cape Henry Lighthouse and the Atlantic Wildfowl Heritage Museum, which is housed in the last remaining cottage on the Virginia Boardwalk. For some outdoor recreation, you might embark on a wintertime whale-watching boat trip from the Virginia Aquarium, take a cruise on the Chesapeake Bay or plan Black Meetings & Tourism May/June 2012: www.blackmeetingsandtourism.com 61