MainStay Suites, OECC and Today’s Power Unveil Camden EV Charger

MainStay Suites celebrated the opening of its new 35-room, 25-suite hotel in Camden on Friday by unveiling the city’s first Level 2 electric vehicle charging station, a partnership project with Today’s Power Inc. of Little Rock and Ouachita Electric Cooperative Corp.

The two-vehicle charging station will be available to hotel patrons and the general public free of charge for a year.

“We wanted to encourage more use of electric vehicles,” OECC General Manager Mark Cayce said, repeating a theme he’s repeatedly sounded to Arkansas Business. “Getting infrastructure in place is critical to expanded use of EVs.” OECC chose the hotel for the project because of its location near the nexus of three highways: U.S. 79, U.S. 278 and Arkansas 274.

Hotel leaders and OECC officials said the station may encourage electric vehicle drivers to spend money at nearby businesses while their cars are charging.

Today’s Power, a Little Rock-based subsidiary of Arkansas Electric Cooperatives Inc., supplied the EV charging infrastructure for the station.

MainStay Suites is a division of Choice Hotels International of Rockville, Maryland, one of the largest lodging franchisers in the world, franchising 7,000 hotels with 570,000 rooms.