Venue Tour Round 2: Scottish Rite Masonic Center

After the slightly disappointing (price mostly) tour of Martin's Hunt Valley on 2/19, I was feeling hopeful about our 2/23 tour of the Scottish Rite Masonic Center on Charles Street (Bmore city). Well, here is the PRO/CON list and slideshow below:

Pros:
+Price. Now granted, they do not help with setup, etc., so that is why it is much cheaper, but again, we may be able to get help from the caterer or a "day-of" planner.
+Full kitchen, tables, chairs (sort of....see cons, lol)
+GREAT banquet hall: huge, 2 stage/platforms, clean, simple decor, modern/retro lighting, not as in your face and flashy. I was really, really pleased with the banquet room. Nice, clean slate.
+NO ugly carpet anywhere!!
+Coat room with huge window/counter
+Bridal lounge

Cons:
-NAUSEATING, and I mean it, odor of floor cleaner all through the main hall. Surprisingly, it was not present anywhere else in the facility though. It smelled like a latrine or dirty bathroom. It was immediately noticeable and made me feel sick. That is UNACCEPTABLE. After the tour was over, I sneaked away and asked a maintenance guy what it was and if it goes away, and he said they just cleaned the floors and it goes away. Hmmm. I'll believe it when I smell it! I may need to go back and investigate this further.
-UGLY, ugly, uncomfortable looking chairs. These were pretty unacceptable for a nice wedding. I'm pretty sure we'd either have to (whatever is cheaper): rent other chairs, or rent chair covers and cushions for the SRMC chairs. Alex and I both hated the chairs.
-Very grim and dark in the main hallway/entranceway, even with the lights on---and that was during the day!
-The dusty glass cases holding medals/badges/plaques that lined the hall were a little tacky and dated the facility (think antique store or grandfather's basement). This was more of a concern of Alex's. I see his point, but there were other things that were more of a problem for me.
-I am not sure I like that you have to walk through the bridal lounge to get to the only public restrooms. Now, I won't be needing the lounge for privacy, etc. when the guests are there, so I am not worried about that. What could be an issue is the maze-ish access to the bathrooms for the guests. Not a horrible concern, but something to work around. Additionally, I did not like the decor in the lounge at all, but no big deal, I am sure the excellent photographer we hire can work around this and make the prep pictures look good.
-After seeing the PIMP bathrooms at Martin's, the SRMC bathrooms looked pretty sorry, lol. But hey---they were clean and in seemingly working order, so there you go!

Here is the slideshow:
Click here for a direct link to pictures