BY TOM MOONEY
Journal Staff Writer
tmooney@providencejournal.com
University of Rhode Island officials are considering a 100-room hotel on the Kingston campus in partnership with a private developer that would also offer 100 college apartments, commercial and meeting spaces and replace the existing Faculty Club on Upper College Road.
While the concept of such a multi-use development has been tossed about for the last few years, the idea is generating more tangible interest this time, said J. Vernon Wyman, assistant vice president for business services at URI.
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“There’s been some informal expression of interest on the part of private parties who want to learn a little bit more,” he said.
The project would be privately owned and managed. The university would provide the land for the project — on the corner of Upper College Road and Bills Road — but no money for construction. URI would, however, probably become a tenant, renting space for school conferences and events and possibly a bookstore.
Other than a few local bed and breakfasts, there is no place on campus for visitors to stay.
By contrast, the University of Massachusetts has had a school-owned hotel on its Amherst campus since 1970, says school spokesman Patrick J. Callahan.
The 116-room hotel, which maintains a three-diamond Triple A rating, is a profitable enterprise, he said, that attracts a steady business with conferences, visiting parents and prospective students.
URI officials imagine a building of three or four stories, said Wyman, that also offers a retail center that architecturally blends in with historical Kingston Village — an improvement over an aging retail center, built in the 1980s, that now serves the campus.
At the moment, school officials anticipate the project costing around $57 million, but that could change, Wyman said.
The project would have to win several local and state approvals. School officials expect to solicit official requests for proposals this fiscal year, which ends June 30, 2015.
http://www.turnto10.com/story/26625719/ ... -on-campus
This would be great. Replace the U Club with something that looks nice. Hotel spaces in the summer are hard to find in S. County. Ask anyone who looks for one. And during the school year, URI event coordinators have to send people to local Bed and Breakfast's.
URI mull Plans for Hotel
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