GREENFIELD — Scores of Super Bowl visitors made their way out of central Indiana Monday, blazing a trail back east with pockets full of nothing but memories.
“It’s still setting in,” rasped Evan Schlem, who was nursing a hoarse voice after cheering the New York Giants to a 21-17 victory over the New England Patriots Sunday night.
Schlem and his five friends made the 13-hour drive from New Haven, Conn., to Greenfield in a rented RV covered with Giants stickers. They were just a handful of the more than 150,000 visitors who spent an estimated $150 million, according to projections from PricewaterhouseCoopers and the Indianapolis Convention and Visitors Association.
It will be difficult to know exactly how much of that landed in Hancock County, but a number of local businesses are reporting major boosts in sales over the weekend.
The most obvious economic winners in Hancock County were the hotels. Clustered around Interstate 70, Greenfield’s six major hotels had not a room to spare Saturday and Sunday nights. Most report being near capacity for Friday night as well. With room rates between $300 and $500, the full houses resulted in a windfall for the hotels during what is normally a very slow season.
Kellie Crenshaw-Sawyer, manager of the Super 8 Motel on North State Street, plans to put the money to work instantly, updating her building.
“With business being down over the last three years, (updating) was hard to do,” she said. “This came in the nick of time.”
The hotel boon will also help refill tourism coffers.
The Hancock County Visitors Bureau contributed more than $25,000 to the Greenfield Super Celebration Site committee. The majority of the money was spent on transportation – $17,000 for two buses taking residents and guests to Indianapolis and $3,600 for a trolley service circulating around Greenfield.
Tourism dollars, like those distributed by the visitors bureau, are collected from a 4 percent tax on hotel room rates. With the high occupancy over the weekend and special event pricing, early estimates put the total going back to tourism coffers at around $10,000.
The county will also reap benefits on increased sales at local restaurants, the second winners of the weekend.
A number of local restaurants, primarily those closest to the hotel cluster, reported a boost in sales between 10 percent and 20 percent over the weekend.
Montana Mike’s bested sales forecasts by several hundred dollars Thursday, Friday and Saturday. Manager Kelley Deer said sales Saturday were above average all day long and the restaurant beat its goal by nearly $2,000 that day.
“A lot of people were getting into town and getting something to eat before heading downtown (Indianapolis),” Deer said.
County businesses were not only boosted by hotel guests, however. IndyJet, the fixed-base operator at Indianapolis Regional Airport in Mt. Comfort said dozens of jets landed just briefly to pick up VIPs and head right back out. Fuel sales were through the roof, said customer service representative Allisa Pipes.
“It was extremely busy,” Pipes said. “A lot of the activity was right after the game; that’s when we got slammed.”
Indy Regional stayed open through the night to accommodate all of the flights out. By Monday morning, Pipes said, life was slowly returning to normal for the airport, which was the designated location for NFL owners to fly in and out of.
The airport also cashed in on about 60 jets parking at the airport for one or more nights.
There were a few bumps in the road, like a trolley service that didn’t work out as originally hoped, but all-in-all, local organizers said Greenfield’s involvement in the Super Bowl met expectations.
“It was a good experiment,” said Jean Howell, member of the Super Celebration Site committee who coordinated many of the efforts to accommodate visitors and engage local residents. “It was certainly worth it, to do all of this.”