The College of William & Mary will purchase the Hospitality House for $21 million to use for student housing and on-campus parking.
The purchase and any needed renovations will be financed through 20-year bonds authorized by the Commonwealth of Virginia, according to Vice President for Finance Sam Jones. The state requires residence halls to be self-supporting, so the bonds will be repaid through student housing fees.
The Hospitality House faces the college’s Alumni House, sitting on 3.6 acres on Richmond Road. It has 318 rooms, 20,000-square-feet in conference space, two restaurants and 370 parking spaces, including a 308-space parking garage.
The college plans to close on the purchase in late May, following the 2013 Commencement weekend. Families who booked rooms for the graduation festivities should not be impacted, according to a press release. The hotel will close for business at that time.
William & Mary is currently inspecting the building to determine what renovations are needed. Once the review is completed, Jones said the university will know how many students can be housed at the property and how the Hospitality House’s other spaces can best be used. W&M spokesman Brian Whitson said the college does not yet know if it will retain some of the existing staff.
Gene Lucas, president of Texas-based 1859 Historic Hotels, said his company understood the college’s interest in its property. “The Hospitality House has been a good property for our company,” Lucas said in a release. “At the same time, we understand the college’s need for additional student housing. Its location makes it ideal for this purpose.”
While the college evaluates how best to use the Hospitality House for its housing and other needs, the facility is expected to reduce the waitlist for students looking for housing in the fall 2013 semester. In 2012, the waitlist had 327 students. The housing selection process has already started for fraternities and sororities, and online selection begins April 10. The university guarantees housing for three out of four years, and students can only be waitlisted one time.
In the short term, a portion of the rooms will be used as “swing space” for residence life as major renovations occur in other residence halls. Renovations will next begin for the 151-bed Chandler Hall. For next year, the college estimates its capacity, including new fraternity housing but excluding Chandler Hall, will be 4,654 beds.
“This space allows us to take a residence hall offline while we do badly needed renovations,” said Vice President for Administration Anna Martin. Residence halls’ needs range from installing air conditioning to full interior and exterior renovations.
In a campus-wide email, President Taylor Reveley noted the college has “very few open places left on our existing grounds to build major new facilities.” “Acquiring the Hospitality House will go far toward meeting these needs,” he said.
