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UA agrees not to convert all to student housing until '09, gives city land for new hotel
By Carol Biliczky Beacon Journal staff writer
Published on Saturday, Aug 04, 2007
The Crowne Plaza hotel in downtown Akron will not close as quickly as previously thought or, at least part of it won't.
Akron Mayor Don Plusquellic on Friday distributed a letter that detailed fresh arrangements with the University of Akron over the school's plan to buy the three-star hotel and the attached office and shopping complex.
The mayor's letter says the university agreed this week to transfer 3.4 acres of the Quaker Square property to the city, without cost, for use as a hotel or parking.
In addition, the university agreed to delay converting all the Crowne Plaza rooms into student housing at the end of this year; instead, UA will keep about half the 190 guest rooms open to the public through November 2009.
The city sought the concessions because of the impact it said UA's purchase of the hotel would have on the city's convention and tourism trade about $4 million a year.
The agreement will help the city come up with a new hotel near the John S. Knight Center to replace the Crowne Plaza, one of just two downtown hotels, Plusquellic said.
''We are preparing a request for proposal,'' he said. ''We've already received four different unsolicited national companies coming in to talk to us about building a new hotel in Akron. We believe that for them to do it in a reasonable period of time, they need to have vacant land.''
The vacant land around the convention center is used for parking.
If a hotel were to be built where parking is now, ''we would need to make up that parking,'' Plusquellic said. ''So that's the purpose of getting this property under our control.''
The land that the university will transfer is north of the Mill Street Bridge, which the city intends to replace in 2008 at a cost of $85 million.
As for the ''approximately'' 95 rooms that UA will set aside for public use, they will not necessarily be under the Crowne Plaza flag. UA President Luis Proenza suggested that the rooms be operated by UA's hospitality management program, and that is ''acceptable,'' Plusquellic said.
In the meantime, the university has a problem of its own not enough student housing.
The new agreement with the city will reduce the number of students that can be housed at the Crowne Plaza from 400 to perhaps 200. The hotel was to close Nov. 15 and be ready to house students in January.
In addition, to make way for the new $55 million InfoCision Stadium and Summa Field that UA announced this week, four residence halls will be demolished. Work on the stadium is to begin in October.
''We're still looking at how we would accommodate the other students,'' UA spokesman Paul Herold said Friday.
The university has taken the first step toward seeking financing to build a residence hall for 500 students, but it is perhaps two years away from opening.
Meanwhile, the tentative arrangements between the city and university may help smooth the troubled waters that followed UA's announcement of the Quaker Square purchase in June.
Plusquellic, taken by surprise at the time, said he was disappointed that UA would take over one of downtown's two hotels, especially when he had shared ''a lot of information including things that were very secret at the time with the university.''
But some of that ill feeling may remain: Plusquellic did not attend UA's news conference Wednesday about the new stadium.
On Friday, he said he had a previous obligation he couldn't cancel: a photo shoot in Beachwood because the city's Hamburger Festival has been nominated for an award with Northern Ohio Live magazine.
But there was another reason, he added. ''I was concerned about showing up at that press conference, regardless of whether I had something or not, because I didn't want to go there and act like I was fully in support and bought into something that, quite frankly, we hadn't agreed on.''
The only city official to attend the stadium announcement was Councilman Bob Keith, D-8.
Carol Biliczky can be reached at 330-996-3729 or cbiliczky@thebeaconjournal.com. Beacon Journal staff writer John Higgins contributed to this report.
The Crowne Plaza hotel in downtown Akron will not close as quickly as previously thought or, at least part of it won't.
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